Trust in power

Imagine that you are offered to make a random person the ruler of your country. How much money ─ or what would you be willing to give away ─ to prevent this from happening? This amount is likely to be comparable to the value that your current power structure is worth to you.

If your life and well-being depend on the current state power, you will give a lot, or at least what is of value. In the event that what you are ready to give is negligible or you would even be ready to pay extra for a change, believing that it will not get any worse, you have a negative attitude towards power and, it is likely that you are the same as me ─ far from state power is a person who understands that nothing really depends on him.

Absence Leverage Impact on power

In this section articles, let’s face it and agree that if we do not have direct or indirect levers of influence on power structures, or they generally do not work as they should, then, obviously, from the people (majority), indeed, nothing depends. The fact is that state power has become, and perhaps has always been something like a private company, which, unlike an ordinary company, imposes its services by force, hiding behind some official order and justifying it for our own good.

 The only adequate justification for the existence of power is our common good, which consists in the survival of us and our posterity,creating such conditions for societyin which his basic and additional needs could be satisfied. If the state does this badly and exists to the detriment of society, then this is undoubtedly a bad state and we must influence it in order to change it.

Habitual state inefficiency

For society, the inefficiency of the state, as well as the inability to control and direct state activities in the right direction, is commonplace. We pay for the existence of an almost useless statewhile on in the labor market, in view of the competition between workers, efficiency, or at least the ability to create something useful, is an indispensable criterion in order to continue to work and get paid for this work.

And what is the work of the state power, where is its useful result? Apparently, its main goal is to occupy key positions, dealing with the distribution of finances and other resources. Of course, first of all, in their favor ─ everything is clear here.

Why is the government doing something

However, I do not understand why the government does anything for other people, for society.In my opinion, people who have power are persuaded to do something public opinion, the preservation of status and, perhaps, a thirst for more profit, which can be obtained thanks to, for example, built infrastructure. In addition, one should take into account the inevitable need for the distribution of budgetary funds both among elites loyal to the authorities for all kinds of construction, repairs and other projects, and among traditional public and state institutions such as science, education, pensions and other things that are habitually financed by the state. However, the activities of these institutions are almost not controlled in any way (how useful and fair are they in distributing funds?) due to the lack of control over the usefulness and fairness of the state itself.

What gives power

In any case, we figured out what makes the authorities do something for the people, but what gives the authorities the authority to do all this, what gives power to specific people ─ maybe God’s chosen people? Maybe some of us are bribed to call someone president and we, as if by inertia, repeat after them? Maybe something is happening somewhere that we do not know about, except that on TV we are shown the appointment of a new minister or governor?

 The latter is closest to me, but most likely, empowerment requires all these elements.One way or another, as stated in the Constitution, the correct answer is:we have a democracy and we have entrusted power to those who have been elected. Nothing bothers you here? “Trusted” ─ is this word chosen correctly?

 Suppose we have chosen power in the person of the president, but how can we say that we completely obeyed the president, as the captain of the ship, on whose activities our life directly depends. As I see it from the course of school social science and life experience, what we call a democratic republic, namely this form of government in our country and in most modern countries, presupposes, first of all, trust in power, and not impeccable obedience. This state of affairs, when a person is free from direct authoritarian power, fulfilling only general laws that apply to everyone, is considered the most successful and best form of state power, in which interference from the authorities is minimal, but at the same time sufficient.

 Trust in authorities in this case is different from ordinary trust, for example, in friends. In the case of the authorities, we seem to be forced to trust someone, to delegate our interests, the interests of our region, city and state. Here it must be understood that the nature of trust is such that trust must be voluntary, and if we are forced to entrust power to someone out of necessity, just as it is necessary to choose a captain on a ship, it is good when this choice is made voluntarily, that is, in such a way that that was chosenwho really wants to delegate the fulfillment of the interests of society.While trusting someone out of necessity and not willingly, we will be forced to obey.In this case, both we ourselves and the state will suffer damage from the inefficiency of our management, since the ruler did not participate in fair competition, and the people did not elect him. 

