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Vol. 62, No. 5 — Sept./Oct. 1981 —
In Defence
of Politics
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Politics is the lifeblood of a
free society. Yet many people regard this vital activity with
a mixture of apathy and scorn. It is time to stop sniping
at politicians and to take up the responsibilities of citizenship.
Democracy makes politicians of us all...
It was Jonathan Swift, a man of God as well as a man of
letters, who pointed out that Lucifer was a politician. The
Devil had been viceroy of a western province of heaven before
inciting the attempted putsch that precipitated his
fall. Thus hell was created, and Satan and his followers began
their endless mischief among mortals. Politicians have had
a reputation for unreliability ever since.
According to Swift, it did not take them long to surpass
their model. "Although the Devil be the father of lies," he
wrote, "he seems, like all great inventors, to have lost much
of his reputation by the continental improvements that have
been made upon him." Swift then went on to consider what he
called "The Art of Political Lying." A political lie, he marvelled,
can "make a saint of an atheist, and a patriot of a profligate;
can furnish foreign ministers with intelligence, and raise
or let fall the credit of a nation." A political lie can conquer
kingdoms without a battle; it can change black to white.
The good Dean was indulging in a sport that has flourished
from his day to ours, namely making fun of politicians. It
is usually a harmless enough pastime, though it has proved
perilous in certain circumstances; men have been known to
lose their heads for the sake of a political quip. In modern
democratic nations, however, a good political joke is always
welcome. The Abscam scandal in the United States lately has
lent new life to this age-old art form, giving rise to such
one-liners as, "This country's got the best politicians money
can buy."
One of history's wittiest political observers was the magnificent
American journalist H. L. Mencken. "The saddest life is that
of a political aspirant under democracy. His failure is ignominious
and his success is disgraceful," he wrote. Mencken maintained
that public opinion in the U.S. during the 1920s had been
led disastrously astray by a single pervasive false assumption
- "that politicians are divided into two classes, and that
one of these classes is made up of good ones... A good politician,
under democracy, is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar."
Mencken was a master at using outrageous overstatements
to illuminate valid points, the point in this case being that
politicians are a necessary evil. "All of us have been trained,
from infancy, in putting up with necessary evils, plainly
recognized as evils," he wrote, urging that the same
clearheaded recognition be applied to politics. Otherwise,
"the danger is that the hopeless voter, forever victimized
by his false assumption about politicians, may in the end
gather such furious indignation that he will abolish them...
in one insane swoop, and so cause government by the people,
for the people and with the people to perish from the earth."
The interesting thing here is that, in attacking democratic
politicians, Mencken is actually rushing to the defence of
democratic politics. He is talking about a good system that
has been placed in jeopardy by no-good men. Stripped of its
hyperbole, his is a simple plea for political realism. If
you expect nothing from politicians, they can never let you
down.
Thomas Carlyle delivered a similar message when he remarked
that democracy "means despairing of finding Heroes to govern
you, and [being] contented with the lack of them." If, now
and then, a political hero happens along, so much the better
- but voters can spare themselves and the democratic system
the wrenching pangs of disillusionment if they act on the
assumption that all politicians have feet of clay.
This means that voters should not take what politicians
say too literally, especially when they are running for office.
It is, after all, unlikely that any human being is as able,
wise and honourable as a politician bidding for their favour
purports to be. Nor could his opponents be quite as deficient
in ability, intelligence and scruples as he says they are.
A certain bending and twisting of reality is a necessary feature
of the political ritual, a ritual most of us wholeheartedly
enjoy as a form of entertainment. There is no serious harm
in this as long as it is recognized for the fantasy it is.
It is when politicians start believing their own fantasies
that they give cause for worry. This is apt to happen when
they gain access to the enthralling trappings of office -
the prestige, the authority, the perquisites, the chance to
go down in history, the ability to name things after themselves
and their own kind. In his "Book of Fallacies," the English
political thinker Jeremy Bentham warned against the common
pretence that an attack on the ruling party is an attack on
virtue and the nation incarnate. History shows that when the
notion spreads that a certain body of politicians has a monopoly
on all that is good, holy and patriotic, it leads to megalomania,
and megalomania leads to abuses of power.
