Political Philosophy: Can we put into effect our best ideas about ourselves when we work together in groups to govern our actions?
If the least government is the best, then should we all move to the Sudan?
If police and armies are all we want, then who picks up the garbage?
How does the role of government protect and encourage individual desire and achievement?
---These are some of the questions of contemporary contention.
First, let's spin through some of the ideas of the great thinkers of the past.
Then, spin down to the bottom for a summary and conclusion to answer the conflicts of today.
(Yes, it is longer than I expected, but the sections are numbered, so you can find and read your favorites.)
(1) Aristotle identified three forms of government, both in their good stages and in their bad stages. "Democracy" means rule by the people, but at its worst is rule by a mob. "Oligarchy" means rule by the best, but at its worst is rule by a small group of dictators. "Monarchy" is rule by one, which can be a wise individual, or a terrible tyrant.
Further, he said there was a cycle among the three of them. Governments flow from one to the next, probably starting off in the good stage, then degenerating into the negative, until it was overthrown by the next form of government; and so on through all three. Democracy to mob, defeated (militarily?) by oligarchy that becomes a group of competing dictators, until one dictator emerges, who, once comfortable with power, might become a skillful leader.
Athens was ruled by several styles of government in a short period, from the uncle of Plato, who was an oligarch, to Socrates, who was given the death penalty by a democracy that Plato considered a mob, on through the tyranny of Alexander the Great, who ruled Athens at the time of Aristotle. As a child Alexander had been tutored by Aristotle. Rather than becoming a Philosopher-King, Alexander became a tyrant. Yet, he carried the philosophy, language, and culture of ancient Greece across much of the Middle East.
Rome, on the other hand, was a democracy for 500 years, ruled by an elected Senate, until their military campaigns across the Mediterranean. Over the next 500 years of their 1000 years, their conquests led to more and more treasure and slaves being sent back to Rome. The slaves were bought by the wealthy. The small farmers could not compete with the slave labor farms and found themselves going out of business. They went to Rome to find work. The only work was to join the military and continue the conquests. More treasure and slaves were sent back to Rome. More small farmers failed.
The wealthy generals, farmers, and bankers became more and more wealthy. The ruling Senators were these wealthy men. An oligarchy emerged, and then Julius Caesar defeated them to became the dictator. Julius and his nephew Augustus, who followed him, and was Caesar at the time of the birth of Jesus, brought stability to Rome, but at a cost of a line of rulers of brutality and capriciousness. (The word "capricious" meaning random or without forethought, comes from the name of the Island of Capri, where the Caesars spent their summers.)
The democracy was long disappeared.
(2) Machiavelli, from the 1500's in Italy, is said to have favored a cunning, amoral tyrant. However, reading more of his works than just his famous one, The Prince, shows that he favored a republic. Nevertheless, his name is still in use to describe a tyrant who maintains power at all costs.
(3) The history of the British Isles shows waves of conquests by Anglos, Saxons, Danes, and Normans, each bringing their own law. William the Conqueror, beginning in 1066, spread the reign of Norman kings over local, titled rulers who maintained their own small armies. The Norman kings centralized more and more power. Henry II solidified control and established a court system across his territory. His son, King Richard the Lionhearted, along with the majority of the king's army, departed the country on an expedition to the Crusades. Left behind, his brother, Prince John, had little power to resist the claims by the titled landowners to sign the Magna Charta, in the 1200's, and have his power limited by the House of Lords.
A dictatorship became an oligarchy.
House of Commons, elected commoners who did not have hereditary titles, were the other side of Parliament. Under Prime Minister Oliver Cromwell, the House of Commons beheaded King Charles I. This was followed by a Civil War over how much power the Parliament or the king would have. After one king was returned to power and was then beheaded by Parliament, the following king, at the Restoration of 1660, observed a careful balance with the legislature. For example, all demands for taxes first had to be presented to, and passed by, the House of Commons.
An oligarchy became a democracy. (Some people make a careful distinction between a democracy meaning direct rule by the people, also called participatory democracy, as compared to a republic, where the people elect representatives who rule.) The history of Britain then became continued civil reforms to grant the right to vote to more people, and to limit the rights of the nobles and lords. The government became more and more democratic.
(4) Thomas Hobbes, an Englishman of the 1600's, writing during the time of the English Civil War, said in a state of nature, man is a selfish animal at constant war with all other men. They live out lives which are "nasty, brutish, and short." Constant fear of violent death causes men to come together to create a state. They create a "social contract" to surrender their "natural rights" to an absolute sovereign. Hobbes challenged the doctrine of the divine right of kings by saying the power of the sovereign derived originally from the people. However, he said the monarch was absolute and not subject to acts of Parliament.
