Good Government: A Perennial Need

A well-governed state is a country in which people are safe, prosperous and free. A country where people want to live.
An ill-governed state is a country where most people are poor, a country where many are at risk, a country in which people are stuck. It usually is an authoritarian state, where critical people refrain from expressing their opinions.
A failed state is a country where the economy is in shambles, a country without an effective government, a country in which people are subject to arbitrary authority and unforeseeable violence, a country where people flee from. There is lack of government, or rather many local and competing governments. Often a repressive or incompetent government has been overthrown by popular revolt.
Imprudent government and incompetent government in the end lead to rebellion and civil war. The worst evil is an endless civil war with no clear winner in sight. An evil that may be further compounded by racial or religious conflicts. Think of states like Somalia, Libya, Syria and Yemen. Think also of Venezuela, a state if not failed, at least imploding, decaying.

So our fundamental political challenges are:
Maintain well-governed states in shape. That effort never stops and is less certain than it has long been the fashion to believe. Plurality easily leads to majority and majority may lead to repression.
Introduce plurality in monopolistic states: difficult and risky.
Restore failed states: almost impossible. It requires competent benevolent dictatorship. That is rare. And it ultimately digs its own grave as it dulls civic society. The only alternative is the suspension of national sovereignty. Since the disrepute of protectorates under the League of Nations that hasn't been tried anymore.

Whatever the kind of government, leaders matter. Leaders of states are not just figureheads, even in democracies. After assassinations, important domestic and foreign policy changes do happen. Who is leading makes a difference.

One of the most successful states ever was Rome. It was successful for many centuries. Even its downfall took centuries. How came? What where the secrets of its success? In modern parlance: what were its critical success factors? We have an extensive analysis of those in The Discourses of Machiavelli, an analysis still relevant today.

Machiavelli writes that the two fundamental success factors in life, certainly in public life, are virtu and fortuna, quality and good-luck.
He sees as the critical competences for a well-ordered, a 'virtuous' republic, in order of importance, prudence, discipline and justice.

Prudence, or sound judgment and practical wisdom, is the ultimate quality. The main source of prudence is education. People who are well-educated (not the same as having been to school) appreciate prudent leaders.
Discipline is practical morality, embodied in law enforcement. The main source of discipline is, according to Machiavelli, religion, a religious mindset. Discipline is needed to make the necessary tough decisions in the face of crime, corruption, unrest, famine or war. Discipline is needed when sacrifices must be made.
The main aspect of what Machiavelli considers justice is a culture of equality before the law—Roman citizenship.
Every society has many differences in interests and in views. The most fundamental difference is between the few—rich and influential— and the many—poor and menial. In Rome, those were called the patricians and the plebeians. Today we may talk about the elite and the ordinary people. Aristocracy gives power to the first group, democracy to the second. In Rome, the patricians made for a long time sure that no one among them could grasp permanent power. Halfway, they allowed the rest of the people to have its own representation and power base. Of course, slaves were excluded, though some became citizens.

The opposite of 'virtue' is vice. What does Machiavelli see as the cardinal political sin? Corruption. Imprudence, indulgence and injustice are the three chief vices that corrupt a republic. Wide-spread greed ticks all three boxes.
The main breeding ground of injustice is inequality. Think of the many forms of discrimination, stereotyping, elitism. Without a common identity, differences easily become divisive. Pluralism is the hallmark of a well-ordered society. We may be all different, but we share being human. We are all people. The deepest political sin is to label and treat others as not fully human: as Jews, as blacks, as women, as backward, as scum, as alien. Or as profiteers on one side and loafers at the other side.

A well-ordered republic accepts, but manages its differences in interests and views. It institutes countervailing powers.
Even majorities need a countervailing power. "The winner takes all", especially with short-term views, is an unwise solution. Majorities should never suppress minorities. Successful democracies are inclusive, not exclusive, plural not singular. Inclusive societies are more stable—and more prosperous.
Authoritarian majority rule is as vulnerable as minority rule. It grows into dictatorship and suppression and so in injustice.
Rome handled the main conflict, between the rich and the poor, the patriciate and the plebs, explicitly in the tension between the senate with its consuls, and the tribunes of the plebs. Democracy was neither unleashed nor suppressed. The rich and powerful had to be as much disciplined as the poor and powerless. They had to obey the laws as well. Machiavelli gives strong historical examples of Roman discipline.
The separation of powers by Montesquieu: legislation, administration and judiciary, is another classical example of countervailing powers. Independent judges are the last defense in a democracy in which the differences between legislation and the administration have become blurred—or where the differences between public service and private companies have become blurred.
Countervailing powers prune all-too powerful players, either business monopolies or political monopolies. Paul Collier: "At the core of all successful societies are procedures for blocking the advancement of bad men." And in our enlightened age, bad women as well.
Wherever plurality is curtailed, society is stifling itself. Without countervailing powers, corruption spreads. Corruption is always and everywhere the mortal enemy of good government.