In theory, democratic politicians should not be able to
abuse their power, considering the checks, balances, and public
scrutiny built into the system. In practice, this has not
proved difficult to do - even, as in the case of Senator Joseph
McCarthy, while the public looks on. The opportunities for
abuse are ample and varied. A dictatorial leader may fill
his inner circle with hangers-on who will do anything to keep
him in power. Through graft and patronage, political parties
or segments thereof can be transformed into "machines" operated
by Tammany Hall-style bosses who exercise the power behind
the throne to their own advantage. Wealthy interest groups
may buy politicians, and so buy the policies they want.
The best advertising for the system
comes from dictators
The system is corruptible, but not intrinsically corrupt.
It contains the seeds of its own renewal, rather than of its
destruction, as its enemies theorize. The same political parties
that can be taken over by tyrants and crooks can also send
these individuals packing, and have frequently done so. Time
seems to work in favour of the majority of politicians who
are concerned with the public well-being. For all its vulnerability,
a political party is a basically sound institution. On the
national and (in Canada), provincial levels, the party is
where democracy begins.
The kind of parties that have grown up here are coalitions
of regional, economic and ideological interests. These parties-within-parties
vie with one another for influence over the general party
policy. That policy is a synthesis of the internal competing
interests, filtered through the judgment of the party leadership.
The most arbitrary leaders must take close account of the
disparate views within their parties. If they ignore too many
of them too often, they may find themselves out of jobs.
Once the policy has been formulated, the party's elected
members in parliament or the provincial assemblies are expected
to support it, along with the policies made extemporaneously
by the leadership and party caucus. The argument is frequently
put that this makes eunuchs of individual members; but the
alternative would be to make a eunuch of parliament. If every
member were free to make his or her own individual policy,
it would be a Tower of Babel in which little worthwhile could
ever be accomplished. Much the same would be true if there
were a multiplicity of small parties, each pursuing its own
particular interest. The Fourth Republic of France, which
saw 24 governments between 1946 and 1958, is a case in point.
"Party divisions, whether on the whole operating for good
or evil, are things inseparable from free government," Edmund
Burke wrote. This is evident wherever governments are not
free. Dictators have always provided the best advertisements
for the party system through the fear they show of it. "We
abhor political parties. We are against political parties.
We have none," General Francisco Franco of Spain once said.
The aim: "The greatest good of the
greatest number"
Some critics charge that a system that incorporates no more
than three major parties produces politics that are more in
the interests of the parties than of the people. And so it
often seems. "Damn your principles! Stick to your party!"
Benjamin Disraeli is quoted as telling a recalcitrant M.P.
In Disraeli's novel Coningsby, however, we get an idea
of why he held this seemingly wrong-headed attitude. The young
hero of the book declines to stand for parliament as a Tory
candidate because he believes that members should be able
to cross party lines to secure the common bond between property
and labour. But he later becomes convinced that, by working
within the party, he can best support his ideals.
Compromises are in fact made both within and among the parties
that have the same effect as non-partisan agreements. Parliamentary
debate can and does change legislation for the better, while
tough bargaining over opposition-sponsored amendments has
improved many a government bill.
An effective opposition - effective tactically, though it
may be weak numerically - is essential to good government.
If nothing else, it tends to keep the ruling party on the
straight and narrow. "Given a government with a big surplus,
a big majority, and a weak opposition, you could debauch a
committee of archangels," Sir John A. Macdonald averred.
Though it is a human institution reflecting all the imperfections
of the human race, a parliamentary system made up of competing
parties is well-designed to meet Jeremy Bentham's primary
aim of government: "The greatest good of the greatest number."
Yet when we look around us today, we see the system being
treated with either unconscious or open disdain. This is manifest
in the trend in recent years to launch political action outside
the established process, by demonstrations, boycotts, illegal
strikes, and outright terrorism. It is a product of the "instant
age" - an age of instant food, instant entertainment, instant
gratification of all manner of desires. The battle cry of
the times is: "We want action now!"
Despite the anarchic complexion of such campaigns, their
real thrust is to put pressure on the political system to
do whatever a particular group wants of it. When successful,
they have the effect of scrambling the priorities within the
system: the most strident demanders may be appeased, but only
at the expense of some quieter group that has been waiting
its turn for its share of legislative attention and of the
resources at hand.
