Elitism in Democracy

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Stephen Graves
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Entire Group ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Du Bois ◽  
The People ◽  
The Common ◽  
Normative Consensus ◽  
The Masses

Abstract The concept of the common good represents those resources that are good for an entire group as a whole, or what preserves what the people or inhabitants of the national community have in common. The “good” are those things that benefit the community as a whole; lead to the protection, sustainment, and improvement of the community. Theorists agree that it is the ultimate end of government; the good of all its citizens and void of special interests. Theories of the common good are discussed in this paper with implications regarding the shortcomings of democratic political institutions and structures. The theoretical framework provided by the political thought of W. E. B. Du Bois and Friedrich Nietzsche are used to critically examine the idea of the common good in contemporary democratic societies. Du Bois sought an objective truth that could dispel once and for all the irrational prejudices and ignorances that stood in the way of a just social order for African Americans. Nietzsche’s political theory was primarily concerned with disdain for democracy and the need for Aristocratic forms and social ordering. He was skeptical that with the demise of religion, it would be possible to achieve an effective normative consensus in society at large which is needed to legitimize government authority. Both theorists agree that the exceptional and great individuals are few in society and should govern in favor of the masses. Based on their example, this paper argues that both authors are suggesting an Epistocratic form of government where those with political knowledge are privileged.

Development within the limits of order, 1820–70

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Toye
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Nineteenth Century France ◽  
The Common ◽  
State List ◽  
The French Revolution

After the upheavals of the French Revolution, Enlightenment thinkers were blamed for loosening the bonds of society. In nineteenth-century France, Saint-Simon advocated a social compromise whereby scientists and artists planned the path of progress while the propertied classes retained political power albeit acting as trustees for the interests of the poor. Comte called for a scientific sociology to inform the design of political institutions. In Britain, Bentham rejected the doctrine of natural rights in favour of the principle of utility, while J. S. Mill flirted with Comte’s positivism briefly. Marx made little impact and socialism came in the guise of Fabianism and middle-class trusteeship for the poor. In Germany, Hegel interpreted the French Revolution as a phase in a moral struggle for freedom and called for freedom to be reconciled with the idea of the common good embodied in the state. List envisaged the common good as protectionist trade policy.

Rousseau's General Will: A Condorcetian Perspective

1988 ◽  
Vol 82 (2) ◽  
pp. 567-576 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernard Grofman ◽  
Scott L. Feld
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
General Will ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The People ◽  
Collective Judgment ◽  
Jury Theorem ◽  
The Common

We identify three basic elements of Rousseau's theory of the general will: (1) there is a common good; (2) citizens are not always accurate in their judgments about what is in the common good; and (3) when citizens strive to identify the common good and vote in accordance with their perceptions of it, the vote of the Assembly of the People can be taken to be the most reliable means for ascertaining the common good. We then show that Condorcet's (1785) model of collective judgment shares these assumptions with Rousseau and that understanding the implications of Condorcet's (1785) “jury theorem” enables us to clarify many of the most obscure aspects of Rousseau's treatment of the general will, including his discussion of the debilitating effects of factions and his confidence in the ability of the Assembly of the People to discern the general will by means of voting.

Reconstructing the Common Good: Theology and the Social Order. Gary J. Dorrien

1992 ◽  
Vol 72 (3) ◽  
pp. 459-460
Author(s):  
Preston N. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Common Good ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Common

A Failure of Modernization: Police Reform, The “Common Good,” and Serfdom In Eighteenth-Century Russia

2015 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 249-271
Author(s):  
Hugh D. Hudson
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Creation

For Russian subjects not locked away in their villages and thereby subject almost exclusively to landlord control, administration in the eighteenth century increasingly took the form of the police. And as part of the bureaucracy of governance, the police existed within the constructions of the social order—as part of social relations and their manifestations through political control. This article investigates the social and mental structures—the habitus—in which the actions of policing took place to provide a better appreciation of the difficulties of reform and modernization. Eighteenth-century Russia shared in the European discourse on the common good, the police, and social order. But whereas Michel Foucault and Michael Ignatieff see police development in Europe with its concern to surveil and discipline emerging from incipient capitalism and thus a product of new, post-Enlightenment social forces, the Russian example demonstrates the power of the past, of a habitus rooted in Muscovy. Despite Peter’s and especially Catherine’s well-intended efforts, Russia could not succeed in modernization, for police reforms left the enserfed part of the population subject to the whims of landlord violence, a reflection, in part, of Russia having yet to make the transition from the feudal manorial economy based on extra-economic compulsion to the capitalist hired-labor estate economy. The creation of true centralized political organization—the creation of the modern state as defined by Max Weber—would require the state’s domination over patrimonial jurisdiction and landlord control over the police. That necessitated the reforms of Alexander II.

