Bestowing power onto those most desirous of it is a curious gesture; it appears akin to a situation where there are many people with only one firearm among them, and giving the gun to the man keenest to lay his hands on it. He may well possess purely honourable intentions, and would only ever misuse the weapon by accident, or owing to the gravest and most innocent intellectual shortcomings, but it would likely do one good to remain suspicious.
Yet quibbling about such a situation is pointless. Philosopher kings, who grudgingly bear the albatross of ruling upon their necks, not because they want to, but precisely because they're smart enough not to want to, don't exist. And even if they did, they'd have much better things to do anyway. Where power is up for grabs, it will inevitably be snatched by the power-hungry like cakes by the fat kids.
What we can realistically hope to achieve is a modicum of control. We can't take the gun away, but we can affix a safety catch. We can transfer power from the party hierarchies to parliament and to the people. We can, and we should.
I seem to recall making a similar point rather less engagingly. It's about taking seriously the fall; why would we want to give fallible people anything like absolute unaccountable power? That's why I still puzzle over how the doctrine of the divine right of kings could get off the ground in medieval and post-medieval Europe: you'd have thought the doctrine of the fall would have restrained them ... must ask a historian friend of mine about it.
Make My Vote Count: The four power-junkies of the apocalypse:
Filed in: power, politics, democracy
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