WHAT COMPANY IS THIS?

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Tue Jan 18 08:30:10 PST 2000


At 09:38 PM 1/14/00 -0600, John K. Taber wrote:
>Folks, we elect politicians, not saints, to represent us. If we
>wanted saints, we would need an entirely different kind of
>society.
>
>From the list of offences, and there is no reason to assume
>it is a valid list, I say that our representatives represent
>us pretty well.
>

John, this is a very simplistic view of the polity, I am afraid. It is based on a mentalist view, or a fallacy as I would like to believe, that people act according to their moral character, ideology, values, etc. that reamin relatively stable over the course of life. Hence the popular myth that if "we" just elect people with the "right" moral character and a set of values, everything will be just fine.

If you look at things from an interactionist view point, i.e. if you view consciousness (moral character, values, beliefs, ideologies) as a product of social interaction (i.e. material living conditions, class position and social roles it stipulates, the organization of society, etc.), and values ideologies etc. as ex-post facto-rationalizations of the past decisions and behaviour - the personalities, ideologies, values etc. of the people we elect do not really matter. Electing a "virtuous" politician becomes like buying a "green" chameleon - the politician's colors are likely to change in his/her new environment.


>From that point of view, elections as we have them are pretty meaningless,
except perhaps as being a participatory ritual that gives people a feeling that they symbolically "control" the polity. The real issue is to control the behavior of elected representatives *after* they take their offices, not before it. Therefore, only a system of government that has instituted a relateviely easy way of censuring and recalling officials if they do not perform to their constituents' expectations can be considered truly democratic. Without the real possibility of constituents withdrawing their mandate and punishing politicians (who are after all public *employees*) for not performing as directed there is no democracy. Thus, the US with all its electoral hoopla is not that much different from the x-USSR in that respect - in both cases the decision-makers were appointed under the nomenklatura system, and then the names given to the public for a ritualistic approval, but the public had very limited means of controling politicians' behavior after their ritualistic confirmation in the office .

wojtek



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