Tuesday 23 June 2015

Response to Ravi Kiran's blog post entitled "Why Government"


This article is the continuation of a series of articles responding to blog posts on Ravi Kiran's blog.[1] Here, I address Kiran's post on the 8th of September 2013 entitled "Why Government".[2] In it, Kiran touches on many concepts relating to society, ethics, democracy, socialism, division of labour, anarchy, and the free market. Using a string of examples, he argues for a "limited government" approach that will "let individuals dictate their own lives" which, he says, will improve on the unsatisfactory status quo, i.e. one of corrupt governments that are incapable of meeting the demands placed upon them by the "mob" of the public.

CONTENTS


1. THE PROBLEM WITH CURRENT POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS

The first question Kiran poses is: "how important is it to go through" with the "grind" of an election process "over and again" when one set of politicians seems to be just as bad as another? He disapproves of how the "enthusiasm" for politics "fizzles out very quickly" "once the elections are done". "[I]n less than a couple of months" following an election, Kiran avers, "when you see the same old politics being played out, you go back to the pessimistic view that you always held" of politics, namely, that "nothing ever changes in this country"; that the "old order" is largely maintained. Kiran thus encourages us to ask ourselves, "[w]hy is this repeating every time?" I feel this is a very important and correct observation regarding our political system.

Indeed, I am slightly confused as to why, several months earlier, in a blog post uploaded on the 9th of February 2013,[3] Kiran was happy to praise the "hope[ful]" campaign rhetoric of then-Indian prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi. Kiran eulogised Modi's rhetoric as "fe[eling] like music to [his] ears". In my response to that post,[4] I pointed out that every political candidate tries to appeal to the ideals of hope and change. All political candidates try to convince the electorate that they will "change the old order". Perhaps Kiran actually saw/sees something genuinely different in Modi, I do not know. In any case, I discuss at length in my aforementioned response article why it is misplaced to hope for any significant change from Modi's administration.

For the moment, it is enough to note that Kiran appears happy to criticise our current political system for showing certain unwanted repetitive characteristics, but then gives Modi a pass, and then praise, for displaying those very same characteristics.

After outlining this problem with current electoral politics, Kiran encourages us to get "back to the basics" of political philosophy to find the answer.

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2. THE THEORETICAL ROLE OF GOVERNMENT

Starting off with the "basics" then, Kiran states that although "[w]e have accepted [the existence of a government] as a norm", he nevertheless feels it necessary to look at the justification for why "we need a [g]overnment", how one arrives at that justification, and also what the "exact role" of a government is.

Kiran asks us to imagine "a small building with ten odd apartments, which works without an association or a president", "unwritten rules" will ensure some basic level of respect between tenants. That is, until a "conflict arises". Then, Kiran claims, "everyone . . . [would realise that they in fact need to make] a coherent set of rules with the consent" of every relevant stakeholder, and chose "someone to safeguard these rules". So far so good. Next, Kiran claims that "the rules become [instated as] the constitution and the one who upholds it becomes their government" (my emphasis). This is rather an odd interpretation of the analogy. Surely, it is the police service, and not the government, that upholds the law? The government is tasked with listening to and implementing the consensus will of the population. But perhaps I am nitpicking; the police service is usually regarded as a branch of the government and the embodiment of the monopoly on force and coercion granted to the government. Unfortunately, Kiran then goes on to compound his problems by writing, "[i]t is this government that decides what [behaviour] is illegitimate in that apartment based on the constitution." This is rather misguided to say the least. The separation of judiciary and the legislature is one of the defining features of modern secular democracies. Certainly, in practice it may be routinely brushed aside—by the administration of US President Barack Obama[5] to take just an infamous and recent example—but it would seem that Kiran wants to deny that separation of powers even in theory. Apparently, it is quite natural and justified for the government itself to "decid[e] what is illegitimate . . . based on the constitution", which it may interpret as it sees fit.

Further cementing the idea of the government as some kind of "referee" endowed with the power to "penalize rule violation", Kiran encourages those "rally[ing] on [the] streets" for government protection to instead demand that the government "let them be free to protect themselves" (my emphasis). This line of thinking must assume that everyone is equally able to protect themselves, or otherwise risk embracing the idea that certain vulnerable people in society do not need protection. This is because not everyone in society possesses the time, knowledge, mental health, and resources to be able to protect themselves. This rudimentary observation seems to escape Kiran entirely.

