Egalitarian National Governance : FOR GLOBAL SUSTAINABILITY

The concern about unsustainable practices in managing the resources of the earth has been a constantly recurring theme at global conferences ever since the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment at Stockholm in 1972. The Summit on Environment and Development held in 1992 at Rio de Janeiro led to an international consensus on the need for sustainable development. A key recommendation of the Summit stressed the importance of people’s participation in the management of natural resources. Another suggested the setting up of multi-stakeholder councils in every nation-state for resolution of conflicts.

These issues have since been deliberated upon in many international forums and in consultations organised by institutions such as the Earth Council. Inevitably, most such discussions touch on the fundamental questions of the political, economic and ethical basis of development and on the role of governance, policies, science and religion in achieving it.

Notwithstanding these initiatives, the state of the environment continues to deteriorate. During the past decades, major strides have been made in science and technology and some of its benefits are being made available to poor countries through the relentless process called globalisation. At the same time, consumption of resources in rich nations has greatly increased. So has poverty and environmental resource degradation in poor nations. While globalisation seems to have brought various benefits to the wealthy in low income countries, it has intensified transfer of resources from these nations to the rich ones, and further marginalised the poor and their environment in the low income ones.

Global society needs to address the core issue of exploitation of poor nations, which first took place through political and colonial subjugation and now continues through economic domination. Political and economic systems of governance that put the interests of the corporation above those of the people are at the core of such exploitation. Unless the legal, social, economic and ethical issues involved are addressed, the degeneration of the earth cannot be arrested.

To achieve sustainable development, it is the belief of Development Alternatives and its advocacy wing, People First that new policies and instruments of governance are needed. Since many of the issues that need to be addressed cover unfamiliar territory (rapid societal changes, scientific innovations, global environment, speed of globalisation), these need to be generated through a broad based debate.

Political and Economic Governance

Democracy is now universally recognised as the only vehicle for global sustainability. The discipline of political science discusses democratic experiences but has not properly defined democracy. The result is that many centralised and non-transparent systems call themselves "democratic". There is need for greater clarity on what constitutes democracy.

The case of economic systems is even worse. Macroeconomics developed as a discipline based on the concept of laissez faire and gradually evolved as contemporary free market economics. After the Second World War, a parallel discipline of development economics blossomed to complement socialism. The former is based on minimum and the latter on maximum state control. Both have proved to be unsustainable. Development economics created wasteful overheads and, in reality, became poverty development economics!

Egalitarian economics based on equal social, economic and political rights and opportunities remained a vision. It never attained the status of a discipline, much less of practical acceptance.

Socialism kills the initiatives of the people and has collapsed under its own weight. Facing economic crisis through socialism, most third world nations are now supposedly reforming their economic management through liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation. They are, in reality, drifting from pseudo socialism to pseudo capitalism. The result is simply a continuation of transfer of resources from poor nations to rich ones through repayment of accumulated debts, operation of multinational companies and inequitable trade practices. The process fosters vulgar wealth side by side with abject poverty in the poor nations. Without such resource transfer, the rich nations cannot sustain their growth and will face cycles of economic recession. The cruel truth is that by begging rich nations to invest more, the poor nations are actually sustaining the economy of the rich nations! If all nations become capitalist, the global economy and resources both become unsustainable!

Many social philosophers have criticised capitalism as being wasteful and exploitative. Yet, few (if any) seem to have come up with an alternative economic system that meets the imperatives of sustainability. In the past, some religions addressed this issue, and in this century, social thinkers such as Karl Marx and Gandhi advocated economic models aimed at creating sustainable societies. While the model of Karl Marx certainly addressed the issues of economic equity and social empowerment, it was weak on the issue of environmental sustainability. In any case, his messages were grossly misinterpreted and used to justify the establishment of highly authoritarian regimes which history shows had no sustainability at all, whether on economic, social or environmental grounds. Gandhi’s message was more holistic and appropriate to the needs of human well-being and environmental health. It too was ignored. As a result, their real models never got tested. This paper defines "egalitarian democracy", which transcends the limitations of both socialism and capitalism, as the basis of a truly sustainable society.

Universal Democracy

Let us first understand the basic logic of democracy. Fundamentally, a democracy is a society in which the people are sovereign. Their decisions are, in all respects, supreme. Logically, therefore, a democracy is one in which the systems of governance reflect the wishes of the common people on how they would like to be governed. The elite in a society may well have their own perceptions, and for much of history it is these that have prevailed. But what truly matters is the views of the common people. Where there exists a spectrum of views among the people, the consensus of their views (i.e., the view that is most acceptable to the greatest number and most unacceptable to the smallest number) is generally taken to be representative of the common wish. In most functioning democracies, the decision of the majority is taken as a satisfactory surrogate for the "views of the common people". With the growing power of information technology, it may soon become possible to measure and elucidate the true consensus with much greater precision but for the present, the rule of the majority with adequate safeguards for those who dissent is widely accepted as a good basis for democratic governance.

Given the choice, the common people would, as they have done in many successful democracies, first retain adequate resources at the local level to handle all local matters such as administration of justice, police, education, healthcare, land, water systems and forests. They would then devolve the remaining resources to the state and national governments for providing higher-level infrastructure, support to local entities with inadequate resources and coordination through regional planning, but not for interfering in local matters. They would institute effective transparency mechanisms to ensure that the government at each level is directly accountable to them on a day-to-day basis, not to a higher authority. The sustainability of such systems of governance have been demonstrated by the indigenous people of many continents such as North and South America, South Asia and Africa.