 Here it is worth asking the question: is there even such a person who can be trusted that he will honestly act in the interests of the people who chose him? Probably yes, at least I would like to think of myself that way. However, from my own experience, it is obvious to me that such ideological people are an absolute minority. That is why it is not easy to find such people. At the same time, it is obvious that if such a person is found, it will still be better to be able to observe and control his activities than not to have such an opportunity.

Elections

Currently, we have to trust the president, the deputies and, as a result, obey the civil servants appointed by them and hope that they all spend the money from the taxes they collect on something that society really needs. Before the elections, candidates for a seat in power offer their own program of change: they promise a better life, which in most cases is, if not outright lies, then demagoguery, an attempt to attract sympathy without the goal of actually fulfilling promises. Nobody and almost never, or I am almost unaware of such cases, did not check the activities of the chosen persons, did not compare promises with actually done deeds. This never happens. Thus, based on everyday experience, the applicant does what he promised only in the case when he did not promise anything concrete. However, in the next elections victory the same candidates are provided either by exactly the same election campaign, in which everyone forgets about the promises made a few years ago, or the administrative resources taken under control during the possession of power, with the help of which they illegally influence the election results.

If you think carefully, In a democratic state, it is enough to ask the question:Who is in charge of the voting process? Who controls the course of the elections? – in order to understand all the inferiority of this state institution in a given situation.

Use of funds

Po As a result, it is not clear how the elected government, having reached the budget money, due to the lack of all the same control and feedback mechanisms, willuseful for society to spend money. Expenditures will either be inefficient, when low-quality work is paid for due to low qualifications or lack of motivation to achieve a better result, or in other cases, money will be kept by those who can afford it ─ both elected persons and appointed civil servants.

 

 In both cases, we do not get the best result that would be with a transparent system of control over the spending of funds and verification of the direct work of this or that official, who should not be appointed, but chosen based on their competence and previous experience of successful work, which should also be known and accessible to everyone.

Ethical and technical points

I see the problem of democratic power in the following ethical and technical aspects. The ethical point is that we are forced to trust someone and this person fails our trust. This also includes when an elected candidate wins the election due to threats or the physical elimination of competitors ─ both law enforcement agencies and journalism through publicity should fight against this: information about threats and crimes should be publicly available. But even with a completely fair victory, trust remains trust, and the possibility of deceiving voters remains. Knowing about the actions of the chosen person absolutely reduces this probability, despite the fact that publicity about his misdeeds will not entail immediate resignation.For society, this is an opportunity to make the most correct decision,based on objective data about the candidate.

Awareness and the election procedure itself is a technical point, which in the open money system can be organized transparently; without the possibility of somehow forging votes. And if it is difficult to influence a person’s behavior directly, then it is quite possible to change his behavior technically, creating conditions in which he will be forced to do the right thing, regardless of whether we trust him or not.

General conclusions

General Trust, of course, the desired state in relations, both between people and between the state and the people, in the entire history of mankind up to modern states, included, among other things, the fact that we created mechanisms that helped to organize this trust.

Formalization of trust relationships in the form of money, receipts, contracts, etc. helps to peacefully and ultimately mutually beneficial resolve all issues and thereby reduce the number of conflicts, which ultimately allows society to exist peacefully without the constant use of the authority of the authorities, which would resolve these conflicts for us. This is how we resort to the authority of the government, making it stronger, and we mean civil society weaker, just as much as we are not able to agree on anything ourselves.

 And if in relation to strangers we are not opposed to concluding an agreement that would regulate our relations with them, why not conclude the same agreement with the authorities (which, by the way, we ourselves are)? The OM system is the essence of such an agreement, in which all conditions are the same for both the contractor (authority) and the customer (society): the main of which is the transparency of all interactions and consent to a consensus adopted by a general vote ─ this is consent to self-government. In conclusion, I’m not afraid to say this – but the OM system implements the principles of democracy as they should be, but in fact they never were.

Returning to the original question of trust in power, the question is: can we trust a power that calls itself democratic, but in fact is not, but only pretends and does not make efforts to become one? My answer is trust in such power, obviously, only insofar as there is no other alternative.