(5) Jean Jacques Rousseau, French, of the 1700's, called for a return to nature and was the father of Romanticism, saying men are by nature good, but in society are not. The "social contract" means government flows from the consent of the governed, who can withdraw their consent. In theory, "the advantages of a state of nature would be combined with the advantages of social life."
(6) John Locke, an Englishman of the 1600's, followed Hobbes in saying the state was formed by "social contract." However, unlike Hobbes, he believed in the natural goodness of humanity. He said the state should follow Natural Law, from which were derived "Human Rights," whereby all men were equal in having a right to "life, health, liberty, or possessions." An advocate of Democracy, Locke developed the idea of governmental checks and balances.
All four, Aristotle, Hobbes, Rousseau, and Locke, agreed humans cannot live successfully without government.
(7) Thomas Jefferson, U.S., 1700's, altered the rights named by Locke from "life, liberty, and property," to those listed in the Declaration of Independence when he wrote "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." In doing so, he removed any reference in the document to a claimed right to property of slaves. He reached back to Aristotle's idea of the Good Life (the pursuit of happiness). Following Locke, Jefferson felt it was the role of government to allow individuals to reach their own happiness. Government should allow the individual to flourish.
The ideals of rule by consent of the governed under a social contract, the Constitution, with a balance of powers, became the foundation of the government of the United States. The Bill of Rights, the first Ten Amendments to the Constitution, specified rights remaining with the people.
(8) Rugged individualism was a U.S. theory based on the need to have lonely pioneers settle across a vast land, often living great distances from each other. Self-sufficient survival was often necessary. Farmers who grew everything they ate needed few government services, such as currency, roads, and the Post Office.
Thomas Jefferson envisioned an ideal government based on independent farmers, even though he owned nearly 200 slaves. As President, he made the Louisiana Purchase in 1802, doubling the size of the country, inviting westward expansion.
In the middle of the 1800's, New England essay writers and poets, such as Emerson and Thoreau, popularized Transcendentalism, a Romantic movement, with a get-back-to-nature theme, an optimistic view of self-reliant individualism, and with rejection of traditional authority.
Later becoming an excuse for anti-intellectualism, this Harvard-based system claimed personal intuition as the best source of knowledge. Mystics but not Christians, the Transcendentalists saw divinity in humanity and in nature. Their ideals of self-reliant individualism were absorbed by traditional U.S. Christians.
Rugged individualism has become a basis of U.S. libertarianism.
(9) Hegel, a German of the 1700's, claimed the state is the embodiment of the ultimate ideal, and the state's highest form, monarchy.
"In Hegelian dialectic, one concept (thesis) inevitably generates its opposite (antithesis), and the interaction of these leads to a new concept (synthesis). This in turn becomes the thesis of a new triad. This dynamic system flowed through history to reach absolute Idea." The Columbia Encyclopedia.
Hegelian dialectic, an Idealist theory of government based on a view of constant progress in history, became the theoretical basis of the two major forms of totalitarianism of the Twentieth Century, Nazism and Communism.
Totalitarianism differed from dictatorship in that in addition to control over the physical aspects of government and economy, it claimed control over thought and required adherence to a set of beliefs; a system comparable to rule by religious bodies.
(10) Fascism took Hegel's ideas in order to envision imperial expansion and conquest of neighboring nations. A panel of military and economic leaders would be the oligarchy that supported an absolute monarch.
(11) Nazism was based on fascism and incorporated ideas of national superiority of so great an extent that other peoples should be wiped out. Hitler not only wanted to kill all Jews, he wanted their money. He also wanted to wipe out Gypsies and gays. (However, when the Allies liberated the death camps, the gays were imprisoned to serve out their terms because they were considered "criminals.")
65 Million people, military and civilian, died in World War II.
(12) Marx envisioned history as dynamic, changing, using the three part dialectic which Hegel had described as being Ideal, as, instead, being material. He called this "dialectical materialism."
He predicted freeing labor (the working class) from oppressing owners of capitol (money and the means of production) (meaning, the ruling class). The working class would then rule the oppressors, the economic elite, (meaning, the ruling class), as a result of violent revolution, resulting in Communism, an utopia in which all were equal in rights, status, and material wealth.
Marx famously said "Religion is the opium of the people," and insisted all religion should wiped out. It kept the people asleep to the awareness of the oppression they were under, control by an international economic elite, the global ruling class.
(13) Socialism was a reform movement in England that sought greater voting rights and fairer taxes to ease the burden on the average man from the aristocracy who owned most of the land and the economic system.