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3. SOCIALIST PRINCIPLES OF GOVERNMENT

Kiran attempts to dismantle the "concept of [acting for the] greater good" when it comes to government intervention in society, something that, according to Kiran, has a "beautiful" superficial countenance masking underlying "evil" effects. To this end, Kiran employs the hypothetical example of "5 people of which 4 have . . . organ defects". Socialism, Kiran proposes, "permits you to kill the healthy person" by "yank[ing] out" his organs for donation to the other four people, who are in need. This is a rather graphic and over-simplified example of socialism and crucially, it lacks any kind of democratic element. To state the elementary point, socialism and democracy must go hand in hand. Kiran's example is one of totalitarianism acting with some utilitarian ends in mind. In principle, Kiran is correct that there is no such thing as a free lunch. For the poor kids to go to a government school, the old lady across town with no young children of her own will have to give up some of her earnings. This is not a fault of socialism, this is a fault of living in the real world where resources are finite. Would capitalist approaches to Kiran's hypothetical scenario have fared any better? Socialism is about individual members of a society playing a role in governmental decision-making at various levels (from local to national) in order to determine the best course of action. Kiran would like us to consider "whether it is moral or not" to have such utilitarian approaches. I would say that utilitarianism in itself is not a goal. Social democracy, where people have a meaningful say in how their lives are run, is a goal in itself, as well as a means (to ecological conservation and alleviation of suffering, for example). It is empowering and healthy for humans to play such an active participatory role in their societies. Social democracy more often than not may well lead to utilitarian outcomes, but I believe there is a key moral difference in arriving at those outcomes through totalitarian dictat on the one hand (e.g. yanking organs), and genuine public participation and discussion on the other hand.

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4. FUNDING GOVERNMENTS: PUBLIC TAXATION VS PUBLIC DONATION

It seems that Kiran would prefer to disparage social democracy and the system of public taxation by using the analogy of a landlord "storm[ing into] your apartment . . . [and] forc[ing] you to pay" them money for building maintenance. This is an unhelpful example. The building manager can only act as far as the tenants' association empowers him to act. The person being shaken down for money would likely be part of that tenants' association, therefore intimidation is probably not a good course of action for the landlord. Kiran would do well to reconsider his characterisation along these lines.

Given the opportunity to genuinely participate in the political sphere, when it comes time for individuals to offer the income tax that Kiran appears to dread so much, they would be happy to do so. After all why not? They are contributing money to social programmes that they themselves would have had a say in creating. Not everyone will get their way all of the time of course, but that is part of democracy.

In fact, later on in his blog post, when answering "anarchis[t]" arguments demanding a legitimate mode of government revenue generation, Kiran offers us his alternative to public taxation: public donation. Just to reiterate the context, Kiran is a proponent of limited government that enforces the law and acts as an arbiter for disputes, he does see flaws with a complete free market/anarcho-capitalist takeover of society; because of the conflicts that would arise when private entities are free to compete for the monopoly of force. So Kiran agrees that the government should hold the monopoly on force and coercion, and that for this it needs money.

Kiran opines that the "government will run on donations" because "donations [of similar kinds] pour into private charities, churches, temples" and so forth. "[S]urely," Kiran says, "when people see the merit in securing their own [interests], they will donate voluntarily" to the government. I find this argument fairly lacking in substance. Yes, vested interests are important in individuals' motivations, but I think it is a stretch to believe the public will donate to causes on which they have no tangible control. It is not enough for the public merely to be told that the government will work for their best interest, this goes back to the problem with hollow promises being made during electoral campaigns (see section 1). Citizens have to be intimately involved with the political process in order for them to trust in it. Disenfranchisement leads to suspicion and distrust of a government that is perceived as big, bad, and probably run by shadowy cabals behind the scenes. Public distrust of government authority and political promises (for example as seen in the American libertarian tradition) stems from the helplessness and fear of indidivuals being held at arm's length from the decision-making process in society. They cannot be reliably relegated to being outsiders for very long without social collapse and revolt. To make another obvious point that Kiran seems to miss, it would be prudent to enforce public taxation systematically rather than relying on donations because donations can rise and fall on a whim, and government planning will be made difficult without solid predictions of expected revenues going forward.

