Politics And The Good Society

By: Bikal Dhungel 

Being asked ' which profession you hate the most ', you will probably answer politics, or the politicians. Then you are not the only one, most people hate politicians more than they do doctors, engineers, electricians, plumbers, teachers or artists. It might be because you never see the work of engineers or plumbers every day but of politicians you do. All the media are around politicians than they are around plumbers, that means politicians are always in the limelight whose minor mistake will reach everybody within a short time. See all the scandals like Bill Clinton's affairs with Monika Lewinski, Berlusconi's Bunga Bunga Parties etc. When Bankers, Economists, Teachers or Plumbers have any such affairs, no one would really care. This means, not only politicians are guardians of the public, the public is also the guardian of politician because they care that politicians should live as an ideal person.

So, what is politics, or to be more precise, how it should be, ideally ? We will not go back to the history of politics like in Plato's book ' Republic ', Aristotle's 'Politika' or other teachings from Confucius. Neither we will see the chronology of good politicians. We will only focus on modern day definition of good governance and how it could generate best results for the most people. So, in the first place, let us underline the theory of Jeremy Bentham, written in his book 'Principles of Morals and Legislation' that right thing to do is to ask what will produce the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people. This is true and valid. This is how it should be. From the word happiness, we can derive many things. When are people happy ? In modern days people are happy when their basic needs are fulfilled, when they have an access to healthcare and education, when they have an employment opportunity which can give them a decent life, when they can exercise their freedom, meaning freedom of expression, freedom to choose a religion, freedom to determine things what they think are good for them. There might be other things that make people happy but basically, these are the important characteristics that make people happy. So, the job of a state, or government should provide these things to their citizens. An overwhelming majority of the countries are not being able to provide such basic things. As a result, millions die every year because they have no access to healthcare. Millions of people are still illiterate. Billions do not enjoy the right of free expression of their thoughts and many of them are in prison for having expressed their thoughts. Only a handful of nations provided above mentioned facilities to their citizens. Others should first only concentrate on providing them. Only then, futher developement like technological advances is possible. It is also important to see what a state is not, what it should not do. It should not bring too many rules that pose constraints on economical life. It should not intervene on the freedom its people in the case of self-determinism unless it is necessary to maintain the great good for great number of people.

How a country want to be ruled, either in presidential system or prime minister system is totally irrelevant. Chinese giant Deng Xiaoping said ' It doesnt matter either a cat is black or white unless it catches a mice ' It should be able to provide basic services mentioned above and even though there is no government at all, life will go on. It should do this at any cost. A government should borrow money from abroad to provide this if it cant do by itself. If not, there will be political instability which will destroy the tasks that were accomplished previously. So, first, finish the task 1. Then it can look for helping its citizens to specialize. Find out competitive advantage, focus there, concentrate there, invest there and get good results. Then get away from competitive advantage. I mean, competitive advantage will not place a nation in advantageous stage forever. Otherwise, France would be producing only Wine and not Peugeot and Airbus. Economic goal should be the first goal of any state. Then only comes social goals. As long as economic life is not self sustaining and stable, social goal will not sustain. Once the economic goal has been achieved, start reforming education system. Incorporate the human ideas of freedom, self-determinism, ethics, responsibility, morals, progress and democratic values in the education system.

Once there is universal education, democratic values can sustain. Once morals are instituted in minds, violence can be avoided. Once the society is peaceful, healthy discussions about the form of government, about the economic and financial policy, about health policy and about the issues that matter can be discussed in a genuine way. Politics is a guardian but the society is its carer. Its the job of a government to ensure that everything works within a rule and it is the job of the society to care that the government is is functioning in a way it should be. The ideals of government should be based on moral values that is adaptable the modern age. It should not be based on ideals that were enlightening in the last four hundred years but is not relevant today. It should also not be based on ideals alone, it should consider the reality as well. Sometimes, the reality might not be known to the public, may be it is not good that they know. In this case, the government can also anger the public opinion but at last, it should bring greater good to the broader society.

Especially in the case of public good, it matters if the government functions with just ideals or with realism as well. Governments throughout the world have frequently demonstrated that the term equality is easy to sell. So they campaign on behalf of equality. This sounds good but as Amartya Sen's 'Capability Approach' puts forward, equality of what ? Equality of wealth or equality of opportunity ? The latter is correct. The world can never be equal. People are not equal, their capabilities are not equal. Some people are by nature good in sports, some are good in mathematics, some are in painting and so on. The role of government is not to make them equally talented in everything. The role is to create a learning environment where everybody can pursue their own dreams. The role of politics should be limited. It should help people help themselves. What the government can do more to create an ideal society is a matter that has been intensely discussed. Why I write about the role of a government above is to summarize things. Obviously there are many more things a government can and should do. The challenge is also not to bring policies but to implement it and making it work. This is the point where I would like to bring in the role of a society.

