When a politician declares that he is “ready to govern”, what does he mean by “govern”? The Oxford English Dictionary tells us that the verb “to rule” comes from a French word and first appeared in English in the 14th century. In its intransitive form it meant “to direct or control the actions and affairs of a people or place” (OEDaccessed July 2, 2024).
What we the naive The view of governing sees it as a way to please everyone, to make everyone happier. But it is not clear how individuals with different preferences, values and circumstances can all be made happier by government decisions and policies. Furthermore, how are the rulers encouraged to be benevolent angels? What we know from history shows the opposite.
The more realistic majority interest The concept of governing focuses on satisfying a majority of society’s members, presumably the group of voters whose support the rulers need most. Majoritarian democracy means that the majority is little limited by a constitution. If you belong to a minority, there is a good chance that you will be exploited by the majority, that is, you will pay (monetarily, discriminated or otherwise) for the benefits and privileges afforded to the majority. Note that non-democratic governments often have to respond to the demands of a majority or significant plurality. However, in a democratic regime, a minority citizen has a better chance of becoming part of a future majority and in turn exploiting others.
The majority view of government is questionable from both an economic and moral point of view. From a moral point of view, some individuals may become stuck in a permanent minority and never get their turn to rule and exploit others. From an economic point of view, alternating or cyclical belonging to the exploiters and the exploited may produce a net benefit on average, but the average is calculated at a lower level of welfare. The reason is that the ruling majority’s constant interference with free exchange and free social interaction in general (which is what exploitation is about) lowers the general level of prosperity.
A more sophisticated conception of government might be labeled “public good” or “contractual.” Governing then means directing part of social affairs to ensure the production of public goods (or services), goods that everyone wants, but that cannot be obtained at an “efficient” level through voluntary cooperation.
We can see the idea of a ‘social contract’ in its liberal version as an extension of the public interest approach. Governing comes down to directing or orienting social affairs according to general rules on which the members unanimously agree. Unanimous agreement on a set of rules (the ‘constitution’) means that every member of society receives a net benefit, even if specific political decisions made under the rules sometimes go against their interests. No one can be consistently exploited. The best developed form of this view is due to James Buchanan, Gordon Tullock, and the related school of constitutional political economy (see especially James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock, The Calculus of Consent, 1962; and Geoffrey Brennan and James Buchanan, The reason for rules, 1985). Many, perhaps most, liberal thinkers, from Adam Smith to Friedrich Hayek, can be understood as adherents to a related but less formalized theory in which every act of government must respect rules and institutions that meet with broad agreement (where “broad” is much more then means 50%+1).
However attractive the formal or informal contractual approach may be, is it realistic to think that submission to a government can be in the interests of virtually everyone? For Anthony de Jasay, the answer is no. Any coercive government action, and even any general rule or set of rules that are supposedly unanimous, must benefit some citizens and harm others. There is no way other than the arbitrariness of political authority to decide that the benefits accrued to some outweigh the costs borne by others (see especially De Jasay’s 1985 book The state). Governing means nothing more than benefiting some by harming others – taking money from some to transfer it to others, or granting privileges to some (for example, a tariff to protect some producers from their foreign competitors) at the expense of others ( consumers). pay higher prices). The government may produce public goods at levels that are otherwise impossible to achieve, but then becomes the place where free riders get free goods at the expense of other taxpayers (see Jasay’s Social contract, free ride1992).
De Jasay’s theory is consistent with current observations in the democratic world: a significant portion of the population hates their democratic rulers, and governing more to resolve public discontent only exacerbates it. While many aspects of his theory are debatable, I do not think the challenges it poses have been convincingly resolved.
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I asked ChatGPT: “What does ‘govern’ or ‘govern’ mean, when we say political leaders govern?” In summary, he replied that the goal of rulers is “to ensure the stability, security and well-being of their society.” But he conceded that “governing requires balancing different interests and making difficult decisions.” In other words, harming some to benefit others. I then instructed “him”: “Create a picture that illustrates the concept of government you just explained.” The picture he painted is as confused as his view of democracy.
Chat the first image of GPT after we were asked to illustrate what it means to govern, for example when we say that political leaders govern