Government as Servant of the People

Government as servant of the people

There are many reasons for a government to say they serve the people, or even to do so out of self interest, but an altruistic motive is harder to find.

Trying to convince people you are serving their best interests is part of the political game book. Think of the election pledges of South American semi-democracies. Each new president pledges to rid the country of corruption, better the situation of the working poor and so forth. Once in power they often become even more corrupt, rapacious and indifferent to the needs of the populace than their predecessor. Even dictators try it. Think of North Korea. With all the brutality of a police state at his disposal Kim supplements this by relentless propaganda brainwashing the population into thinking that he is looking after them and their poverty is all the fault of their arch enemy the USA.

But there are also reasons rulers to some extent may actually serve, to some extent, interests of their people. 19^th century sociologist Max Weber examined styles of rule. One, which he called “charismatic” was typified by the pirate king: he held great power - but only so long as he kept delivering the goods – if he failed then he was supplanted. Obviously it was in the interests of a charismatic leader, even one who was otherwise not inclined to do so, to keep supplying his or her followers with sufficient of what they wanted.

Another type of rule Weber identified was typified by fealty between the ruler and the ruled. Here too, the close human relationship – whether by kinship or devoted service – had a two way effect. The ruler had incentive to look after his or her people.

However historically rulers of large or small domains have been a varied lot. Some benevolent towards their subjects. Some ruthless tyrants. One of the forces which drove the development of our modern constitutional democracy – from the nobles forcing Prince John in England to sign the Magna Carta to the Pilgrims fleeing to the Americas – was to reign in bad rulers. Hence Lincoln's government “for the people” is an important statement. It is also an objective that has been seriously undermined in recent times in most Western countries. The cynical joke “whoever you vote for a politician always gets elected” is not without foundation.

In Germany, Chancellor Merkel has swamped the country with immigrants for ideological motives, to the detriment of the nation. In Australia we have recently had a scandal involving a few politicians pushing a pro China line after receiving pay-offs that were traced through local businessmen back to Chinese government entities. I expect that in every country there are problems with corruption on large or small scales.

All of these – ideology, self interest, pay-backs for political support, influence of powerful lobby groups and bribery – mean that governments are not putting the welfare of their people first.

However I was surprised when I tried to find Biblical reaching promoting “government as servant of the people”. It was not there as an end in itself. Make no mistake, the Bible had many damning things to say about rulers who looked after themselves not the people! It was just that it was the end result of other things. God-fearing rulers loved justice because God loves justice – so they made sure the law-courts ran properly and treated everyone impartially. God-fearing rulers saw that God had put them in charge of his people, so they owed it to God to govern for the people not themselves. And so the list goes on.

A minister once quoted to me “I am every man's servant: yet I have but one Master”. I think this will turn out to be the case with truly good government as well. It is the result of duty to God.

So I want to pause the examination of “servant of the people” in order to deal with the Biblical view of who governments are ultimately responsible to, what their responsibilities are and the precepts which, if followed by rulers – be they kings or elected bodies – inevitably produce a government which truly serves the people.

Starting Hypothesis on Good Government

Starting Hypothesis on Good Government.

Science starts with a hypothesis and looks for evidence that will prove, disprove or improve it.

So in coming to the Bible for a theory of good government, I want to put forward a starting hypothesis. I am also making an assumption: namely that the actual essence or qualities of good government can be set out independently of the type of government – king, president or parliament. Democratically elected or hereditary. Although of course some types of government may be much more likely to be good than others.

My starting hypothesis is this:

1. The government is there to serve the people, not the other way round. Just a general Biblical knowledge throws up texts like Ezekiel 32:4 “woe to you shepherds of Israel who only take care of yourselves, should not shepherds take care of the flock?” Indeed the common Biblical metaphor of “shepherds” to denote the national leaders – or government even by itself raises a notion of duty of care. Coming forward to the New Testament we have the familiar words of Jesus referring to himself as the Good Shepherd and saying in John 10 :11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep”. And as an example of God's character and actions as the supreme ruler of all, Jesus' words in Mark 10:45 “for even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many”. So Jesus has set a very high standard for human rulers to aim for.