We need political competence: prudence, discipline and justice. If we have prudence and justice, we need law enforcement against corruption. But without prudence and without justice, law enforcement itself becomes the strong arm of corruption.
Good government doesn't bring heaven on earth, but is forever taking steps in the right direction. Lately, examples of the opposite direction abound.

Prudence

Machiavelli, wondering about the difference between successful and failing republics, tried to find out what were the key success factors. He found two: Virtú and Fortuna, virtue and fortune. Virtue we might call today merits and fortune we would call luck or good-luck.
Whatever our qualities, our merits, our competence, we also need good-luck to be successful. At the very least we need not to have bad-luck. Some people maintain that good-luck can be fostered, even managed. I agree, up to a point. Robert Heinlein said: One man’s magic is another man’s engineering. So what others call luck, may be the result of effort.
We never have everything in hand, though our mental attitude and mental capacity may diminish the influence of randomness and improve our chances to get lucky. All this means that the more qualities we have, the less the role of luck. What qualities do we need?

In his Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livius, Machiavelli analyses virtue. The main ingredient is prudence, also called practical wisdom, the power of common sense, practical and sound judgment.The second is discipline and the third is justice. Prudence, discipline and justice explain the phenomenal rise of Rome during several centuries. And growing imprudence, indulgence and injustice have brought its slow downfall. Interestingly, Machiavelli considers religion to be the most important determinant of discipline.

Discipline is out of fashion, self-indulgence is the fashion and so indignation with the indulgence of others: undisciplined indignation. Justice is still a powerful concept, though difficult to implement when discipline is weak and self-discipline seems almost a lost art. My guess is that indulgence is directly proportional to drug and alcohol consumption. This is not to mean that discipline and self-discipline can be increased by forcing down drugs and alcohol consumption. It is rather the other way round: more discipline and self-discipline will lead to less consumption.

But what about that key concept of Machiavelli - and for that matter Aristotle: prudence? According to the thesaurus, prudence is a quality that allows people to choose the sensible course. Prudent belongs to the same family as careful, meticulous, scrupulous, circumspect, cautious, discreet, and wary. Prudent implies the exercise of both caution and circumspection, suggesting careful management in economic and practical matters. We may subsume economic matters under practical matters. Therefore, prudence is also called practical wisdom.

Chaim Herzog, one of the pioneers of Israel, wrote about the wisdom of his father, the chief rabbi of Israel. Everybody sought him for his advice. Elsewhere he tells that his mother had to run the house and the family, because his father was no good in practical matters. What other matters are there?

A practical orientation does not conflict with an interest in the world of the mind. William James, who was more open-minded than any modern psychologist about religious, spiritual and parapsychological matters, was also the father of pragmatism. Nothing is as practical as a good theory, said Kurt Lewin, also one of my favorite authors. Which means, by the way, that impractical theories are bad theories.

Even in a supposedly practical field like management impracticality abounds. I remember reading the report of a well-known management consultancy firm. They found that the communication between the directors and between the directors and their underlings was unsatisfactory. So they proposed a 'communication development program,' that - surprise, surprise - they could offer. It seems practical, but it isn't. Communication is unsatisfactory for a reason. Or for many reasons. Maybe people were afraid of a coming merger; maybe people were afraid of each other; maybe the market or the technology had changed and they were lagging behind; maybe one of the directors was sleeping with the secretary of one of the other directors; maybe the directors were too old, too inexperienced, too stubborn or not smart enough. Maybe people belonged too different lodges or service clubs. Whatever the case, improving bad communication without finding out the reasons is as sensible as widening the doors of a shop that attracts not enough customers from the passers-by.

I think prudence always start with facing the facts, checking if these are the facts that need to be faced, if they are all the relevant facts. What are the practicalities? What is desirable, what is possible? What is the objective, what are the criteria, what are the options?

Can we teach prudence? Probably, but it won't be easy. Because imprudence is rooted in personal characteristics and limitations. People are surprisingly fact-resistant and not always solution-oriented. They even may prefer awful conditions they are used too; disasters that may strike others more than themselves; they may indulge in apocalyptic perspectives, they may be set on self-destruct.
The main condition is reality-orientation: seeing fantasies for what they are. A second condition is the ability to face uncertainty. A third condition is simply pride in good work, in right decisions, in solving problems - or better: avoid problems.

Politically, imprudence seems on the rise. It is often called populism. Poor people, they don't know what is in stock for them.