The Spirit and the Subprime: Race, Risk, and Our Common Dispossession

2016 ◽  
Vol 98 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-69
Author(s):  
Amaryah Jones-Armstrong
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Common Good ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Alternative Conceptions ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Racial Capitalism ◽  
The People ◽  
The Common

This essay argues that Sarah Coakley's understanding of contemplation and the Spirit's dispossessive work can provide timely interruption of contemporary economic crises when read beside Willie Jennings's indictment of Christianity's imagination as the production of race. Read together, contemplation and dispossession provide useful frames for analyzing and reimagining the common good. Here, I argue that theologians and church communities can understand Coakley's and Jennings's work as confrontations with racial capitalism. In particular, I take Coakley's attention to the need for dispossession by the Spirit to correspond with black theologians’ assertions that we must turn to the dispossessed in the United States—the black and brown poor—to find where God is at work. The racialized subprime debtors who are perpetually dispossessed, failing, and criminal are the people Christian theology must align with in order to confront its relation to white supremacy. By contemplating alternative conceptions of property and ownership foregrounded by the concept of dispossession, we can begin to imagine, perceive, and practice an otherwise common good.

The Possibility of Self-Government

2000 ◽  
Vol 94 (3) ◽  
pp. 563-577 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Bird
Keyword(s):  
Social Choice ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Social Choice Theory ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cast Doubt ◽  
Intuitive Concept ◽  
The Common

Many have suggested that the findings of social choice theory demonstrate that there can be no “will of the people.” This has subversive implications for our intuitive concept of self-government. I explore the relation between the notion of a “social will,” that of self-government, and the impossibility theorems of social choice theory. I conclude that although the concept of the social will is essential to that of self-government, the findings of social choice theory do not cast doubt upon the possibility of either. Unlike many attempts to respond to the threat posed by social choice theory, my argument does not require any appeal to the problematic notion of the common good.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Nicola Miller
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Spanish America ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The People ◽  
Modern Knowledge ◽  
The Common ◽  
Political Communities

This chapter introduces the term 'republic of knowledge', which conceives of knowledge as having a reality and an organisation along the lines of a republic or series of republics. It highlights sovereign states created in Spanish America that were founded on promises of enlightenment for all the people. It also illustrates the image of knowledge as a republic that alludes to a transnational ideal based on principles of openness, free exchange, absence of privilege, and a sense of the common good. The chapter traces how the republics of knowledge in this first sense of open exchange converged and overlapped with the second sense of knowledge, which is foundational to a modern republic during the wars of independence in Spanish America. It emphasizes the embrace of modern knowledge that was a founding justification for the new political communities emerging in the Americas and a necessary condition of an inspirational future.

Self-Interest and the Common Good in Elections and Referenda

2012 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 259-286
Author(s):  
Bernd J. Hartmann
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Common Good ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The People ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The Common ◽  
Personal Interests

This article examines the standard of decision-making that applies to voters. Are they free to follow their personal interests or are they bound to make decisions most beneficial to the common good? This question is answered not only for elections,i.e., for people choosing their representatives and for parliament itself appointing officials. Furthermore, the treatise extends to other votes as well, as it covers not only referenda as the paradigmatic means of lawmaking by the people, but also parliamentarian legislation.

scholarly journals Inclusive groups can avoid the tragedy of the commons

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Arend Hintze ◽  
Jochen Staudacher ◽  
Katja Gelhar ◽  
Alexander Pothmann ◽  
Juliana Rasch ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Tragedy Of The Commons ◽  
Entire Group ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Costly Punishment ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Group Members ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Cost

AbstractThe public goods game is a famous example illustrating the tragedy of the commons (Hardin in Science 162:1243–1248, 1968). In this game cooperating individuals contribute to a pool, which in turn is distributed to all members of the group, including defectors who reap the same rewards as cooperators without having made a contribution before. The question is now, how to incentivize group members to all cooperate as it maximizes the common good. While costly punishment (Helbing et al. in New J Phys 12:083005, 2010) presents one such method, the cost of punishment still reduces the common good. The selfishness of the group members favors defectors. Here we show that including other members of the groups and sharing rewards with them can be another incentive for cooperation, avoiding the cost required for punishment. Further, we show how punishment and this form of inclusiveness interact. This work suggests that a redistribution similar to a basic income that is coupled to the economic success of the entire group could overcome the tragedy of the commons.

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