In the section outlining the need for government we highlighted the importance of society in the efficiencies and securities it offers each of its members. Since both our individual prosperity and security are closely linked to that of our society, it is in our mutual best interest that the society we live in is cohesive and orderly. The question then is how do we achieve such a society? There are two main schools of thought when it comes to establishing an orderly governance.
The Top Down Model
The first school of thought has been by far the more common method throughout history and around the globe. It is the top down model of rule which is the general format of monarchies, aristocracies, dictatorships, socialism and communism. Each of these types of government hold the common belief that there is a single person, or small group of elites sometimes called central planners, that knows what is best for the remainder of the population.
It is important to note that many people perceive that socialism and communism as a form of rule by the many. In truth, both of these system require centralized authority at the top to administer and coordinate the communal needs of the many. (See notes at the bottom of this post for more on socialism.)
In a top down model of government it is the rulers at the top who decide the public policy, both foreign and domestic. Rulers determine the laws and through the enactment and enforcement of those laws and regulations, they determine what is legally right and wrong. Morality, rights, virtue are all determined and defined by the top.
The greatest danger of any top down model of government is that the rulers or central planners will inevitably act in their own interests. The interests of these elites will most certainly at some point be in conflict with the will and liberty of the people resulting in mandates that will appear to the people as unfair or unjust. For this reason, all forms of top down government require a sufficient show of force in order to compel the people to cooperate. This show of force will most certainly be tested at some point, resulting in at least small scale, localized destruction of its own people. At worst it could mean total war, oppression or holocaust.
History has repeatedly demonstrated the tendency of rulers to act not only in their own interests but also their willingness to use violence against their own people to achieve these ends when necessary. The most egregious examples of this being the many millions of people who were enslaved, tortured, starved or murdered by their own communist governments in China or Soviet Russia. One has only to achieve the ability to think rationally and dispassionately to realize that a top down model of government serves the top. The bottom are resources for the top to achieve their ends.
The Bottom Up Model
The second model of government is the bottom up model. This model believes not in a ruling class or divine right, but in the equality of man. Under this form of government, there is no belief that a single individual, or small group of individuals, know what is best for the remainder. Instead, morals, rights, and virtue are not defined by the interests of rulers, but founded in logic, reason, or a belief in a creator. In a system of self governance, the people are ultimately ruled by common and cohesive morality, not by a ruler per se.
Of course, even in a bottom up model there is still a tangible and active form of government. Due to the imperfect nature of man there must still be laws, and due processes to hold each accountable to those laws. These laws are based in common morality that each individual holds independent of government. In this type of system, government exists to protect the rights of the people and it is the government that is accountable to the people to achieve this end.
The operators within this form of government are elected legislators, judges and executives who have authority to act on behalf of the population, not to act in their own interests. Each of these elected officials are themselves subject to the same laws they are charged with upholding. Their power is derived not from military action, divine right, or violence, but from the consent of the governed. The consent of the governed is renewed on a recurring and frequent bases through the process of elections where it is the people who have ultimate say in their leaders, and subsequently in their government. In a true bottom up model, government doesn’t serve the top, it serves the bottom, which in this case is the whole since there is no ruling top.
There are two main types of bottom up government; democracies and republics. The most basic form of a democracy is majority rule. When mixed with human nature, democracy tends toward mob rule. In a pure democracy the people would vote on all issues and the will of the majority would prevail in every instance. While this is still a bottom up rule, meaning government of the people not of a ruling elite, it has a glaring shortcoming. Its main deficiency is that due to the majority rule, minorities within that population would never have a voice. They would be perpetually ruled by the interests of the majority. Without further safeguards for the minority, factions within the population could become as despotic to the minority as any of the top down forms of government. For instance, a population could decide to vote on slavery. Should the voting majority vote in favor of enslaving some minority they could then implement democratic slavery. Few people would consider this form of despotism superior to any other from of slavery.
The democratic system of self governance appears a stark contrast to the anti-despotic, minority protecting system of government for which America is so well known. That is because despite all of the misleading language and rhetoric that permeates media today, America is not a democracy and never was, it is a republic. Specifically, America is a constitutional republic. This is distinctly different than a democracy.
A republic is where the people do not self govern directly through a majority vote, they self govern through the means of electing representatives who govern on behalf of the people. Reading through the many federalist papers that preceded our system of government it becomes evident that the American founders were very concerned with devising a system that would give what they called ‘minority factions’ within the country a voice so they would not be completely ruled by the majority interests. It is for this reason that we have independent but united states instead of a singular national entity. Each state has locally elected representatives to govern the state, as well as locally elected senators to represent each state to the federal government. This is also the reason we have an electoral college instead of a popular vote, along with a complex system of checks and balances intended to limit the powers of elected officials.