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5. THE CONCEPT OF RIGHTS

Moving on, Kiran attempts to pin down the concept of "rights". Before doing so, he feels the need to disparage the "communists", who have supposedly "distorted the [very] concept" of rights. Having gained a feel for Kiran's political stance from reading his previous blog posts, one can assume that this "distort[ion]" refers, in Kiran's mind, to a wider-than-necessary application of rights by these "communists". Basically, Kiran does not approve of the welfare state. Along with the "communists", Kiran also has no time for the views of the founding fathers of the United States, whose concept of "[r]ight to life, liberty and property", he says, is also unsatisfactory in putting "up a strong case for the concept of rights". Strangely, in the very next sentence, Kiran seems to have no problem admitting that those formulations did work "in the western world, and basically [were] the reason for its progress compared to the rest of the world." This contradictory admission is apparently of no consequence however, because Kiran proceeds swiftly on, proclaiming Ayn Rand to be "the one who really gave a rational explanation" to the concept of rights, and as evidence for this, Kiran offers the following quote from Rand:

"Rights are conditions of existence required by man's nature for his proper survival. If man is to live on earth, it is right for him to use his mind, it is right to act on his own free judgment, it is right to work for his values and to keep the product of his work."

One searches in vain to see how this proposition from Rand differs in any significant way from those of countless other figures in history encompassing all political affiliations. Undeniably, it is rather absolutist in its approach, and in the real world of human affairs it is difficult to be an absolutist for very long. Having said that, I find much in that statement from Rand with which I can agree.

Following this, Kiran gives an argument for why certain rights are fundamental and "absolute", requiring no democratic input to prop up their legitimacy. He also argues that "everyone should submit to these rights for peaceful co-existence". While these arguments are somewhat simplistic, (for example, there is little consideration of when certain "absolute" rights of different individuals might come into conflict with one another), once again I do not find any fundamental disagreements with Kiran's position on this issue.

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6. DIVISION OF LABOUR AND SELF-ACTUALISATION

In discussing the need for humans to live in a society that has division of labour, Kiran produces another argument that he attributes to Ayn Rand: "[l]iving in a society . . . does not relieve a man of the responsibility of supporting his own life." Presumably this is to say that at all times, each individual (or possibly each individual family unit?) must be ready and willing to acquire for themselves the basic amenities of life (presumably food, water, shelter, and medicine). I find this a strange concept, and perhaps my disillusionment with such an argument stems from a different understanding of what human beings are. To illustrate, we can consider the fact that Kiran often makes analogies between the human being and the "tiger". Man has his superior mind, the tiger has its superior strength. Maybe this is indicative of a parallel that Kiran would draw between what the tiger is here on earth to do, and what man is here to do—namely, survive and reproduce employing the unique tools each organism possesses. Would Kiran then reduce humans to an animalistic mode of being, when all is said and done? Speaking for myself, I would say that humans are inherently curious and creative social beings that are driven to enquire and imagine, in all tasks, both survival-related and otherwise. Surely, the whole point of living in a society with division of labour is that one can cease subsistence living and realise one's true potential as a human being among fellow beings? I suppose this does not marry well with the Randian concept of every man being an island, left alone to pit his wits against the elements (which may or may not include other humans seeking to disadvantage him).

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7. NOTES

[1] Kiran, R. Ravithinks. Weblog. [Online] Available from: http://ravithinkz.wordpress.com [Accessed 22nd June 2015].

[2] Kiran, R. Why Government. Ravithinks. Weblog. [Online] Available from: https://ravithinkz.wordpress.com/2013/09/08/why-government-2/ [Accessed 22nd June 2015].

[3] Kiran, R. Modi-My Observations. Ravithinks. Weblog. [Online] Available from: https://ravithinkz.wordpress.com/2013/02/09/modi-my-observations/ [Accessed 22nd June 2015].

[4] Jeevathol, A. Response to Ravi Kiran's blog post entitled "Modi-My Observations". Critical Views. Weblog. [Online] Available from: http://alavarij.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/rebuttal-to-ravi-kirans-blog-post_24.html [Accessed 22nd June 2015].

[5] Roberts, D. & Ackerman, S. NSA mass phone surveillance revealed by Edward Snowden ruled illegal. Guardian. [Online] 7th May 2015. Available from: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/07/nsa-phone-records-program-illegal-court [Accessed 22nd June 2015].

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