The economy and politics at the service of human life

I started 2022 by reading The Twilight of Democracy: The Seduction of Authoritarianism, by Anne Applebaum, from which I share the following quote:

“British Conservatives, American Republicans, Eastern European anti-Communists, German Christian Democrats and French Gaullists all come from different traditions, but as a group, they are—or at least were until recently—committed to not only with representative democracy, but also with religious tolerance, the independence of the judiciary, freedom of the press and expression, economic integration, international institutions, the transatlantic alliance and the political idea of ​​'the West'”.

And it is that Applebaum —as well as Ben Shapiro (The correct side of history), among others— confirms us about the assault of an authoritarian spirit that some societies have been adopting in what is known or was known as the "West", and that reaffirms the mistake of the concept of "end of history", coined in 1989, referring to the expected alignment of the global political and economic geography.

Why should we be interested in delving into the understanding of global, regional and local political phenomena? Because we have learned that "politics" is a reality that ultimately affects the freedom of citizens and the well-being of nations. The behavior of the global economy —for example— will depend on the global public policies that emerge from the current global institutional order, which in turn responds —among others— to the interests of the current hegemonic centers: the United States, China and the Union. European.

Nicholas Machiavelli (1469-1527) told us in The Prince (1532) the following: "How many States and how many denominations exercised and still exercise a sovereign authority over men were and are principalities and republics". Understand by principalities the monarchy. Indeed, this was the primary dichotomy that centuries later drew the milestones of the French Revolution, the independence of the United States of America and later the Spanish-American independence.

Giovanni Sartori (1924-2017) in What is democracy? (1987) illustrates:

“[…] the word democracy is coined by Herodotus, […] Athenian democracy virtually ended in the year 323 BC. C. […]. Afterwards, not only the word but also the thing disappears. For almost two thousand years there was almost no talk of 'democracy' […]. For two thousand years the optimal regime, the ideal form, has been called the res publica, republic. And saying republic is very different from saying democracy. Res publica is 'everyone's thing', while democracy was, in Aristotle, for 'a thing of one party' [...]. And if democracy alludes to the 'power of someone' (on the one hand), res publica, on the other hand, alludes to the general interest, to the common good: res publica designates, then, a political system for all in the interest of all. […] In substance, 'republic' is projected —semantically speaking— into a political system that is uniformly balanced and distributed in all its components, in a happy medium between the two extremes of the 'thing of one', on the one hand, and of the 'thing of the people', on the other”.

I therefore highlight the importance of understanding the concept of republic in the 21st century, and of identifying practical incentives to strengthen it.

It should be noted that Hamilton and Madison, the American constituents, called the representative system “republic” and direct democracy “democracy”. Sartori notes: "The Constitution of the United States was made safe from the risks of democracy." Furthermore, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) stated in The Social Contract (1762): “I call every State governed by laws a Republic […] because only in this way can the public interest govern. All legitimate government is republican. What we know today as liberal democracy has its origins (and its name) in the age of the European Enlightenment (mid-18th century to the early years of the 19th century). It is precisely in the Enlightenment —among other moments— that the principle of the subordination of politics to morality is addressed, and in this scenario, the notion that the political order must be an order of limited power.

The German jurist and political scientist Hermann Heller (1891-1933), in his work Theory of the State (1934) points out:

“The way in which state power is distributed determines its shape. This is applicable, first of all, to the two fundamental forms of the State. Democracy is a power structure built from the bottom up; autocracy organizes the state from top to bottom. In democracy, the principle of the sovereignty of the people governs: all state power comes from the people; in autocracy, the principle of sovereignty of the dominator: the head of the State gathers in himself all the power of the State”.

Complementarily, C. R. Aguilera de Prat and Rafael Martínez, in Government systems, parties and territory (2002) state:

“The classical criteria […] were based on the notions of 'State forms' and 'government forms' to highlight, in the first case, the type of interrelation between the 'elements' of the State (territory , people, power) and, in the second, the ways of articulating the institutions. The first, more general area, made it possible to establish the main distinctions between democracies and dictatorships […] as well as —secondarily— between centralized and decentralized States. The second materialized —within the Western model— in the well-known typologies of presidential, parliamentary, and managerial regimes […]. It is not that these parameters are useless for political science, on the contrary: it is still key to analyze the criteria for accessing ownership of power, the modalities of its use and the ends and objectives for which it is wanted”.

I note here the importance of understanding the nature of contemporary Leviathan and the practical consequences on the lives of citizens.

Joaquín Abellán, in Politics: fundamental political concepts (2012), warns:

“[…] the transformations of our contemporary world, especially the loss of sovereignty of the States in important areas of their activity considered until now as central, force us to reinvent or readjust our political categories, so linked to the State and the exercise of its power on a territorial basis, since the body politic is 'changing its skin' (Vallespín)”.

I affirm then that it is irresponsible to isolate ourselves only in the constructs of modern economic science and those corresponding to entrepreneurial activity and business (at global, regional and domestic levels). Recent history shows us the imperative to worry about building —at the same time— a republic at the effective service of the common good, a democracy that favors good governance and an efficient State (professional bureaucracy) for the promotion of sustained and equitable progress.

I end by referring again to Nicholas Machiavelli: “Without going back to the example of Rome, I limit myself to that of the Milanese, who, after the death of Duke Felipe Visconti, became republics and could not remain there for more than two years and medium, because of its extreme corruption." History well understood is a teacher for human life, and it can distance us from the "myth of Sisyphus", always remembering that we are finite beings.

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