2. Any ruler or government is governing people who belong to God not to them, and have a fiduciary duty to God for how they govern. I am thinking of the many texts like 2 Samuel 7:8 “I … appointed you ruler over my people Israel” and Romans 13:1 “There is no authority except that which God has established”

Historically these have seldom been followed. Even in “Christian” England the doctrine was of the divine right of kings, rather then the divine duty of kings.

3. Enacting just laws, law enforcement and maintaining justice in the criminal and civil courts is a vital role of government. Again we will be looking for more detail, but verses like Isaiah 61:8 “I the Lord love justice, I hate robbery and wrongdoing.” and even the Queen of Sheeba's observation to Solomon in 1 Kings 10:9 “(The Lord) has made you king to maintain justice and righteousness”.

4. Sound foreign policy and defence against external threat. I am including this in the hypothesis based on God's actions in raising up national military leaders as needed during the period of the “Judges”, the inspired actions of kings like David and Saul, and the advice given by prophets on these subjects although this was often rejected by the king of the time to their ruin. Think of Jeremiah's advice to Zedekiah not to rebel against his Babylonian overlord, and after he did so, to surrender and thus save both his life and the city. (Zedekiah rejected this advice and lost his life and the city was sacked). How this applies in modern times may be a more difficult question.

5. Maintain true religion. It will be interesting to consider how this is even possible in modern “secular” states, and a multi-religion society. Certainly past history in Western nations where either Protestants or Roman Catholics or Baptists, Quakers and other “dissenters” were persecuted is not something we should want to see again. However I want to leave it in our hypothesis for the present for two reasons: a) maybe governments always maintain a religion. At present many government agencies are subtly or not so subtly persecuting people with traditional Christian beliefs, because the popular religion of the ruling elites is an anti-Christian progressive socialism. b) In Old Testament times the moral or religious stance of the king – or sometimes a high priest or a prophet did effect the entire nation.

Naturally, we may find other necessary attributes of good government as we delve further.

Towards a Theory of Government

Towards a Theory of Government

First an apology to regular readers. I was a silly boy and kept on working out of doors after I got the 'flue (it is winter here) and as my wife predicted I caught pneumonia! That is why there have been no posts for the last few weeks.)

“It's already been done!” you may say. Well, yes and no. It is a quarter of a century since I studied this topic during a sabbatical year back at university so I can't recall all the names, but I recall the drift of it well enough. From Rousseau with his social contract, Locke and Hobbes, through Marx and Lenin to all the modern social theorists there has been no lack of ink spilt. But, and this is the big catch, so far as I know they all start from either a blank page and try to build a theory from scratch or like Marx are defiantly atheistic and try to build a human based theory.

So a vital route to developing a theory of what constitutes “good government” has been neglected. That is: if we assume God exists and the Bible is the best source of information about is character and purposes and of human frailties.

Now I know many will protest vigorously: “You can't do that!!! You MUST start from the assumption that there is no God, otherwise you are biased.” Well excuse me, but why is that any more biased that taking their assumption!

As I said way back in discussing the foundation for ethical theory Where Do Morals Come From ? Pt. 2  there is a real problem for atheistic moralists: what makes them right? If you are basing your morals on the moral character of God (I dealt with the question “which God” back then) you at least have some solid ground from which to argue your case, otherwise you are just building castles in the air. Worse still it becomes a case that the person or group with the most power – whether by propaganda or brute force or both – gets to decide “this is good, that is bad, behaviour”. Might becomes Right.

So I think our best route to finding out what a government should aspire to be like is to take the road less (if ever) travelled and look for clues in the Bible.

I think we will likely find three types of information:

1. How God as “King” acts.

2. Direct statements of praise or condemnation of actions of human rulers

3. Stories that show governors in a good or bad light.

From these I hope we can construct an image of what a good government looks like

The Problem of Government

The Problem of Government

As I see it, we have had a moment of good government and it is ending.

