Government has but a choice of evils.
– Jeremy Bentham, English philosopher
What is the right in law for government to indulge in a choice of evils even if it created such laws? Confucius theorised that “if your desire is for good, the people will be good”. Ergo, government is nothing but a necessary evil. Uncle Sam ought to build a monument for Sun Tzu when he advocated “the art of war is of vital importance to the state”.
Plato hurled another brickbat at government when he observed that “until philosophers are kings, cities will never have rest from their evils”. The ancients refused to hold a candle to government although they wrote prolifically on the subject hoping perhaps to discourage its relevance.
Aristotle remarked that government will become relevant in any society as “man is by nature a political animal”. The Indian sage Chanakya observed that “a single wheel does not move” when he saw the evolution of mass movements of organised society evidencing tribalism in cogent and definite terms. The beginning of the neighbour principle, perhaps?
The great Islamic scholar, Ibn Khadun, dubbed the father of economics, observed that “government prevents injustice, other than such as it commits itself”. This is a blinding indictment for corrupt political cultures where the lawmaker is also the lawbreaker. Some are above the law when they are capable of keeping the law at their beck and call.
Then, Machiavelli erupted onto the scene preaching that “a prudent ruler cannot, must not, honour his word”. The ends justifying the means was his main theme that attracted many politicians to his ideals. He established the incurable cancer that leaders must be feared rather than loved. His Prince became a bestseller in 16th century Europe, and in Malaysia in the 1980s where one man ruled for 22 years.
History chronicles the ebb, eddies and flow of ideologies that motivated and encouraged power-brokers and power-hungry leaders to form organised government as Machiavelli envisioned it premised upon the belief that power is a contagion for all times. Nietzsche saw it as “the inevitable will to power”.
One liberal hypocrite wrote that all men are created equal. It is hypocritically the loudest voice, if not noise, in the American Declaration of Independence after the American rebels-colonists severed ties with the England of George III. Today, every nation-state with a written constitution unabashedly and shamelessly boasts and toasts this lie to invoke the blessings of Providence.
Ideologies like “the condition of man is a condition of war” as expounded by Thomas Hobbes helped lead to the slow disintegration of kingly power only to be replaced by people power with the power in a small group of people who believed they did not need a sovereign monarch. Government, as we know it, began to emerge with the voting of people’s representatives in a chamber of lawmakers.
The essence of people wanting organised government with elected representatives well-equipped with their quiddities and oddities as leaders prompted John Stuart Mill to write that “that so few dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time”. Mental gymnastics unnecessary to rationalise this keen observation when we witness the Dewan Rakyat sessions.
What is the alternative to a no government society? Anarchy is a society being freely constituted without authorities or a governing body. It may also refer to a society or group of people that entirely rejects a set hierarchy. Anarchy was first used in English in 1539, meaning “an absence of government”. No violence or genocide happens because anarchists have developed a powerful immunity to organised government.
Ancient indigenous communities organised themselves as tribal governments dependent wholly upon lore instead of law. The conquering eurosettler called them savages because they did not evidence “organised” government under law. Thereafter the original denizens were enslaved by organised society called a nation-state with a ‘civilised’ government committed to control and instilling fear.
Simon Bolivar made a great point when he remarked that “a state too extensive in itself ultimately falls into decay”. Governments will become useless when the people can take it no longer. Spain’s anarchist CNT Union boasts more than three million members today.
So, you wake up one day and notice that government as you have known it has simply vanished. The private sector is busy as usual supplying necessities and building infrastructure as if nothing happened. You will gradually realise its import as a reality that has come for a permanent visit with no law outlawing anarchy as a way of life and peaceful co-existence.
The views expressed here are those of the columnist and do not necessarily represent the views of New Sarawak Tribune.
