The Baha'i Studies Listserv No, I meant democracy as rule by the people. Republic as rule by elected representatvies. Oligarchy is that but with the representatives as a de-facto ruling class.
http://www.friesian.com/quiz.htm Your guesstimate quiz results. Examples of societeis scores: Athens - moralistic market democracy America - tolerant social republic Soviet Union- moralistic social monarchy Since the original Nolan Chart employs two kinds of "negative" liberty, it is possible to represent "positive" liberty on a separate axis, producing a three dimensional display of political positions. [Click on the chart for a larger version of the image; or here for a black and white image, which may print out better] How much there will be for "political society" and political power to do will be defined by the degree of personal and economic freedom that is envisioned. With what political power is then to be allowed, the question is then how it is to be exercised. The spectrum will stretch from the exercise of all political power by one person (Monarchy, or any individual dictatorship), to the equal exercise of all political power by all (Anarchy). In between the logical extremes, there will be the exercise of power by a relatively limited number (Oligarchy) on one side, the exercise of power by majority of all (Democracy) on the other, and then, in the middle, varieties of Representative government, with mixed Oligarchic and Democratic forms (a Republic). A Republican form was envisioned by people like James Madison, who wished to impose practical, and not just theoretical, limits on government by the use of the Separation of Powers and a system of Checks and Balances. This worked well enough but was ultimately undermined by one grave oversight: The United States Constitution provided no mechanism for its own enforcement. That task was soon taken up by the Supreme Court, but Thomas Jefferson realized that the Supreme Court, as a part of the federal government, could not be trusted to faithfully maintain the limits to the power of the federal government itself: "How can we expect impartial decision between the General government, of which they are themselves so eminent a part, and an individual State, from which they have nothing to hope or fear?" [Autobiography] In the end, especially during the Civil War, World War I, the New Deal, and the Sixties, the Supreme Court began to concede extra-Constitutional powers to the federal government simply on the principle that it wanted them. The only mechanism that existed to check the failures of the Court was the torturous avenue of Constitutional Amendment, politically impossible when so many people had begun to believe that unlimited power for the federal government was actually a good thing. And then again, it is hard to know how a newer version of the 10th Amendment could be more plainly worded than the old one. A new Amendment would have to descend to the ignoble level of contradicting specific Supreme Court pronouncements that the original Amendment was simply a "tautology" or "truism" that wasn't really meant to limit federal power. (See Two Logical Errors in Constitutional Jurisprudence.) An effectively updated Constitution would have to address all the sophistry and dishonesty that was used to undermine the original one, besides providing for such additional checks and balances as would abolish the dictatorial powers of the Court. On the economic spectrum (X axis), a basic division might be made between "social" (or "socialist") forms, allowing little economic freedom, and "market" forms, allowing a lot. Thus, on the XZ plane, which displays economic freedom and political freedom, the political spectrum divides into "social" and "market" forms. In "social" forms there may be divergent uses of political power over economics, e.g. in a Monarchy taxation may be directed to the benefit of the monarch and his family and friends, or taxation may be directed to the "welfare rights" of others. Thus, Otto von Bismark and Wilhelmine Germany sought successfully to defuse socialism through State old age pensions and other welfare benefits. In a Democracy, the tendency will naturally be for people to vote themselves increasing benefits and thus increasingly to encroach on the freedom and property of those who are economically productive, or at least more productive than most voters. With the dynamic of "Public Choice" rent-seeking, voters in a democracy will also be tempted to vote and countenance small taxes here and small taxes there, all for some public or personal benefit, without noticing or understanding that the cumulative burden will begin to seriously impact their ability to dispose of their own income and property. They also may fail to notice that voting for things like publicly financed medical care implies that the government will have the power to forbid "unhealthy" activities which may impose a burden on the public purse, as riding motocycles without helmets and riding in cars without seatbelts have been banned by many States under federal pressure. On the personal spectrum (Y axis), a basic division might be made between "moralist" (or "moralistic") forms, allowing little personal freedom, and "tolerant" forms, allowing a lot. Thus, on the YZ plane, which displays personal freedom and political freedom, the political spectrum divides into "moralist" and "tolerant" forms. Athenian democracy (with absolute majority rule, and no independent courts or bureaucracy), which condemned Socrates but which had few restrictions on commerce or property, could be called a moralist market democracy (or a conservative democracy). American government, which edges from a republic over into a democracy (with confusing oligarchic elements from judicial and "administrative" government), with stronger protections for speech and art than in the past, but less strong protections for commerce and property than in the past, could be called a tolerant social republic (or a liberal republic). The Soviet Union was a moralist social (i.e. authoritarian) oligarchy, or monarchy (dictatorship) under Stalin. The Anarchy end might seem to be the negation of political power altogether. It isn't, because if one were to be an authoritarian anarchist, this would mean that one would be justified in using force against both the person and property of others on the basis of a spectrum of posssible moral or economic wrongs. "Anarchy" does not mean that there is no political power; it just means that any political power is exercised only by each individual. This would have been called the "state of nature" by John Locke, though he would have thought that rights could not be effectively enforced in such a state of nature. (To Hobbes, rights wouldn't even exist in the state of nature.) 19th and 20th Century Anarchists have ranged from social anarchists who didn't believe in private property ("Property is theft," is the characteristic maxim), to those who wanted to limit private property to what could be immediately used by the occupant (Georgism, like Albert J. Nock), to complete libertarian anarchism, where extensive property rights are accepted -- though of course an anarchist owner of extensive property could protect that only by the consent and voluntary or paid help of other individuals. A Monarchy might be thought to eliminate all other freedom, but the idea of the existence of "benevolent dictatorship," or of "Enlightened Despots," like Frederick II (the Great) of Prussia, was precisely that someone like Frederick retained all political power for himself but allowed considerable personal freedom, though mainly in speech and thought ("Say what you like, but do what I say"). At the time, no regime allowed economic freedom much beyond the standard forms of Merchantilism (though Britain and the Netherlands were already ahead). ________________________________ From: Susan Maneck <[email protected]> To: Baha'i Studies <[email protected]> Sent: Mon, November 29, 2010 12:58:06 PM Subject: Re: Grave Influence The Baha'i Studies Listserv > So you're saying Susan favors a moralistic social (insert type of govt). > I'll go out on a limb and say oligarchy, maybe republic. Uh, no. An oligarchy presumes that actions are taken in interest of the elites. Social liberalism supports the common people. __________________________________________________ You are subscribed to Baha'i Studies as: mailto:[email protected] Unsubscribe: send a blank email to mailto:leave-542535-1719008.2a3842ae5b2f7d34dd5fdfc724616...@list.jccc.edu Subscribe: send subscribe bahai-st in the message body to [email protected] Or subscribe: http://list.jccc.edu:8080/read/all_forums/subscribe?name=bahai-st Baha'i Studies is available through the following: Mail - mailto:[email protected] Web - http://list.jccc.edu:8080/read/?forum=bahai-st News (on-campus only) - news://list.jccc.edu/bahai-st Old Public - http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] New Public - http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] __________________________________________________ You are subscribed to Baha'i Studies as: mailto:[email protected] Unsubscribe: send a blank email to mailto:leave-542547-27401.54f46e81b66496c9909bcdc2f7987...@list.jccc.edu Subscribe: send subscribe bahai-st in the message body to [email protected] Or subscribe: http://list.jccc.edu:8080/read/all_forums/subscribe?name=bahai-st Baha'i Studies is available through the following: Mail - mailto:[email protected] Web - http://list.jccc.edu:8080/read/?forum=bahai-st News (on-campus only) - news://list.jccc.edu/bahai-st Old Public - http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] New Public - http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]