Government for the people has not been the historical norm! Far from it. Rulers have generally oppressed their people. Recently we visited China, and like good tourists went to see the Terracotta Warriors. We there read the various blurbs about the early emperors. They were a uniformly nasty lot. Their only interest seemed to be themselves, they brutally used their people and had not a thought for the welfare of those they ruled. In other times and places there were some better rulers, but they were the exception. Sadly in Europe we heard about barons and even bishops who built forts along the rivers that were the only practical trade routes and exacted heavy tolls from traders. Surprisingly it was in Turkey that we saw a caravansary built by the Moslem ruler on a trade route where anyone could come for three nights free lodging within its walls under the ruler's protection and with the guarantee of leaving with whatever goods they had arrived with.

Government by the people has most certainly not been the historical norm! But we have grown to like the idea.

In the West both these ideals are developing stress fractures as I pointed out in earlier posts. In Europe unelected EU bureaucrats are increasingly making decisions. In America political elites in both parties call the shots, but live in a rarefied atmosphere far from the cares and woes of a large section of the population. Hence the phenomenon of Donald Trump. In Australia I'm probably too close to the situation to see clearly, but it looks as though politicians are chasing votes rather than making the unpalatable choices that are necessary to get the country out of debt.

But all around the West it is not just the politicians but the people who are acting badly.

There is this phenomenon if identity politics. People who “identify as …” (homosexual, Aboriginal, African American, and the list seems ever expanding) are demanding that no one is allowed to offend them, and tyrannising over the majority. The homosexual lobby “LGBT” or whatever is the latest acronym is one example. Homosexual acts used to be illegal, they were decriminalized – fair enough, but the lobby did not stop there, anti-discrimination legislation came in to make it unlawful to discriminate against such people, or even ask about sexuality for employment. Then it went further, no one was allowed to offend homosexuals, so anyone who even hinted that such acts were anything other than the norm were pilloried as “homophobes”. And so on.

Then there is the lynch mob mentality of social and mainstream media. Fair trial? Not likely! With no opportunity make their defence, with no check on the accuracy of the allegations, indeed with none of the essentials of determining the truth of the matter, issues are decided by stories going viral on the internet, or being “exposed” by TV news shows chasing ratings, and often the “crime” was merely to offend against identity politics or political correctness. This takes us back to the burning of witches and recurrent pogroms of a past we would like to leave in the past.

There is self interest overruling all else. In a sensible family, if they have maxed out their credit cards through spending more than they earn, they don't go on spending as usual – they work out what economies they need to make get out of debt. That is common sense. But many of our countries are deep in debt and getting deeper. That can't go on forever. Yet in Greece for instance the populace threw out a government that wanted “austerity measures” that would not even reduce government spending on welfare and other programs – just reduce how fast it was increasing!

As Margaret Thatcher once said: “The trouble with socialists is that they eventually run out of other people's money to spend.” No country can go on consuming more than it produces.

In all the above I am not saying anything novel. In recent times more and more columnists have been saying these things in greater detail and more eloquently than I have.

My point in joining the chorus is to highlight that in order to save the West, attitudes of both politicians and voters need to change. Next I want to look at what makes for good government to see what these attitudes need to change to.

Government by the People

Government by the People

Lincoln’s passion that the populace should have government for the people and by the people resonates throughout Western democracies even if it is expressed in differing terms. However “by the people” is more problematic than it looks.

If we go back to ancient Athens, that fabled birthplace of democracy we begin to see problems. Plato lived through the turbulent days of an oligarchy imposed after the Spartans defeated Athens, then revolution and restoration of democracy. He remained apart from the bloodthirsty oligarchy, who killed off the democratic leaders, even sending death squads after those who fled the country. He saw the injustice of political opponents executed so that their property could be seized. But when democracy was restored he saw that “the people” were scarcely any better.

