Sunday, July 23, 2006
Bush Doctrine - My take
Today the world is terribly divided over the so-called "Bush Doctrine" and as a world citizen I too have a take on it.
The Doctrine, put roughly, says : "An entity has the right to strike pre-emptively on any source which it deems to be a threat to itself". It is the old self-defense argument cloaked in a new garb. If you know that your adversary will kill you, you have a right to kill him first, in self-defense. The Bush doctrine is taking this simple logic and stretching it. But what decide that the threat is "reasonable" enough?
Lets look at a scenario : You are rational, mature and educated individual. You value your life dearly and want to live peacefully without hurting anybody (lets say people like us). Suppose another person (lets call him the 'mad man') does not value his life that much. He is willing to kill and die for real and imagined causes. He thinks that you have wronged him in some manner and hence he should kill you. He does NOT share the same values of tolerance, fairplay and dignity of life. He is out to kill you regardless. No rational logic will appeal to him. So what do you do with this kind of individual/entity, this mad-man ? Today he does not have the means to kill you ; however there is a possibility, however remote, that in the future, he can attain the capability to kill you.
Do you kill him pre-emptively today or do you wait till he has acquired the means to kill you, leading to mutual destruction. Since, you do not wish to die you follow the 'survival instinct' and kill him first, when you have the opportunity ?
However, International Law is contrary to this survival logic. It states that till you are "attacked" by an entity, you do not have the right to retaliate. It is based on the assumption that all countries share the idea of tolerance, fair-play and dignity of human life.
Frankly, some of them don't. It is a beautiful law when applied in an ideal world. However, we do not live in an ideal world. But the relevance of International Law also cannot be denied as without this semblance of order, the world will become a chaotic place. It will be in effect declaring that 'might is right' and the law of the jungle prevails.
Every country may have it's own set of relative values and principles. But there are some "absolutes" in our Global village (tolerance, non-agression, fair-play, etc.) that are, and should be, non-negotiable.
"Does a country have the right to affect a regime change in another country ?" Personally, I believe that if any country is DIGRESSING from the absolutes, then the answer has to be 'YES'. The only question is what parameters does one use for checking this digression and its potential magnitude?
Some people oppose war because a huge number of innocents will also be killed in the ensuing conflict . They should understand that in any war there are casualties. The innocent do die. Wars are fought on 'ideas' and sometimes should not be shied away from only because of the possible casualities.
Someone in the world has to do something about regimes that pose a threat to world peace and to the ideals that we hold onto so dearly. If the mad-man needs to be put out by force, then so be it, for he is not going to have a change of heart.
The "absolutes" need to be protected, even at the cost of an armed conflict.
The Doctrine, put roughly, says : "An entity has the right to strike pre-emptively on any source which it deems to be a threat to itself". It is the old self-defense argument cloaked in a new garb. If you know that your adversary will kill you, you have a right to kill him first, in self-defense. The Bush doctrine is taking this simple logic and stretching it. But what decide that the threat is "reasonable" enough?
Lets look at a scenario : You are rational, mature and educated individual. You value your life dearly and want to live peacefully without hurting anybody (lets say people like us). Suppose another person (lets call him the 'mad man') does not value his life that much. He is willing to kill and die for real and imagined causes. He thinks that you have wronged him in some manner and hence he should kill you. He does NOT share the same values of tolerance, fairplay and dignity of life. He is out to kill you regardless. No rational logic will appeal to him. So what do you do with this kind of individual/entity, this mad-man ? Today he does not have the means to kill you ; however there is a possibility, however remote, that in the future, he can attain the capability to kill you.
Do you kill him pre-emptively today or do you wait till he has acquired the means to kill you, leading to mutual destruction. Since, you do not wish to die you follow the 'survival instinct' and kill him first, when you have the opportunity ?
However, International Law is contrary to this survival logic. It states that till you are "attacked" by an entity, you do not have the right to retaliate. It is based on the assumption that all countries share the idea of tolerance, fair-play and dignity of human life.
Frankly, some of them don't. It is a beautiful law when applied in an ideal world. However, we do not live in an ideal world. But the relevance of International Law also cannot be denied as without this semblance of order, the world will become a chaotic place. It will be in effect declaring that 'might is right' and the law of the jungle prevails.
Every country may have it's own set of relative values and principles. But there are some "absolutes" in our Global village (tolerance, non-agression, fair-play, etc.) that are, and should be, non-negotiable.
