Governmental Systems - form and function

Graduate Thinker Joined: Oct 24, 2005 Posts: 593

There are two aspects to the governmental system question in my opinion. They are "form" and "function". One question is how to arrange the government, and the other is how much the government does. All the debates about libertarianism or socialism are function questions

Democracy, oh sacred democracy, is nothing more than a form of government. Government form can be summed up in very few forms of government, depending on how many people rule and how they acquire the office.

Based on how many people rule, the spectrum ranges from one to all. It can be summed up in five basic systems: Monarchy, Oligarchy, Republic, Democracy, Anarchy (specialized usage here). When the full powers of the government are vested in one person, be it an elected dictator, an inherited throne, or (invader Zim) just being tallest, you have what is essentially a monarchic system. On the other end of the spectrum, when everyone has the full powers of the government, you essentially have no government. This doesn't mean chaos, it means exactly what I described.

Any of those five forms can have a variety of functions. For instance, you could have a dictator of one, or an Athenian Democracy (of the type that martyred Socrates - also known as "mob rule"). On the other hand, you could have a monarch with very few powers or a strictly constitutionally limited government.

Most debates about government are function debates: should the government do "x", should the government have the power to do "y". People often conflate form and function, such as Bush's distressing belief that democracy and freedom are synonymous.

Posted: Wed Jan 10, 2007 7:58 am

Speaking of forms... the form of this post makes it kinda hard to start a discussion.
It's pretty interesting, yeah, but there's not much to argue about.

Graduate Thinker Joined: Oct 24, 2005 Posts: 593

Ok, you want controversy.

First, function. Function embraces both economics and civil matters, much like the Nolan Chart.

Now form. Some, like the Friesean Institute, consider the ability to participate, a key aspect of the form argument going so far as to call it "Positive Liberty." They consider the two different axes of the Nolan Chart to both be "Negative Liberty", the ability to say "leave me alone" in either civil or economic matters.

Some, like sjc, have no use for any aspect of negative liberty. Others, like myself, consider negative liberty to be most important. A question I used to ask on usenet (and never got an answer) is in the instance in which negative and positive liberty are in conflict, which trumps the other. Socialists always recourse to "the people chose" (although they are quick to ignore the will of the people if the people choose negative liberty), while libertarians say "screw votes, liberty is paramount."

That a controversial enough start?


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