Democracy Redefined

We need a new definition of "democracy".  Around the world today we hear of pro-democracy movements, of a democratic deficit, of promises by political parties to "restore democracy".  These uses of "democracy" are varied and tired.  However, they all resonate to some degree because of a wide spread hunger for greater respect for the inherent worth of each individual. While the demands are often framed as addressing a need for broader access into the power structures of institutions, organizations and society generally; they are all really saying that all individuals should matter, that no one should be ignored, or dismissed, or treated as though they are only an inconsequential cog in a machine manipulated for the self-satisfaction of some arrogant elite.

Therefore, let the new definition of "democracy" be: "a society which recognizes, celebrates, and protects the inherent value of each individual."  In order to achieve such a society, we need revolutionary changes to our political and societal institutions.  We need to rethink and reinvent society as a necessary means to free the human spirit and raise the level of both individual and group consciousness.

In discussion some of these themes, Professor Fouad Ajami recently compared the "Arab Revolution of 2011" with The Year of Revolutions in Europe (1848).[1] That outburst contained numerous demands from liberals of that era for greater access to the instruments of power through the adoption of written constitutions and the implementation of parliaments with a broad electorate choosing legislative assemblies that supposedly would control executive branches of government. In large measure, we are still stuck with these mid-19^th century institutions.  It must be admitted, though, that parliaments are now hollow shells, composed of what former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau termed “nobodies”, easily outmanoeuvred, when they are not simply ignored, by executives which are increasingly dominated by presidential figures wielding arbitrary power.  Examples range from United States’ presidents declaring war without reference to Congress to the vast array of dictators around the world who operate on the premise that their country is their personal fiefdom whose main purpose is to enrich them and their small inner circles.  

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[1] Fouad Ajami, “How the Arabs Turned Shame Into Liberty”, New York Times, Feb. 26, 2011.

Taxes or extra overhead

This is an odd situation that happened in 2007.  We sent a parcel from Alberta to Nova Scotia and the business we paid to ship it charged us the Nova Scotia HST.  This seemed so out of hand that I ran it by an Alberta Finance person who opined that this was not illegal, it was a choice of the business owner.  We never used this business again and I still wonder if the taxes we paid ever reached the coffers of Nova Scotia.

PS  Part of the reason for the high cost of shipping (the parcel was about the size of a loaf of bread) was that we paid extra for "2 day delivery" - the parcel was actually delivered in 5 days. 

We all need to be reminded from time to time that taxes are actually a confiscation of our personal property.  This is bad enough, but when it is compounded by the tax collector skimming a margin for himself, it helps to understand why "tax collectors" were such unpopular - not to say reviled - persons in the ancient world.  In those days, it was common to farm out tax collection.  The way this worked was that a ruler would contract with someone to collect x amount of taxes in a certain area.  The "tax farmer" was free (indeed it was expected) to collect more taxes than the amount of his contract (i.e. x + y)  The tax collector thus had the incentive to enrich himself by collecting as much (or more) than what the market might bear.  This "mark-up" is part of the same approach which irritates so many ordinary people in the world even today.  When a driver's license agent in, say, Egypt, insists that a person pay a personal bribe, in addition to the govermental fee then we have this same piggy-backing of personal greed and corruption, on top of the (questionably legitimate) taxes.  The "little people" are helpless to change this system and are thus denied justice.  However, a thousand small cuts sometimes adds up to a rage that demands the overthrow of the whole system - "tax collector" and "tax perpetrator" included.