Why Political Systems fail
There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hand”…. Socrates in Plato’s ‘The Republic”.
According to Wikipedia, the first recorded civilization were the Sumerians. This society emerged along the flood plains of Tigiris and Euphrates rivers. It organised itself around the worship of its 7 gods (An, Enlil, Enki, Ninhursag, Nanna, Utu, and Inanna) and a set of priest to act as mediators between the gods and the servant men. Unlike the gods worshiped in contemporary times, these gods were mortals. They had wives, children and a cohort of about 50 elites that supported their reign. Societies ruled by gods, gave rise to monarchs, aristocrats, oligarchs, democracy and the wide variety of political system men currently use to organize their political space.
There is a reason society as we know has evolved a long way from simply creating gods and organizing politics around that. People constantly are searching for improved methods of doing things; and in this case, methods that capture the changing condition and nature of its citizens. But in that moment of transformation, we are always brought back to that reoccurring critical juncture: “when leaders were worshiped like gods, citizens wanted equality. And they found equality and use this power to search for leaders who could become their new gods”. The tendency of political systems to disintegrate has led minds to ponder: how best can we organize our societies?
Socrates was one of those minds who pondered. Around 380 BC Plato in the book“The Republic”, presents Kallipolis..a fictitious Utopian city. This fictitious city was created out of dialogues between Socrates and some prominent thinkers at that time; thinkers like Cephalus, Polemarchus, and Thrasymachus. In other to arrive at what will be relevant for this city to come about, they debated the elements required for the a truly functional state. This article takes subsequent paragraph reviews the proposed elements.
At the bedrock of a society is the argument for justice. Justice is defined in the book as “what is good for the stronger”. The strongest arm of the society has the responsibility to define what is right, wrong, and also reward and punish accordingly. The society that will thrive is one capable of applying the right mix of its citizens’ personal desires and motivation into the nature of the stronger arm of its society.
So what motivates our personal desires? Human are primarily motivated by a mix of profit, honour and the quest for knowledge. Societies, however cannot allow these urges run amok; rather they must be tamed by the right application of self-discipline, courage and most importantly, wisdom, respectively. As a society is a collection of people working together towards a common good, a variety of motivations determines what each member is best suited for. To give an example, banking and entrepreneurship thrive when these roles are filled by people motivated primarily by profit because that is the nature of these types of activities. The tame their urges with boundaries defined by self discipline and thus, are able to function for the collective good. Likewise soldiers are best filled by people motivated by honour who act courageously for the defence and glory of their nation state. For a society to stand, its stronger or better put, its leaders must realizes that the burden of moving forward rests on their shoulder. The task of leadership must appeal exclusively to people whose primary motivations is knowledge and have thus developed the wisdom to give sound judgments.
The role of the leader will be to define a narrative, broad enough to unite all its citizens and opposing factions. And this will require a good knowledge of what is culturally important to its citizens and within that context can be termed “justice”. The broad narrative should frame its citizens worldview and be a lens through which they see themselves as “a people”. Their narration would work toward uniting values systems upon which their citizens can constructively explore varied points of views from an collective and progressive standpoint. Each subsequent generation will work towards addressing challenges than limited the previous generations and each society will strive for that vision. The vision is to attain a state where all its citizen are involved in activities that reward based on their (the citizens) individual primary motivations. More importantly these activities are moving in the direction of economic success. Failure of leaders to construct this type of reality for their citizens can be termed injustice.
The primary instrument for the organization of societies is through its styles of leadership. Each style of leadership is defined by system of initiation, duration, method of leadership and most importantly, personal motivation of the leader. “The Republic” defines 5 classifications of styles of leadership. In the real world, our leaders are a mix of multiple depending on who initiated the government in power and their personal motivation. It discusses these classifications highlighting pros and cons. In its conclusion all systems can be useful depending on the society’s stage of evolution. Most styles of leadership emerges after the collapse of a previous type of government. And more often than not, this collapse is by design…this collapse is a natural consequence of the style of leadership. Based on Socrates classification, Rwanda for example is a blend of Aristocrat-Tyranny with President Paul Kagame, the United States of America has a Democratic-Tyrannic ruler with President Donald Trump, and Nigeria is ruled by a Timocractic-Tyrannic-Democratic with its President Muhammadu Buhari. But what do these titles mean?
The origins of most society arises from an uprising by its founding fathers (and mothers). In the best of scenarios, they are visionaries who created the blueprint of how the society would be. These founders (for the purpose of this classification) are it’s aristocrats in an aristocracy form of government.
As the saying goes “strong men create good times and good times create weak men” , the founding father eventually die and their successors might be unable to make equally sound judgement, and be focused on protecting their privileges, so create an oligarchy, a system to protect their privileges. The Oligarchs create a system of leadership beneficial to only the increasingly exclusive section of the society, the leaders. At this stage, the new leaders have began to dismantle the tenets that held their society together and create a different and privileged reality for themselves. For the rest of the population under a different sets of laws, it becomes increasingly difficult to make a living.
A faction of the society will arise bounded by the nostalgia of the old orders and give rise to “Timocracy” . This form of government is one in which the leaders are motivated by honour. It is usually executed by military officials. Their primary desire is a return of the society to its conservative state. Despite how noble and honour driven their intentions may be, their attempts to force the society into previous models will be unsuccessful and even begin to enable wide spread corruption. Fundamental changes in the society’s configuration will have made it impossible to return to what was; rather what is required is the society should create a sociopolitical and economic reality relevant for their situation in time.
Widespread corruption and breakdown of law and order, loss of the the “good old days” will compel usually the younger generation to challenge the status quo and demand for a fair/equitable access to power. Citizens will desire to have equal say in how they are led. They will want a democratically elected president a person able to convince the most citizens of their good intentions. As people’s freedom to choose is limited by options and especially in a post timocratic society burdened with the crisis of values, decisions will be based more on the sentimental appeal rather that proper evaluation of competence. Democracy may fundamentally transform a society but that transformation lets loose previously restrained personal desires.
Remember democracy is also a game of numbers; the person with the most vote, most appeal wins and gets to organize the society. It doesn’t take into account how competent the person might be nor how informed the citizens are. These are loopholes tyrants can capitalize and take advantages of to become the next leaders. Once in power, they go to establish their reign by quelling dissenting voices and dismantling all opposition. This is Tyranny, the most unrestrained/destructive form of government.
All countries despite their level of sociopolitical and economic successes, are always subject to that existential threat of their political arrangement. So the question is “why do Political System fail?” The problem and solution is the people. Success and failure rests on the citizens. And it is all about what they know and their point of views. Political systems are not fixtures, they must be continually re-engineered to fit the narrative of the time.
And that is why Socrates suggest that the best leaders must be philosophers. The leader would be to the people a bastion of justice and what the society should stand for .They would create an enabling environment where citizens and residents are empowered to unleash individual creativity that aligns with what is good for the society. The society will continually re-orient its citizens and residents on its values and work to erase prejudice based on social constructions.
“The Republic” is a masterpiece. Its beauty comes from how logic and common sense are applied in the construction of an Utopian society starting from its citizens primary motivations and builds up into the spectrum of political systems.
An interesting idea established in this book was “there are no absolute solutions to a country’s problem”. What a society needs is a majority of people who believe that the country is theirs and it is in their interest if it survive. And more importantly, approach this belief with courage, self discipline and the right mental tool which is wisdom.