Transparency includes the sovereign rights of the people to information, consultation, participation and referendum. In a democracy, people have the right to all public information, except that restricted by society in public interest. Consultation is through public hearings on all projects exceeding, say, 10 meters in height or 1000 square meters in land area. Participation in key decisions is through participatory councils. Referendum is the supreme sovereign right of the people, intrinsic and inherent to democracy, to enable them to take decisions overruling their representatives, including promulgating the legislation and amending or changing the Constitution.

The people would also ensure that the executive, legislature and judiciary at each level are distinct and separate as checks and balances of democracy, and that the elected executive is directly accountable to them and not only via the legislature. Similarly, the people would ensure that the appointment and impeachment of departmental heads at all levels is approved by the concerned legislature, thereby, ensuring that the bureaucracy exercises professional autonomy with accountability to the people.

Derived from simple logic based on the perspective of the common people, the structure described above can, along with certain rights described as fundamental to democracy, be said to be the basic structure of universal democracy. Any other structure will be semi, pseudo or non-democratic. All nations claiming to be democracies can be evaluated on the basis of the above parameters.

Democratic Experience in the West

Britain is often called the mother of democracy. It would perhaps be more accurate to describe Britain as the mother of feudal exploitation of its own people and colonial exploitation of other nations. The powerful feudal lords of Britain first compelled the monarch to institute a parliament. They then made the monarch titular and the parliament supreme. The largest party in the parliament forms the government and is accountable to the parliament and not to the people. The representatives have little direct accountability to the people, other than at the time of election.

Basic principles of management dictate that the executive, legislature and judiciary should be distinct and separate as checks and balances of democracy. With a mixed up executive and legislature, the Westminster system fosters abuse of authority, jockeying for power, horse trading, jumbo cabinets and bribing legislators. Legislators who are expected to be watchdogs become wild dogs of governance. It is, as such, fundamentally faulty. In a small country such as Britain in which power got aligned in two political parties, it seemed to be working satisfactorily. However, resentment against centralised authority recently led to setting up parliaments in Scotland and Wales through referendum.

India has, of course, a complex and varied history. Every form of social and political system has, at one place or another, at one time or another, been tried out over the past 5,000 years of its various civilisations. It has been home or host to rulers and political systems of all types: indigenous and colonial, populist and autocratic, benign and cruel, effective and chaotic. But a large part of its history, in a large part of its territory, is characterised by a basic democratic ethos that has dominated and guided life in the village and community – where, after all, most of its people have always lived. Many of the systems of governance and experience documented in its scriptures and engravings on temples show a commitment to putting "people in charge". Good democratic governance is symbolised in the literature and tradition as "Ram Rajya", the rule of the epic monarch Ram. Though a "democratic monarchy" might appear to be a self-contradiction, the monarch was, in many Indian civilisations, elected or appointed as the ruler at the will of the people.

The scriptures lay down that every local entity, village or town, would be self-governing. The village parliament consisting of all adult men and women would be the supreme authority controlling village resources and decision-making. Women were thus already franchised in India 4000 years ago, though it is true that their status in the family and society has often left much to be desired. The village parliament elected a village council for day-to-day work, usually for a year and could remove its members any time for misconduct. It thus functioned virtually as a direct democracy. The village leased land for specified uses and ensured that the needs of all were met. Similar village governance is currently practised in Switzerland (Video film "Two Democracies —- Swiss and Ancient India" produced by Nalini Singh for Doordarshan in the context of 700 years of Swiss democracy).

The state could demand no more than 10 to 15 per cent of village revenues for providing security and infrastructure but could not interfere in local decision-making. The village parliaments drew authority from the scriptures, and not the monarch! The scriptures further provided that if the monarch, who could be hereditary or elected, demanded a higher share in the village taxes without justification, it was the duty of every citizen to remove him, if necessary, by force.

Such democratic tradition existed in many parts of India till the nineteenth century and was largely responsible for the development of its rich culture and prosperity. Even the Moghul rulers did not dislodge the system though they somewhat increased the taxes. The greed of the East India Company gave it the deathblow by bringing villages and their forests under state control. The British rule institutionalised it.

Gandhi wanted to re-connect India with its egalitarian democratic tradition. Ignoring Gandhi, the then leadership, possibly influenced by the effectiveness of the colonial administration and the perceived success of Soviet socialism, adopted a Constitution based on the colonial centralised, non-transparent and bureaucratised institutions. On top of it, it imposed the Soviet practises of centralised planning and a controlled economy, thus creasing a mixed economy in a mixed-up polity! Most third world nations adopted similar institutions and practices.

Egalitarian Economic System

The third world nations are today drifting from pseudo socialism to pseudo capitalism that fosters vulgar wealth alongside abject poverty. Such income disparities can only lead to mounting violence and possibly anarchy and balkanisation.

Some scholars praise the Chinese model. With a single party government, rightist economic model and a powerful war machine, China is neo fascist and a threat to global peace. It is unfortunate that, for business reasons, USA, the greatest proponent of democracy, is supporting such fascism.

Democracy can be neither socialist nor capitalist. Socialism kills the initiative and self-reliance of people. Capitalism controls national politics and resources of other nations to sustain high levels of income and consumption. Such transfer of resources is not possible if all nations become truly capitalist! Both socialism and capitalism are thus unsustainable.

Today, most third world nations (including India) and most former socialist nations (including China) are drifting from one failed system to another. This can only spell disaster.

In egalitarian democracy, all have equal social, economic and political rights and opportunities. Equal social rights include right to religion, and opportunity for education and family welfare. Equal economic rights include right to entrepreneurship, business and industry with social accountability, and opportunity for livelihood and employment. Equal political rights include the right to control local resources and decision-making, and transparency in governance. Such an egalitarian democracy can be realised only through true grassroots empowerment. q

SK Sharma
People First