There is an idea that popped into my head a few years ago that I’ve only seen more & more support for in the world around me.
The greater the capacity for good, the greater the capacity for bad.
Power is not good or bad, power is amoral. What determines its morality is the person wielding that power. The other side to that idea is the one I’m trying to explain: The more power you give to someone to do good, the more bad they can do with it.
I’m sure there is a more elegant way to say it, but that’s how I understand it. Since governments and laws are how the vast majority of us interact with power on a daily basis, I find it easiest to explain this idea with some examples of governments.
Example 1: The governance of the people by a person
A monarch who has complete sovereign power among his people can do untold amounts of good if he so chose to. Imagine what an a king or queen could do to help their subjects if no one could tell them “no”. Disaster relief? Tax cuts? Ending wars? Absolutely no red tape, no voting, nothing to slow down the implementation of good policies that help the people. The ideal of “A Good King” is one that has floated around since as long as there have been kings.
Think of the story of Richard the Lionheart. Not the real one, the one from Robin Hood. The Good King is good to the people, honest, and everyone flourishes. He goes away for one reason or another and is replaced by a Bad King. Bad King is bad to the people and all suffer. Robin Hood fights for the people and helps replace Bad King with Good King, and the Kingdom is happy once more! The end!
Except that this is real life, not a fairy tale. While someone of exceedingly strong character and empathy with absolute, unquestionable authority would indeed make life for those under his rule better (or at least try), most people do not have such a drive to help others. The issue is when someone of poor moral character ascends to the throne. No red tape? No voting? No binding laws but the ones you create? No one to tell you “no”? The vast amount of good that can be done from that position is evenly matched by the amount of bad that can be done from that position.
What happened in real life is usually a long line of guys who are ill-suited for the job and make a mess of things, being replaced by others who are usually just as bad. Every now and then you get someone who is actually good at running things, but they eventually die, and things go downhill again. You can tell that this style of governance isn’t great as it has been almost completely wiped out in the modern world, for obvious reasons.
Example 2: A governance of the people by people.
AKA: pure democracy. Ancient Athens is generally accepted to be the first place this was tried at a city-state level. The idea here is that no one man can unilaterally make decisions without consent of at least half of the people around him. No matter what was to be done, it needed to pass a vote. A much better system, to be sure, but not one that can’t be improved.
The main drawback with such a system is the fact that the majority vote has absolute power. It’s the same potential as a monarch, but much more difficult to wield. A person can convince others to follow his/her idea if they are good enough at rhetoric, and in effect wield that monarchical power themselves. The people do need re-convincing for each action, but that’s about it.
For an example of why this style of government isn’t great, look no further than Socrates. The people were convinced that he was ‘corrupting the youth’ and a simple majority voted him to death. The crime he was actually killed for? Questioning if pure democracy produces the best policies. I think we found his answer.
That’s All For Now
Thanks for reading this far. This quickly became a bit much for a single post on my blog, so I decided to break it up into another series. I’ll try to make it about more than just types of governments, but it’s just easy to visualize when I do.
Stay smart. I’ll see you next Friday. -S_S
Pro-Gun Millennial 
I can’t remember the first place I heard it, but I’ve always liked the maxim, “A government with the power to give you anything you want also has the power to take away everything you have.”
It seems fitting for this circumstance. Power is power and cuts both ways, for good or ill. The more it accumulates in the hands of a few, or gets wielded by masses of the uninformed, the harder things will get.
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