Some people viewed Socialism as an intermediate stage that might be a part of an unstoppable historical march from monarchy to Communism. However, for Marx, Socialism was totally unacceptable because of its innate inequality. He rejected socialism because it was not idealistic. Only revolution would be able to bring about the complete change to Communism that he wanted.
(14) John Dewey, Twentieth Century, U.S., said democracy was a primary value in ethics. He felt that to enhance our democracy, all our social institutions should incorporate as much democracy as possible in their internal structure. From education to industry, democratic systems would improve functioning.
(15) John Rawls, Twentieth Century, U.S., said democracy should consider first the effect of any proposed action as it would impact the most vulnerable.
(16) Robert Nozick, Twentieth Century, U.S., to the contrary, argued for a state of individual rights with as few governmental limits as possible. Beyond military and police, he did not see value in government. He restated in the contemporary period, some of the ideas of Libertarianism.
Individuals should be able to purchase the goods and services they needed for their survival and happiness, and those individuals who could not purchase those things should do without. Regulation of commerce was an unnecessary impediment. The consumer should decide for themselves what to purchase; thus, he argued, competition would produce safe food, drugs, products, and industrial activities.
However, in the real, not the ideal world, only a fully informed consumer, with options in selection, and enough money, can purchase safe, quality products.
Long over-looked as impossible utopianism, Libertarianism has re-surfaced recently. Seeking a return to ideas of rugged individualism, libertarians want an end to government spending, even if it means denying their own interests in an economic safety net, or quality of products and environment, or stability of the mega-financial markets. Some, such as followers of Nietzsche, a German of the 1800's, claim individual freedom even when it causes harm others.
Some wish to freeze the United States in a political system of the 1700's, when the Constitution was written, to stretch over the technology, economy, and society that were simplistic by modern standards. The Constitution was written by quill on parchment by slave-owning, white, male landowners, and, with one exception, all Protestant.
Some claim the United States was founded by Christians as a Christian nation. In truth, religious freedom was proclaimed from Plymouth Rock to the founding of Rhode Island to Virginia to the First Amendment of the Constitution.
John Adams did not believe in the divinity of Jesus. Washington and Jefferson did not believe in Divine Intervention. Washington was having an affair with the wife of a friend. Jefferson had (5?) children with a slave who was 14 when the relationship began and who was the half-sister of his deceased (white) wife. Benjamin Franklin frequented the brothels of Paris.
Some claim the Constitution must be interpreted as it would have been in an era when slavery was world-wide, women were possessions, only landowners could vote, and, in England, Jews and Catholics could not vote. Ironically, all the members of the current Supreme Court are Jewish or Catholic.
Based on the atheistic theories of Transcendentalism, and Nietzsche's atheistic, amoral elitism, Libertarianism has been embraced recently by some mainstream Christians and extreme Christians.
(17) Moderation is the notion that a balance can be maintained among the vulnerable, the working, and the economic elite.
With equal rights for all individuals, a government with some aid to the needy, and with effective regulation of commerce can allow, and at times enhance, the individual pursuit of happiness.
Both Liberals and Conservatives want a strong capitalist economy. Liberals tend to lean toward governmental programs to use a portion of government funds to benefit the poor, the sick, and the elderly. They are more likely to be suspicious of unregulated manufacturing and commerce. Conservatives lean toward more government protections and benefits for commerce.
(18) Summary: The history of Rome shows the downhill flow from republican democracy to unlimited tyranny. The history of Britain shows the rise of republican democracy, with a limited monarchy, flowing away from dictatorial landlords and kings.
The history of the United States shows a flow from a slavery-based, landowner citizenry in a republican democracy, to growing civil rights for all individuals. Political power has rocked back and forth between control by an economic elite, and control by reform movements.
Militarism has become more popular since World War II. Recently, economic protection of national commerce has given way to a global system of competition for products and wages. Global protection of the environment and labor standards is non-existent.
(19) Conclusion: Generally, the most productive and creative times have been during a republican democracy based on the highest levels of individual freedom, individual economic opportunity, and a high ratio of an educated electorate.
Protection for the environment, labor, the needy, safety, human rights, and commerce accompany and enable liberty for individual flourishing.
Humans are frail creatures, each of us vulnerable at some points in our lives, from infancy through sickness to dying. Some do not have friends or families who can soften the blow of hardship, or become caretakers. The government is a creation of the whole that within reason can send aid in an organized and fair way that no charity can parallel. No one charity can reach so many "causes." From unpopular diseases to natural disasters to rare disabilities to public hygiene, government can represent us all.
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