In this system of self governance, a system that respects not just the views and interests of a voting majority, but one that respects its minority interests proportionately, it is the individual who is the core building block of the society, not an elite ruler, not a certain portion of the society. It is this system of government, and only this system of government, that recognizes that the individual is the smallest minority. It is this demographic, the individual, that government serves to protect, not lobbyists or rulers, or any other faction within the population.
Since the individual is the core the element of a self governed society, it is critical that a self governed nation supports and respects the individual. To many, the idea of a system of government that is designed to protect and serve the individual will seem very conflicting to the idea of building a peaceful, cohesive society. Many of us have been taught that good societies are built from selfless people who put others ahead of themselves and base all collective decisions on the greater good for the greater number.
The argument here isn’t against creating a society that has everyone’s best interests at heart. Recall that in the post regarding the need for government we have previously established that orderly cohesive societies are in all of our best interests. Our collaboration and mutual support, particularly in times of need, are what enables our ability to pursue the finer elements of life and raises our existence beyond mere survival. The argument is that a government designed for the security of the individual, as opposed to one that gives preference to group (collectivism) or ruling elite is better suited to achieving this end.
A self governed society is only possible when the population is united as a whole. People are not immune to the phenomenon of natural variation. We come in many different shapes, sizes, colors, ethnic or religious backgrounds, both male and female. What unites us as a people and enables our ability to self govern is not an ethnicity, or gender, or skin color, we don’t all have these things in common. What unites us is that we are all individuals. Irregardless of any other descriptor of who you are, you are an individual. So am I. So is everyone else. As individuals, what we have in common is an innate right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. What defines and protects these rights, along with other rights, is a system of common morality. As long as we hold these values above all others, we can self govern because we will be governing to our mutual best interests.
The idea of individualism is that each person is in the best position to make good decisions regarding their own life, not a detached ruler or competing faction that does not know you, or worse, desires power over you. Individualism is the idea that each person is ultimately responsible for their own life and must make the conscious decision for themselves to live a good life or to live with the consequences. No person is capable of reaching their full potential without the freedom to direct their own life.
Collectivism, or the principle of giving a group priority over the individual, is often summed up in the saying “the greatest good for the greatest number” and has become synonymous with democracy. This is an extremely dangerous ideology because it allows tyranny over a minority for the good of the majority. In a collectivist society there are no true protections for an individual, you are secure so long as your security is best for the majority or that you are a member of the majority. Collectivism says it’s OK to harm the life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness of an individual or a group so long as it benefits a larger number. In this system there is no universality of morality. Morality is relative to the size of the competing groups.
Individualism says that all life is equal and therefor entitled to equal protection under the law. To better understand the universality of morality related to individualism and the foundational importance of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness see the next post on human rights.
More on Socialism
The term “socialism” today carries nearly as many meanings of the word as it does users of the word. The definition of socialism we are using here is the one found in Merriam Webster’s Dictionary (11th edition, copyright 2003) which defines socialism as “any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.”
The reason that socialism is a form of top down rule, is because both the means of production and the end products are owned by either the state directly, or by some other form of administration on behalf of the people. It would therefor be the state or administration that controls the economy and the goods, along with the distribution of those goods to the people. Without direct access to these goods or means of production, the people are subservient to the body of people designated as the sole controllers of that system. This is consistent with the ideology that a small group of elites or central planners know what is best for a society as opposed to the people themselves.
At a passing glance, this theory of socialism may seem very similar to the concept of a republic where the people elect a small body of representatives to carry out the functions of government on their behalf. Some create a further similarity between socialism and elective forms of government by advocating for a form of socialism known as democratic socialism where central planners are elected similar to how a republic would elect its representatives.
The key difference between these two systems is that under a republic or a democracy the people maintain direct control over both private property and the means of production. Under these two systems of government, the people are not in anyway slaved to a ruling elite or body of central planners for the free exercise of their liberty and thereby retain all the products of their own labor which they are free to do with as they please. This important distinction preserves the independence of the people from a ruling or administrative state. Under a republic, it is the people who choose how best to live their lives, what to produce and how to spend the profits of that production. Under socialism, even if it is the people who choose their central planners, it is that administration, not the people, who owns the property and decides how to run the society, what to produce, and how to spend the profits.
A second distinction between socialism and republican or democratic form of government is that both republics and democracies are considered end state forms of governments, whereas at least some forms of socialism (socialism under marxist theory for example) are not considered end states but merely transitional states designed to bring about the destruction of capitalism in order to achieve communism. Some advocates of socialism are open about the transitional state of socialism. History sheds strong light illuminating that other groups market it as an end state and conceal its transitional intentions nefariously. This causes many of its supporters to truly believe in socialism as a stable end state form of government. Whether a particular advocate of any form of socialism is openly or secretly advocating for communism is a concern to be determined, but not a concern that should be taken lightly.