Plato scornfully noted how easily the demos or people could be swayed by an artful speaker. Particularly one, as he wrote, who promised to “plunder the rich and give to the poor”. However his conclusion, that government should be not “by the people” but by the most able thinkers is exactly what British voters have rejected in their decision to leave the European Union with its burgeoning unelected technocracy.

It is a long time since I studied Plato and Aristotle, but I think it was the latter who made the distinction between “mob rule” and “constitutional democracy”.

If my memory serves me correctly (since Google has let me down!) Aristotle saw the same problem as Plato and said in effect: “If the demos rules unrestrained by law and custom will they not, being in the majority, say 'let us plunder the rich, by God it is just'”. However his solution was to limit what the assembly could vote by overarching rules.

If we look at one element of government: the dispensing of justice this difference is clear. In the Wild West the lynch mob ruled. Then lawmen brought peace and progression to “a fair trial”. Law courts with due process, rules of evidence and the ability of the accused to put their side of the case are are much superior to the lynch mob. Interestingly fair trial was commanded back in the Old Testament, where ideals of justice were repeatedly set out and the danger of lying witnesses and the fickleness of the crowd warned against. However every few generations we seem to have to learn them anew – now we seem to be falling back into the lynch mob mentality with “trial by social media”.

Lord Acton, author of the famous “power corrupts...” quote also said;

“The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections.”

In recent times this has been borne out in Western democracies by the proliferation of regulations ostensibly aimed at protecting minorities which has led to the tyranny by these minorities over the majority – which simply inflicts the claimed injustice on even more people!

The reservations all these thinkers have had about rule “by the people” can, I think, be summed up by saying: “We are all sinners”. We are all capable of being selfish and greedy, so there is a danger that we will elect those who promise us most. We can go with the crowd and the spirit of the age against what is righteous and just.

I think two things are required to make democracy work:

1. Rule of Law. Where there is a constitution, hundreds of years of judicial precedent on what is right and just and an independent judiciary that can curb the excesses even of an elected president

2. Moral Backbone. Where there are enough people of good conscience to save the nation from the particular evils taking flourishing at that time.

Without these, government by the people is only as good as the worst half of the people, and historically, that is not very good.

The West is Streets Ahead of the Rest

The West is Still streets Ahead of the Rest

This is important to remember. We may still be failing to attain not only the lofty but also the attainable ideals of government of the people. We may be in danger of losing even what we have. But we are still so many streets ahead of the rest of the world.

In government for the people, voters are, as I said last post, expressing dissatisfaction with the current situation. In this they have good reason: In too many areas governments are not really acting in the best interests of the population, they are repaying favours to people who helped them to power or responding to lobby groups. In other areas they are remiss in their duty of care for the populace. But compared to others they are still remarkably caring, capable and honest.

To take recent past regimes, the Communists are probably the most horrifying examples. Stalin let 7 million (plus or minus a million or so) peasants starve to death when many could have been saved. Mao presided over a famine mostly due to government policy where 2 or 3 million people who complained about the policies were murdered and some 34 million people starved.

Brutality and government indifference to the suffering of the people on this scale is so awful that our minds don't want to take it in.

On a more homely scale and in our own cultural past has conditions we would not wish to live under. Consider Robin Hood. Look behind the derring-do and there is shocking treatment of the people by the rulers

In the present there are so many contenders. North Korea, Iran, Zimbabwe are only the beginning of a very long list of totalitarian regimes where the ruling elites do not give a fig for the well being or even the lives of the people they govern.

Think of many of the African countries where the people are desperately poor. The West has poured in vast amounts of aid, but most has been siphoned off by the rulers – who live in extravagant luxury and pile up enormous wealth in Swiss bank accounts while the people continue to suffer privation. “government for the people” has never entered the heads of these rulers!

