Counterpoint by Mark Nicol – Autocracy, democracy, meritocracy

The West’s weak belly is showing. The giant is partially lamed. The heathens at our ramparts see it. One puts boot into a vulnerable, wealth laden outpost, testing for resistance. Another has patient eyes on susceptible conquests at the fringe of the Western birth-land. A third brazenly recommences development of its deadly arsenal, intent on dealing death to our strangest bedfellow, ally.

The ill laying the West wasted is not so much a recognized pathogen, but, rather, a wholly unrecognized malaise. It is the ideological framework of democracy, which has made the West weak. Yet no-one will face this, admit it.

Petulant devotees cry egalitarian democracy as the West’s strength. No. Capitalism, ruefully avaricious beast that it may be, is our strength. Quite conversely, predictably, egalitarian contract has become our Achilles heel. For it under this banner that sanctimonious idealists now say we must denounce white, Western claim of the very fort we built, and instead pay homage to every underling cult given hospice within.

Forget holding the ramparts. Let us, instead, worry about patting every 43-bean variety of sexual libertarian on the head. All of this, in the name of egalitarianism gone mad. And who are these internecine infidels, laying us all out – as lambs?

There are but three fundamental forms of political governance – autocratic, democratic, meritocratic. This scalpel analysis requires some explanation. In an Autocratic State the executive is promoted upon a supremacist premise. In a democracy the executive is promoted upon an egalitarian premise. And in a Meritocratic State the executive is promoted upon meritorious premise.

Empire, monarchy, theocracy, feudalism, fascism, and any form of instituted totalitarianism, these are all modes of governance founded upon a supremacist compact. Communism, in ideal conception, is a purer form of egalitarian political compact than democracy.

But this extremist egalitarian politics is innately unworkable, unerringly necessitates institution of totalitarian order to paradoxically enforce the communalist ideal. In conception communism invokes the ideal Egalitarian State.

In realization it invariably invokes totalitarian order.
That about covers the various modes of political governance tried, tested in the course of the human volitional enterprise, thus far. Except for Meritocracy.

In our mediaeval Western struggle, the pained desire to escape the constrictive Ancien Régime made us recognize inherent faults in the supremacist premise sustaining autocratic governance. In our modernist Western struggle, if we are to escape a more comfortable, yet more insidious and, likely, perilous constriction, we must recognize inherent faults in the egalitarian premise sustaining democratic governance.

It took five thousand years for one lone, breakaway culture to supercede expedient utilization of, and idealized supplication before the Ancient Autocratic State. But there was, only, a human moral crisis impelling the modernist revolution.

There is an existential crisis, geoecological, geomilitary, which should drive a futurist revolution. And we, in the West, certainly do not have another five thousand years to throw the political regimen and ideological tit now considerably condemning us.

What is the critical distinction between the autocratic and democratic modes of governance placed on one side of the functional ledger, the meritocratic – placed, quite distinctly, on the other? What are the workable merits of each form?
Firstly, let us flesh out the founding rational, moral premises of Meritocratic Politics, and a sketch vision, (the best I can do), for a workable physical form.

Meritocratic Politics will be founded upon the rational thinking that it is better to have the promoters of executive decision-making empowered upon merit, rather than upon undiscerning self selection or egalitarian selection. This would also seem morally fair.
In an autocratic system self-promotion raises the executive. In a democratic system it is egalitarian promotion. In a meritocratic system, the plebiscite shall be awarded individual powers of vote for the executive, based upon assessed merits.

How would this work?

There are six criteria, which should determine the weight of the individual vote: education, specifically that relevant to political intelligence; four forms of service to living health and prosperity on this planet – economic, humanitarian, ecological, aspirational; participation in the Common Forum, the base tier house of political discussion and of (limited) policy proposal.

Voters should be awarded grades of, say, 1 to 4 in each category of assessment, such that, multiplied, the range of individual voting potentials will range, say, from the minimum power of 4 to a maximum of 4,096. Voters should be able to apply for reassessment every 5 years, the equivalent of the period between elections.

