The Corruption of Power And Its Antidotes

Messy Republicanism Any Day

As we watch nations around the world descend into unimaginable horrors it gives reason to pause.  What a blessing and privilege it is to live in a country protected by the rule of law, on the one hand, and governance by limited state authorities, on the other.

A recent Weekly Guardian carried a front page story on the Congo.  The headlines read, "Congo Fears A New Civil War" and "Violence and political turmoil as people living in DRC are caught between rebel militias and lawless soldiers."  It profiles the case of a dying 22 year old rebel fighter:

Kapitu was wounded in a clash between his rebel group and a rival faction in December.  Even in the remote valleys and hills of the far east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the battle took place, few paid much attention.  Such scrappy, bloody confrontations have become an almost daily occurrence. . . . "I was just a foot soldier so I don't really know why we were fighting," he said.  "There are lots of reasons I think. . . . I don't think the wars here will ever stop.  They will probably only get worse."

This kind of lawlessness is widespread.  Couple that with tyrannical regimes which exercise cruel oppression over their own citizens--South Africa stripping farmers of their land, for example--and one is forced to concede that the world generally is a wicked place.  Law and order, exercised by a self-disciplined and constitutionally limited state, is a "luxury" not to be taken for granted.

Mark A Noll in his book, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind [Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans, 1994] calls such forms of government republican.  He writes:

In simple terms, republicanism was the concept of a commonwealth emphasizing the well-being of its people.  In its many varieties, republicanism embraced the conviction that power defined the political process and that unchecked power led to corruption, even as corruption fostered unchecked power.

Furthermore, the arbitrary exercise of unchecked power must by its very nature result in the demise of liberty, law, and natural rights.  The United States early republicans, therefore, tended to favour separation of power rather than its concentration.  They usually held that a good government much mix elements of popular influence, aristocratic tradition, and executive authority, rather than be simply democratic, simply aristocratic, or simply monarchical.  [p. 69.]  

Republican government (so defined) is more often than not messy, even chaotic at times.  It is frequently derided when that becomes the case.  The world values efficacious efficiency; it loves shows of power.  One recalls that the highest accolade ever paid to Benito Mussolini by Italians was that he made the trains run on time!  But the price of that (small) achievement was vast.  It required the unchecked concentration of power in the hands of a dictator.

The rule of law is an essential component of liberty.  All society, every section of it, every class, must be bound by and to the rule of law.  At this point Vlad the Impaler and Mao Zedong would be clapping their approval in rapt enthusiasm.  But freedom of citizens needs something in addition to the rule of law.  It needs to maintain limitations and control over the laws promulgated and enforced--and the best, most effective control over the medium to long term in any society is limited government authority.  Limited authority is best protected by a separation of diverse governing powers: popular, aristocratic, judicial, executive, a free press, and so forth.  Checks and balances.  Checks and balances.  Checks and balances--everywhere.

At times this means that the "government" cannot achieve much at all.  Such impasses usually result in frustrations all around.  But far better to endure such inconveniences and inefficiencies than the "purities" of absolute power.  Just ask Kapitu.