A Crucial Element of Democracy

This is a blog by Robert Gutierrez ...
While often taken for granted, civics education plays a crucial role in a democracy like ours. This Blog is dedicated to enticing its readers into taking an active role in the formulation of the civics curriculum found in their local schools. In order to do this, the Blog is offering a newer way to look at civics education, a newer construct - liberated federalism or federation theory. Daniel Elazar defines federalism as "the mode of political organization that unites separate polities within an overarching political system by distributing power among general and constituent governments in a manner designed to protect the existence and authority of both." It depends on its citizens acting in certain ways which Elazar calls federalism's processes. Federation theory, as applied to civics curriculum, has a set of aims. They are:
*Teach a view of government as a supra federated institution of society in which collective interests of the commonwealth are protected and advanced.
*Teach the philosophical basis of government's role as guardian of the grand partnership of citizens at both levels of individuals and associations of political and social intercourse.
*Convey the need of government to engender levels of support promoting a general sense of obligation and duty toward agreed upon goals and processes aimed at advancing the common betterment.
*Establish and justify a political morality which includes a process to assess whether that morality meets the needs of changing times while holding true to federalist values.
*Emphasize the integrity of the individual both in terms of liberty and equity in which each citizen is a member of a compacted arrangement and whose role is legally, politically, and socially congruent with the spirit of the Bill of Rights.
*Find a balance between a respect for national expertise and an encouragement of local, unsophisticated participation in policy decision-making and implementation.
Your input, as to the content of this Blog, is encouraged through this Blog directly or the Blog's email address: gravitascivics@gmail.com .
NOTE: This blog has led to the publication of a book. The title of that book is TOWARD A FEDERATED NATION: IMPLEMENTING NATIONAL CIVICS STANDARDS and it is available through Amazon in both ebook and paperback versions.

Friday, June 21, 2019

A NUANCED HUMAN NATURE


With the last posting, this writer brings forth evidence – Columbus’ account of his first voyage to the West Indies’ islands and his encounters with their inhabitants – that questions Jonah Goldberg’s view of human nature.  Goldberg’s view is that human nature disposes people to be self-centered – egoistic – and apt to pursue self-interests irrespective of others’ property or other rights. 
According to Goldberg, one must be taught to think and even feel differently.  Such a human nature leads to the establishment of governments for the sheer purpose of robbing a populace in a way that allows bandits to continuously pilfer from a victimized population.  How?  By leaving enough among the targeted people, so they can continue to create wealth, and the robbers to continue to steal.
          That is, by leaving enough, those pre-historic societies become ongoing victims of those who establish and maintain power by establishing government with the power to tax.  Here is another writer’s account of this same process:
The American economist Mancur Olson traced the origin of civilisation back to the moment when pre-historic ‘roving bandits’ realised that, instead of raiding groups of humans and moving on, they could earn more by staying put and stealing from their victims all the time.  Early humans submitted to this, because – although they lost some of their freedom when they submitted to these ‘stationary bandits’ – they gained in return stability and security.  The bandits’ interests, and the community’s interests, became aligned.  Without bandits constantly raiding them, and stealing their property, groups of humans built increasingly complex communities and economies, becoming increasingly prosperous, which led eventually to the birth of the state, to civilisation, and to everything we now take for granted.
          ‘… Roving banditry means anarchy, and [sic] replacing anarchy with government brings about a considerable increase in output,’ Olson wrote in his 2000 book Power and Prosperity.[1]
Olson’s account of the beginnings of civilizations varies significantly from that offered by Arnold J. Toynbee[2] which was described in the last posting. 
All this blog’s writer can state is that Toynbee was a historian looking at the effects natural challenges have in providing the conditions for the beginnings and subsequent health of civilizations and Olson, an economist, seems to have applied rational theory to the economic fate of the former communist bloc nations after the fall of communism.  Toynbee’s review, it is felt here, of over 20 civilizations has more explanatory power, at least, in terms of the overall factors affecting the development of civilizations.
The important point is that human nature has not been shown to be this one-dimensional factor; it is not necessarily an egoistically disposed force within people which calls on selfish, short-sighted behaviors and, therefore motivates the establishment of governments. 
It might be the case that one person has such a nature, but another does not.  It can be the case that another has a nature that is charitable and especially disposed to seek opportunities to be of service to others.  In either case, the individual, with the appropriate socialization can turn to be of one sort or another and every other possibility in between.
In addition, any disposition under the right circumstances can be motivating someone to be involved with the processes involved with building a civilization.  Therefore, in terms of considering human nature and the origins of government, one should see that it is too simple to ascribe such motivations to a desire to steal.  That conclusion has implications as to the veracity of the natural rights’ argument. 
That argument basically states:  in terms of governance, the governing class needs to give in to human nature – in its disposing power to lead one to have tunnel vision in terms of one’s self-interest – so that the trade-off is for a person to abide by the rules of the game and enhance a mutual well-being and the stability to which Olson refers.  Such a regime, that theory holds, helps establish a social landscape in which a mutual welfare can be created and maintained.
Or stated another way, it allows for the Miracle – what Goldberg calls the development of liberal democracy and capitalism – that has led to the economic explosion of the last several hundred years.  This writer acknowledges that this “explosion” occurred.  He agrees there are those who have such anti-social dispositions that leads one to wonder how natural their antagonistic behaviors are.  But he highly questions that there are not enough natural tendencies toward benevolence among a given population that actively initiates and supports public action that leads to a more federated arrangement among a citizenry.
As Thomas Reid and Francis Hutcheson, two Scottish writers of the 1700s, claimed:  being kind, benevolent to others feels good, it’s a natural high.  This, in the mind of those writers, was part of human nature and unalienable.  If this is true, public policies that address common needs – like, for example, health care – that impinges on liberal values – like mandating taxes to pay for a single-payer health care system – does not necessarily undermine the foundations of the economy or of a viable democracy.
They can, on the other hand, introduce and support the assumptions upon which a federated – as opposed to liberal – democracy is based.  This blog does not argue for a public health program.  That is not the intent here.  What it does argue is that a public health program – like Medicare for All – should be argued on its merits – is it efficient enough; is it politically viable enough; is it effective enough? – not on its threat to the Miracle. 
And by the way, a poor health care system undermines the claim that a system honors equality and that such a program threatens the Miracle as would any examination of the tenets of liberal liberty.  Addressing the extent of any social, economic, political condition that undermines the values of a federated union is legitimate given the values of such a union.  Addressing it legitimately picks up on an aim of the Constitution, to “promote the general welfare.”
With that, this blog completes its critique of Jonah Goldberg’s foundational construct.  Again, this writer highly recommends Goldberg’s book.  To the extent humans are naturally the way he describes them, his arguments are useful.  It also goes a long way in explaining the conservative mind set.  But as this posting and the last one indicate, this writer has fundamental reservations as to that writer’s take is on the origins and functions of government.



[1] Oliver Bullough, Money Land:  Why Thieves and Crooks Now Rule the World and How to Take It Back (London, England:  Profile Books, Ltd., 2018), 24.  British spelling.  For reference:  Mancur Olson, Power and Prosperity:  Outgrowing Communist and Capitalist Dictatorships (New York, NY:  Basic Books, 2000).

[2] Arnold J. Toynbee, A Study of History (New York, NY:  Dell Publishing Co. Inc., 1971). 

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