i am taking these courses in Political Economy with Dr. Stergios Skaperdas, an important name in academic circles and, in my opinion, very rightfully so. Formally, in class we discuss, learn from and question existing structured models of political economy. But it is also a very free and open forum for new and fresh philosophical ideas on the subject. In gist, we have discuss concepts and issues about political structures, how and why particular systems evolve - the historical, institutional, sociological, economic climate which gave rise to what came to be and what is. Political structures across the world often appear to be mere co-incidences of the past. While that may be true in several instances, in many cases it is possible to trace a more comprehensive, logic evolutionary path (or so would economists and political scientists like to believe so as to build models to explain them).
It’s tough to summarize the gamut of ideas being discussed in these classes but there was this comment made in passing which i thought deserved some mention and attention. We were is the midst of discussing issues of democracy and modern governance as they exists today, when a student made an observation... blah blah... democracy, the best political structure… blah blah blah... so, he mentioned this very naturally accepted notion in most minds today about democracy being the best institutional structure and this was when Stergios made a comment that inspired this write-up (quoted text are not his exact words):
"Who said that democracy is the best political structure? Yes, it has been around for a few centuries. But what are a few centuries, when history is considered? Other systems like fiefdoms and kingdoms have lasted much longer. And during their existence who thought there were other forms of polities that could exist or would come to exist sometime in the future? Who can tell if the current political structure is really the ultimate equilibrium??"
This to my mind is an interesting insight. It set me thinking about all the complaints i had with the current democratic political system (which by no means is the only one that exists but, surely, is one that dominates and is unequivocally accepted as the norm to aspire toward). i, and as i understand it most others, always view the problems as that of poor implementation and execution of democratic ideologies and have an insistent passion to be able to help purge the weeds and improve THE system. [i accept that i have done nothing toward implementing that passion myself. maybe it’s the famous free-rider problem. Now that i think of it - free riding is, in my mind, one of the most natural criticisms of democratic structures involving large costs of correction. But let me not stray from the purpose of this article. i should save this particular issue for another discussion.] But these questions on the ultimate equilibrium have set me free of restricting my thoughts to mere quality control innovations for the current system. i see it as a view that most philosophers and decision-makers can use as a basis for a whole new set of ideas and innovations. i have started thinking along the lines. Have you? Will you?
Political equilibrium is not the same as economic equilibrium, IMHO.
ReplyDeleteCapitalism is rather straightforward in a way: everyone gets rewarded for the effort that they put in, so maximizing individual profit maximizes the benefit to society. You could say the interests of the individual are aligned with that of society. Market equilibrium is an indirect consequence of this system.
As for political structures, it is said that democracy is the best form of government *that we know of*. Democracy is known to be highly inefficient at setting things right, but it is the lowest common denominator of government that everyone in society can accept. If you think about it, the only thing that holds together a democratic nation is a bunch of ideals that people believe in. In a game-theoretic sense, corruption and bureaucracy yield the highest pay-offs for individuals. If it weren't for fear of majority opinion, this is the state that a democratic society would tend to (eventually leading to revolution, since corruption is not funny if you're at the receiving end). There are other factors that prevent this from happening, but my point is that an intrinsic characteristic of democracy is *not* one of these factors.
I think we can have true political equilibrium only in a distributed system of goverment, as opposed to a hierarchical one, in which each entity has control over only certain aspects of administration. This isn't likely to happen in the near future, but I think it's the closest we can get to an equilibrium.
My 2 cents.
1) i think my link to economic equilibrium may have been misleading. and even in cases of economic equilibrium: individual profit maximization equals maximized social welfare is not true. it maybe true in the most simplified models but mostly never applies to real life situations and never to politics. economists spend a lot of time and energy into studying these differences and finding mechanisms such that individual profit maximizing behavior results in the social optimal.
ReplyDelete2) yes, there is no denying that it is currently the best that we know of and the point of my write-up was just to raise a question whether what we know of is necessarily the "ultimate truth" and also remember that though you can hope the ultimate equilibrium to be socially optimal but it need not be.
3) i agree with you that corruption and bureaucracy are not intrinsic characteristics of democracy. but they are usually associated with it. democracy in all its perfections is the best we know and with all its imperfections the best we can do.