In countries like Zimbabwe this is compounded by terrible government policies. For instance the “redistribution” of farms from the successful agribusinesses owned by whites to political cronies of the ruling party - who as often as not left the land unfarmed and the black workers unemployed, or ran the businesses so inefficiently that they failed, has caused massive suffering across the nation and added to the country's already serious economic woes.

Truly we are so fortunate in the West that generations before us have fought to put good government in place. Understanding this and seeing the abyss into which we could descend should make us determined to strive in our generation, not just to maintain but to improve.

Is Democracy Doomed?

Voters and Politicians

Over the years my wife and I have enjoyed cruising in various parts of the world. Particularly before the Global Financial Crisis, the majority of our fellow passengers were from the U.S. Conversations with them gave us varied glimpses of American life and politics. One theme that frequently recurred was disenchantment with politicians - both Democrats and Republicans. The feeling was that they were all in the pockets of major lobby groups, and were not genuinely interested in the welfare of “ordinary” people.

In Australia we are a cynical bunch and have long thought that too – even when it was demonstrably not true! There was a time when a railway locomotive driver – Benedict Chifley – could and did become Prime Minister of Australia. But we still joked “It doesn't matter who you vote for: a politician always gets elected!”

But recent events have shown this to be far more acutely felt now.

In the 'States the recent campaigns for Democrat and Republican nominees for President have shown extraordinary polarisation.

In the Democratic camp look at the polling by Bernie Sanders. No offence intended, but he is so close to Communist in his policies that his large following in “the land of the free” almost beggars belief. But aside from his economic policies – which have proved disastrous in every nation that has tried them – he had a vision. It would not, could not have worked in practice – but it was a vision. It evoked a utopian longing in (some) ordinary people. My feeling is that his success came because if one did not look too closely behind the smoke and mirrors, he was preaching government “for the people”.

Go back eight years. Barack Obama preached “change you can believe in”. Crown sourcing brought in huge funding for his campaign from ordinary people. Again the dream that a government would care about the general populace. I suspect that history will pass harsh judgement on his presidency, but that is not my interest here. What I am looking at is people's desire for government that does the right thing by the nation, and their feeling of betrayal in this regard.

Donald Trump. The social progressives hate him with such violent passion that I begin to think he must be OK. I read his book, and it says all the right (no pun intended) things. However eight years ago I read Obama's books and thought they were good too! So I had better reserve judgement. But whatever you political leanings you must admit he has been a phenomenon.

Again I suspect this tells us something about the man or woman in the street. Those on the Republican side of politics are also disenchanted with established politics. They too feel betrayed. They too feel political elites are feathering their own nests and in the pockets of wealthy industry groups. They may also be reacting against the failure of the socialist leaning Obama administration by looking for a more outspoken champion.

In the latter regard I am thinking of what Hayek wrote. He maintained that it was the failure of the socialist government in Germany that led to the middle classes feeling disenfranchised and turning to Hitler. He also commented that seemed to be a worldwide pattern that when socialist economic systems failed – as they inevitably did – people turned to a right wing strongman “saviour”. Nothing so dramatic in the US – yet. Nothing so radical. But a little failed swing to the left may be producing a preference for a strong, outspoken leader. As an engineer I know the value of safety valves. Better that it goes off than the boilers explodes! Trump as president may be a safety valve: you may not much like him, but maybe you really don't want the sort of leader people might flock to after another socialist incumbency!

In Australia we have just had an unusual election. The (slightly conservative) government just scraped back in, but both it and the opposition (slightly socialist) party were deserted by voters in favour of little splinter parties further to the right and left.

Naturally newspaper columnists have had theories galore as to why this is so. When you cut out the campaign related ones there is a common complaint. Voter alienation.

The perception among voters that both big political parties are living in their own little dream world rather than looking after the people who have to struggle on in the real world.

It seems to me that voters in both America and Australia (possibly many other Western countries too) have recognised the signs of imminent failure of democracy. Harsh words? Compare what is seen to be happening in our countries with these familiar words:

“… And that government of the people, for the people and by the people, shall not perish from the earth.”