Moral clarity and governance

We can only achieve representative governance through moral clarity and public engagement not indifference. When the public surrenders power to make decisions about how society is governed that power cannot be reclaim. For various reasons, the average citizen is increasingly surrendering the mandate to govern to career politicians and the wealthy elite, and he is no better for it.

Politics cannot be a spectator sport because it has a direct impact on peoples’ lives, business and the communities they live in. Indeed, politics only works for all when everyone stays engaged, participating, and demanding more of themselves and more from others.

Quality of engagement and participation are essential for effective change to take root. A high information constituency and the intentions of those in power, not political labels, influence governance quality and outcomes.

Labels do not govern, people do. Governments across the world are failing because they are run by people who do not have the best intentions for the average population, not because they are capitalist, communist, socialist, etc.

Experience has taught us that these labels stand for nothing, they have no currency of their own but are attached meanings by those in power and used to further divide and weaken the poor while the wealthy elite unite and continue, with little to no interruption, their agenda of appropriating and consolidating power and resources.

As far as labels go, in the Western and allied countries, democracy is the best governing model, we have been taught, but in the same democracy are provisions, in some countries, that allow the executive branch of government to act like a King – pardon the worst of criminals, declare executive orders often to bypass inconvenient laws getting in the way of the interests of the elite and allies. It is also largely true that the poor person does not get recognition in these pardons; it is the wealthy criminals who benefit from their closeness to power.

Recognising that the average citizen has the agency to shape governance systems and institutions to reflect public needs and interests is vital. Systemic removal of money in politics is fundamental to reducing and eventually eradicating undue lobby groups’ influence in society thereby restoring public trust in politics.

Average citizens would need to form alliances to maximise their superior numbers to project their moral values on the systems and institutions of governance. Forming these alliances will require that people ignore labels and all other instruments of division that have consistently kept the poor apart and to start proposing changes in the laws and policies of their countries as decent humans, not mere tribes, who are enduring unnecessary suffering caused by unrestrained political power in the hands of the few wealthy individuals and lobby groups. 

Choosing the path of least resistance in politics only leads to compliance and poor outcomes for the average citizen. We should be under no illusion that politics only works when people stay engaged; policies change when people challenge the status quo and create a world beyond injustice.

Years of watching the political class and their wealthy financiers write and rewrite the governance script have brought nothing but misery for the average citizen. There is never any justice in an environment where the powerful few deliberately defy interests of the many, define boundaries of engagement and dictate terms and others follow with little to no resistance.

Obeying in advance remains the most significant public weakness often exploited by the elite; it is the reason the average person is disproportionately affected by negative social, political and economic outcomes; directly or indirectly, it must never be the foundation of the average person’s interaction with the wealthy. We must be primed to obey only those rules and regulations that we jointly construct and to push back at every imposition from the wealthy elite.

Giving a blank cheque of respect to the presumed wisdom of the wealthy elite is dangerous for society because it sacrifices accountability. We will not give the rich the benefit of doubt; to trust that wealthy people will, without being forced to, abandon greed and the related ideological posturing of profit maximisation and cost cutting, and start drawing from the newly found depths of moral reserve and feel compelled to act in the best interest of justice for all, willingly invest in systems that serve society equally is a fairytale that denies poor communities control over how they are governed.

Concentrated power and wealth in the few are a policy choice; they are neither natural nor inevitable. To achieve justice, the average person must contest for every inch of existing and future governance spaces and build a system that serves the many, not the powerful few. If we accept that the wealthy know their interests, the average citizen must be trusted to know exactly what not being in power is like.