"Power to the people" through working
at
the grass roots
Political action within the system may come slower, but
it is surer and fairer to all sections of the society. It
would be more democratic for activists to take their causes
to the grass roots level of party politics, which extends
"power to the people" in an orderly fashion. It would not,
admittedly, be as exciting or as much fun as shouting slogans
and waving placards. The democratic process demands patience,
tolerance, and realism from those who participate in it. Democracy
is hard work.
Another manifestation of the scorn for the system comes
in the form of a reflexive and general contempt for politicians.
Mencken was quite right that people should have no illusions
about them. To Bentham, democratic government was a trust,
and "in every public trust the legislator should, for the
purpose of prevention, suppose the trustee disposed to break
the trust in every imaginable way in which it would be possible
for him to reap from it any personal advantage." But taking
every precaution to ensure that public business is conducted
honestly and competently is a different thing from calling
down a plague on the houses of all politicians. There may
be crooks and fakes and bunglers among them, as there are
in all walks of life, but that is no reason to treat them
all as pariahs. The fact is that the great majority of them
are sincerely public-spirited individuals doing a difficult
and demanding job on our behalf.
"Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be president,
but they don't want them to become politicians in the process,"
John F. Kennedy observed wryly. The snobbish disinclination
of some of the best and brightest minds to lower themselves
to the expediencies of politics doubtless has cost us dearly.
Senator Sam Ervin, chairman of the committee that investigated
the greatest political scandal of our age, the Watergate affair,
had this to say on the subject: "If men and women of capacity
refuse to take part in politics and government, they condemn
themselves, as well as the people, to bad government."
Where the responsibility lies for making
democracy work
Too many of us limit our participation in public affairs
to standing back and sniping at politicians from a safe distance.
This practice is more popular in bad times than in good. One
role the public has always been glad to relinquish to politicians
is that of scapegoats for society's troubles. To a certain
degree, politicians bring this on themselves. When things
are going well, they take credit for making the sun shine.
They must therefore expect to come in for some irrational
reproach for making it rain.
Still, as Walter Lippmann put it, "It will not do to think
poorly of the politicians and to talk with bated breath of
the voters." Many of the problems with which our elected representatives
must grapple - inflation, for example - have been mainly caused
by the behaviour of the society at large. We have fallen into
the lazy habit of passing on all our failings to the politicians,
and then of blaming them when they are powerless to correct
them without our co-operation. Much of the current public
disillusionment with the political process is a result of
asking too much of it - and of expecting it to do things for
us which we ought to be doing for ourselves.
The political philosophers of ancient Rome framed the theory
that democracy is based on an unwritten contract between the
state and the citizen. The state undertakes to guarantee the
citizen's rights; in return, the citizen undertakes to share
in the responsibility for the nation's civil order, prosperity,
and defence. It is no mere theory - it is an historical fact
- that when citizens abdicate their responsibilities, they
place their rights in danger. The vacuum created by their
abandonment is filled either by authoritarianism or mob rule,
or a dangerous combination of both.
When such a social breakdown occurs, it is usually because
the people concerned have failed to build a system that demonstrably
strives for "the greatest good of the greatest number." Or,
if they have built it, they have failed to keep it in good
repair. The only known medium for making democracy work is
that much-maligned activity, politics. "Politics!" exclaimed
the great Canadian editor Grattan O'Leary. "That is our way
of life. That is its foundation, its base."
In O'Leary's words, "We must get our young people, above
all, to realize that they have an individual responsibility
for what goes on in their country, in their community. If
we can achieve that much, and then try to select the best
brains to represent us in our legislatures, our parliament,
and give them a decent chance to carry on the government of
the country, I think our democracy can be made to work. I
don't think it can be demonstrated that good government can
come in any country unless it comes from the people themselves,
from the people realizing that they have a responsibility."
As we complain about the ineffectiveness of our political
system, as we sneer at politicians and at the same time ask
them for more, as we kick and scream for our special interests
and ignore the interests of others, how many of us are living
up to that responsibility today?
Published by RBC Financial Group. All editions from the RBC
Letter collection are available on our web site at www.rbc.com/responsibility/letter.
Our e-mail address is: rbcletter@rbc.com.
Publié aussi en francais.
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