"Does a country have the right to affect a regime change in another country ?" Personally, I believe that if any country is DIGRESSING from the absolutes, then the answer has to be 'YES'. The only question is what parameters does one use for checking this digression and its potential magnitude?
Some people oppose war because a huge number of innocents will also be killed in the ensuing conflict . They should understand that in any war there are casualties. The innocent do die. Wars are fought on 'ideas' and sometimes should not be shied away from only because of the possible casualities.
Someone in the world has to do something about regimes that pose a threat to world peace and to the ideals that we hold onto so dearly. If the mad-man needs to be put out by force, then so be it, for he is not going to have a change of heart.
The "absolutes" need to be protected, even at the cost of an armed conflict.
Sunday, July 16, 2006
Democracy vs Majority-ism
Though democracy is one of the most evolved forms of government, I think it still faces a fundamental problem. The assumption of the ‘equality of vote’ for everybody. The premise that each person’s vote is as valid as the other’s regardless of the person’s profile. And everybody's vote contributes 'equally' to arrive at a collective decision.
At the onset, it may seem like a counter-intuitive idea. How can ‘equality of vote’ be a bad thing ? After all, everybody will agree that ‘equality, liberty, fraternity’ is the cornerstone philosophy of the modern world. And democracy is the final embodiment of political modernism.
The essential premise of democracy is that governments get elected on the number of the votes they can garner. Democracy pre-supposes that a vast mass of people will necessarily take the best collective decision of who governs them. This, precisely, is the fallacy. Democracy does not account for :
1. The ignorance of a general mass of people in an increasingly complex world.
2. The particular local agendas of a group, especially in a fragmented society.
3. And their strength in numbers. (A decision does not become right/wise because more people support it.)
Essentially, it does not allow for the best solution, but the most popular one. Democracy dangerously mutates into ‘majority-ism'.
Let's consider this demographically. Any population group with traditionally higher birth-rates is at an inherent long-term advantage in a democracy by the sheer strength of numbers. An example is the US, where both the east and west coasts are ‘blue’ democratic states bordering a hinterland of ‘red’ republican states. The liberal educated democratic families are likely to produce lesser children in the long run and their eventual influence will decline due to the democratic principle of ‘equality of the vote’. The ‘red’, bible-belt families with their conventional opposition to abortion will eventually produce more kids –magnifying their voting power and influence. Due to American hegemony, a few conservative American states will eventually end up influencing world history.
Lets consider another example, of India. The sheer voting numbers of the historically persecuted scheduled castes/tribes ensure that no mainstream political party will ever oppose reservations/"affirmative action" in education. Even in the recent debate, not a single mainstream party dared to criticize this move. Why ? The flawed democratic principle of ‘equality of the vote’. Since a particular sizeable segment of the electorate benefits, no political party opposes the move, though in the long run India loses economic competitiveness (due to unavailability of educated manpower).
The problem is much more acute in heterogeneous societies where every social group wants to increase it’s own influence. In such a case people often cannot see beyond their own parochial/regional/communal agendas. In the end, the national agenda gets defeated by the sheer numbers.
Lets take the example of any country which is trying to embrace globalization. Such a structural transition will involve a lot of short-term pain for people (loss of subsidies, competition from imports etc.), however, leading to long-term gains. In such a scenario it is expedient for a political party in the country to blur the debate and win elections on a populist platform. Also, today with the world becoming so complex, to explain to the common folk how this short-term pain is eventually beneficial to them is extremely difficult. Frankly, as a normal voter I don’t really care about globalization till it fundamentally affects me. So in such a case, democracy actually allows a less-than-optimum decision to be taken, which often hurts the country in the long run and makes the pain of globalization more acute than it actually is.
What fundamentally happens is that at the end of the day, societies take less-than-optimal decisions owing to the ‘equality-of-vote’ paradigm.
To have a view that ‘all votes (voters) are not equal’ is to actually say that you do not believe in human equality*. You are a fanatic. The concept of human equality is a holy cow among the enlightened us, and on a sub-conscious level we all want to be seen as ‘modernists’. Everybody will shy away from even thinking about criteria-based voting rights (say based on tax contribution). Mind you, this was precisely the case less than 100 years ago.
Only the tax payers could vote in Britain and half the population (women) were given the franchise in 1923. So the idea at face value may be an anathema, however not everybody was allowed to vote less than 100 years ago.
There are two things which keep democracy going :-
1. Firstly, as we have seen there is no real alternative to democracy. This is the only system which the least of all the other evils – dictatorship, communism etc.
