Foundation for Better Government
September14, 2013.
The Future Governments
T.S.Khanna, September 14, 2013
In
the past, humanity has experienced two basic types of governments: Dictatorial
(age old) and Democratic (recent in history).
Dictatorial governments served best when people believed in the divine
power of the dictator. Democracy has
caused a growing awareness of the rights of the people weakening the belief in
the divine power of the dictator.
At
the same time, the most vigorous American democracy has exposed its own
failings in common with all other younger democracies born during the twentieth
century. The failing include but not
limited to (a) indecision and postponement of political decisions and arriving
at lowest quality fragile decisions made by weak compromises; (b) inefficiency
and corruption becoming the culture of government; (c) lack of accountability
and uneconomical governmental operations as a commonly accepted practice; (d)
value freedom of individuals and groups stretched to the point of making the
whole society value-free; (e) emphasis on representative democracy and
individual freedom to the point of destroying the emotional unity necessary to
hold the society together resulting in atomization of the society.
Most
democratic countries have common problems: (a) outdated constitutions, and, (b)
due to diversity and disagreements, their inability to amend them.
Human
mind is unlimited in illusions and imaginations but human knowledge and
operations are limited to physical realities.
Both types of governments have political ideologies based on
articulation of illusions and imaginations with misleading emotional
appeal. Now, as those ideologies
intersect with realities, their weaknesses are exposed.
The
present form of dictatorship no longer commands the public acceptance and the
present form of democracy no longer meets the public expectations.
Every
society takes pride in its past. The
pride and practices of the past usually resist the needed change in light of
the new political experiences and advancing technology. The future demands that both types of
governments may rationally analyze their weaknesses and make amends for the
satisfaction of the people.
Basic
problem with both types of governments is that they do not have any well
designed monitoring and adjustment mechanism in place to keep them abreast with
public needs of the changing times.
In
the future, for their own survival, the dictatorial governments may have to be
less dictatorial and democratic governments may have to be less democratic.
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