The economic assessment for vote power would be determined via a Meritocratic Tax Schedule. Therein, an individual’s earnings would be taxed very heavily if the product of personal industry is deemed net-damaging to human and/or ecological health, taxed lightly for the inverse. It would be this after tax income used to determine economic contribution, such that avaricious practice will not advantage political voice.

To ensure that the meritocratic political system does not cultivate a new Supremacist State, wherein certain echelons of society become perennially disenfranchised, politically, possibly economically, this measure must be emplaced.

Any individuals, families, or groups found to be lagging in assessed volitional competency and voice must undertake intensive educational and vocational studies, subsidized by the State. It is not in the interest, of any party, for peoples to fall by the wayside. The intelligent volitional corporation cannot tolerate such two way abnegation of moral responsibility.

To avoid problems of inflexibility, the numbers utilized to award voter powers should be made adjustable, allowing for intelligent response to changing circumstances. Thus, in the current dire ecological circumstance, contribution to ecological health and education in ecological science should be weighted very heavily. But, if the ecological alarum is downgraded, the attached vote weighting should be downgraded.

It is not just the egalitarian vote franchise, as moulding structure, which generates the pervasive dysfunction of Western democratic politics today. Promoting executive candidates upon party tickets, Right, Left, Green, and religious, only ensures that political prerogatives will be unintelligently factionalized along these lines.

What we need is a political thinking reconciling the various merits and discerned disadvantages of selfish, humanitarian, environmentalist, and aspirational thinking, not habitually pitting these imperatives at odds. The party system, thus, must be outlawed, candidates required to compose a detailed synopsis of their individual values and visions when seeking executive appointment. Parliamentary monitors will ensure that MPs stick to their individual promises.

The government/opposition structure of the Westminster system also engenders useless confrontation and polarized dialogue. It must be supplanted by a system where legislation is discussed openly in the house, whereafter individual votes are tabulated, weighted exactly according to the power of electoral vote each member received.

The three houses of governance shall be the House of Representatives, comprised of members directly elected by the plebiscite and directly promoting legislation. The House of Peers, a smaller chamber, should be drawn from select academic and private enterprise representatives of materialistic, humanitarian, environmentalist, and aspirational interests.

Nominees should be selected by the House of Representatives. This house should have significant powers to place legislation before the government, limited powers to amend or veto legislation. The Common Forum, a localized chamber with all adult citizens expected to participate, should hold limited powers to put legislation before the governing house. In extraordinary circumstances the Peers and Forum combined would be empowered to veto legislation, or the government.

This tripartite composition for the houses of governance, hopefully, should deliver both top down and bottom up intelligence to the mindset of governance, whilst facilitating imperious decision making. If executive vacillation becomes a norm, a seriously empowered president might be needed.

The pros and cons of the three fundamental modes of governance?

The Autocratic system provides imperious political prerogatives, but eventually generates culture stunted in all areas of productivity beneath dictatorial and, inevitably, proscriptive obeisance.

The Democratic system, (which includes not just free election of the executive but also free enterprise and free generation of thinking), provides the opposite.

The Liberal Egalitarian State system generates enormous material and expressive productivity, whilst it concomitantly cripples imperious governance.
The Meritocratic system? It should deliver maximal productivity, material and expressive, contractual decency, plus imperious vision.

The increasing dysfunction of Western democracy will impel but a few breakaway thinkers to question the tenability, validity of that institution. It will be a mixture of old and new revolutionary tactics, which may just raise a new political standard. Beware though, the later that necessitate revolution comes, the bloodier it will be.

Erstwhile, academics holed up in Western university Social Science departments praise the virtues of Egalitarian Democracy, whilst treacherously selling out the home fort on the very same egalitarian conception. Ah, but these virtuous souls say they have no blood on their hands. There is no dirt, either, which is always a telling thing.

Confucius says: Man who spends whole day patting underlings soon have overlord kicking him. Do we not now see, in our Australian academies, that the inveigled new owners have already trained some vice-chancellors to speak with forked tongue?