2. Secondly, democracy does a great job of keeping societies together as everybody assumes that they have a say in things. However, whether it's the most optimal decision or not is highly questionable.
It's about time we had the courage to think about how to prevent democracy from degenerating into ‘majorityi-sm’, and to accept that it is possible to improve democracy only if we are willing to let go of our holy-cow, the fabled "vote equality".
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*(Also, it's dangerously reminiscent of the famous Orwellian phrase ‘some people are more equal than others')
At the onset, it may seem like a counter-intuitive idea. How can ‘equality of vote’ be a bad thing ? After all, everybody will agree that ‘equality, liberty, fraternity’ is the cornerstone philosophy of the modern world. And democracy is the final embodiment of political modernism.
The essential premise of democracy is that governments get elected on the number of the votes they can garner. Democracy pre-supposes that a vast mass of people will necessarily take the best collective decision of who governs them. This, precisely, is the fallacy. Democracy does not account for :
1. The ignorance of a general mass of people in an increasingly complex world.
2. The particular local agendas of a group, especially in a fragmented society.
3. And their strength in numbers. (A decision does not become right/wise because more people support it.)
Essentially, it does not allow for the best solution, but the most popular one. Democracy dangerously mutates into ‘majority-ism'.
Let's consider this demographically. Any population group with traditionally higher birth-rates is at an inherent long-term advantage in a democracy by the sheer strength of numbers. An example is the US, where both the east and west coasts are ‘blue’ democratic states bordering a hinterland of ‘red’ republican states. The liberal educated democratic families are likely to produce lesser children in the long run and their eventual influence will decline due to the democratic principle of ‘equality of the vote’. The ‘red’, bible-belt families with their conventional opposition to abortion will eventually produce more kids –magnifying their voting power and influence. Due to American hegemony, a few conservative American states will eventually end up influencing world history.
Lets consider another example, of India. The sheer voting numbers of the historically persecuted scheduled castes/tribes ensure that no mainstream political party will ever oppose reservations/"affirmative action" in education. Even in the recent debate, not a single mainstream party dared to criticize this move. Why ? The flawed democratic principle of ‘equality of the vote’. Since a particular sizeable segment of the electorate benefits, no political party opposes the move, though in the long run India loses economic competitiveness (due to unavailability of educated manpower).
The problem is much more acute in heterogeneous societies where every social group wants to increase it’s own influence. In such a case people often cannot see beyond their own parochial/regional/communal agendas. In the end, the national agenda gets defeated by the sheer numbers.
Lets take the example of any country which is trying to embrace globalization. Such a structural transition will involve a lot of short-term pain for people (loss of subsidies, competition from imports etc.), however, leading to long-term gains. In such a scenario it is expedient for a political party in the country to blur the debate and win elections on a populist platform. Also, today with the world becoming so complex, to explain to the common folk how this short-term pain is eventually beneficial to them is extremely difficult. Frankly, as a normal voter I don’t really care about globalization till it fundamentally affects me. So in such a case, democracy actually allows a less-than-optimum decision to be taken, which often hurts the country in the long run and makes the pain of globalization more acute than it actually is.
What fundamentally happens is that at the end of the day, societies take less-than-optimal decisions owing to the ‘equality-of-vote’ paradigm.
To have a view that ‘all votes (voters) are not equal’ is to actually say that you do not believe in human equality*. You are a fanatic. The concept of human equality is a holy cow among the enlightened us, and on a sub-conscious level we all want to be seen as ‘modernists’. Everybody will shy away from even thinking about criteria-based voting rights (say based on tax contribution). Mind you, this was precisely the case less than 100 years ago.
Only the tax payers could vote in Britain and half the population (women) were given the franchise in 1923. So the idea at face value may be an anathema, however not everybody was allowed to vote less than 100 years ago.
There are two things which keep democracy going :-
1. Firstly, as we have seen there is no real alternative to democracy. This is the only system which the least of all the other evils – dictatorship, communism etc.
2. Secondly, democracy does a great job of keeping societies together as everybody assumes that they have a say in things. However, whether it's the most optimal decision or not is highly questionable.
It's about time we had the courage to think about how to prevent democracy from degenerating into ‘majorityi-sm’, and to accept that it is possible to improve democracy only if we are willing to let go of our holy-cow, the fabled "vote equality".
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*(Also, it's dangerously reminiscent of the famous Orwellian phrase ‘some people are more equal than others')