Mostly when things go wrong, we blame the government. We not only blame our government but also foreign government and even world government, I mean international institutions. But we miss the point that it is not only the government who is responsible for doing thing. It is indeed the society and people. Their share is indeed much higher than of a government. Government brings rule but it is us who live with it, who either follow or reject it. So, we should see this as a demand side problem. The government supplies and we demand. If the government supplies well but our demand is wrong, we will have a failed society. So, what are the elements of a good society except being the guardian of a government ?

A peaceful coexistence with an established moral that nobody is more equal than others. Many things are under this statement. Nobody is more equal than others implies no discrimination of any people based on colour, religion, sexual orientation, cultural background etc. Especially there is a controversial term called 'Aboriginals' ' Natives' or 'Adibasi Janajati' in Nepal. Question here is, what makes you an Adibasi ? What makes you more especial than other person who is also living there since generations ? The origin of all human beings is in East Africa. From there they migrated. So, it is only the question of how far we want to go back to determine where you belong. My personal opinion is that the people should have a right of a citizenship by birth. When one is born in that country, he or she should be able to be the citizen. Small nations will oppose this by bringing the argument further that their identity will be endangered. But what is an identity ? Who defines this ? The only obvious thing this citizenship by birth will lead to is, people will tend to move towards the place where economic growth is taking place. So, if one is not placing an economic burden to the other, opposing the existence of another person in that certain country is senseless. To conclude, being a citizen who doesnt participate in any such discriminatory way and not letting others to behave in such way is the first and the most important characteristic of a good and peaceful society. Second is to ensure the equality of opportunity. As I already mentioned, the capability approach of Amartya Sen points on the equality of opportunity and not of outcome. Outcome can vary. Places that are highly unequal in terms of opportunity are the most unstable. Wide range of developing countries are the part of it. Emerging nations like India, Mexico and South Africa are the most unequal in terms of inequality. The elite group consisting mainly the children of business class, bureaucrats, and academics enjoy the capability approach whereas for the lower class, it is tough. This will create a more unequal society in the future. As income disparity grows, crime grows and hiring more security personnel would cost the rich more than the poor, so resources will be wasted. That is why, if there is a bottom up pressure to create a society where there is an equality of opportunity, everybody are better off , ethically and economically.

A society that appreciates ideas, creative minds, innovation and talent – Our actions are largely determined by the response of those around us. When we are good in singing, but no one really cares either because they dont like listening to songs or because they dont like us to succeed will determine how we will do in our life. In a society that appreciates the talent of others, will help that talented person to accomplish more. The power of praising is huge. Dale Carnegie has written excellent books on it how praising can change us. One story I take from Carnegie's book is about a guy who wanted to be a writer. But noone cared about his writings until one day a man from the press really appreciated about his way of writing. That guy could not stop his tears on his way home and he improved further and ended up becoming a person we will know today, Charles Dickens. At last, it was also a big gain for the society that praised him as they could read his excellent books. Supporting talents has big returns and positive spillovers to the society. So, the most successful countries have large schemes that support the talented ones. They even go to other countries to look for talented minds and seduce them to remain in their country. Investments in supporting talent is important, so the governments dont hesitate to do this but for the talent person to grow to a certain height, the culture of praising the good should establish. How to start this is important. Integrating this culture in school curriculum is the magic bullet. It will take time because those who havent had this will still have the different mindset but once the pupils grow older, the culture of appreciating talents will eventually flourish.

A society that honours business-minds – unfortunately in most countries, business owners are seen as greedy people whose interest is to maximize personal profit in the cost of society. They are also frequently targeted by revolutionary mobs who are fighting for so called 'social justice'. Consequently, without private businesses, the country will slowly move towards deprivation. A society should understand that their survival is in the hands of trading goods, doing business and continually improving themselves. Private businesses are the origin of innovation. They will then directly contribute to the society in the form of innovation and indirectly, pay taxes so that the government can spend in education, health and infra-structure. New businesses should be created, society should support to create. Successful places give incentive to firms to move in their places via tax cuts and other supports. So, accumulating the first point, the society should support ideas, creative minds and intelligence and secondly, they should develop a culture that supports entrepreneurship. Without business mindedness, the Jewish community wouldnt be so successful today. For hundreds of years, the Jews in Europe and elsewhere were not treated equally. They were discriminated in the labour market. Their only way of survival was to trade and own a business. With time they grew so large that the kings and emperors borrowed with them. Even today we see the impact of Jewish values in the business world, Google, Facebook and many others belong to people of Jewish origin.

These two points are the most important fundamentals of a good society because it is about a way of self sustaining. I think, unless a person, society or country is not self sustaining, nothing will work. Hence, first concentrate on economic indicators. Then only the general ethical principles can be employed. That is, a society can be fair, democratic, ethical, free, sustainable, human, modern and so on. Once a society has achieved these elements, the representative of this society will be good, which means, the politics will be good and as Abraham Lincoln said „ Politics is for the people by the people to the people „. If one thing is not functioning, the other will not function. The role of a citizen is to put an eye on this functioning and the role of the government is to ensure that the citizen is putting their eye.