B.A. PROGRAMME Pol Sci 1st Semester Notes [ WHAT IS POLITICS ]

 

WHAT IS POLITICS

 

Politics is the most important activity of organized life in society. If one tries to argue that on a macro basis life without social or political thought is than one wrong.

Why and in what manner people behave in their economic and political activities, should be systematically studied. That is what the study of politics seeks to do and political behaviour is almost entirely linked to economic and social behaviour and interests and vice-versa.

Generally, politics has always been about state and government at it' s most basic and has involved the study of formal political institutions such as parliament, executive, judiciary and the bureaucracy etc. Politics is thus a science and art of government and the basic political relationships: between state and individual and between states.

 

The Greek View

In fact, the word politics itself has its origin in the Greek word polis, which means the community or populace or society. Greek thinkers like Plato and Aristotle saw politics as everything that is concerned with 'the general issues affecting the whole community'.According to the Greek view the participation of each and every citizen in the life of the community is necessary for the self-realization of each human being. Greek concept of politics included the study of man, society, state and ethics and the subject was treated as a combination of religious and moral philosophy, metaphysics, a course for civic training of citizens and a guide to power.

 

The View of Politics as Study of the State

With the decline of city-states of the Greek sort and the rise of large empires, beginning with the Roman empire, the notion of politics inevitably began to be more and more linked to the state. The idea of the state became accepted as the principal mode of human organisation and developed with the rise of nation states particularly since the close of the Middle Ages. Hence subjects like international law also became a part of part of politics. The state, it became accepted would have monopoly of coercive power and the right to enforce obedience using police and military force. The state in practice meant the government because whatever was done in the name of the state was done by the government and hence the study of government organs like and institutions became a part of the study of politics.

 

Politics as a Dimension of the Social Process

It was realised over time that politics as a study of the state and institutions of the state like the government bodies does not go deep enough into various aspects of the political life of a citizen. The ordinary citizen and his political life are an interaction between him and the society and polity of which he is a part. To understand politics therefore one has to understand the whole social process and phenomenon. To study politic as a social science and as a dimension of the social phenomenon and social process however leads to divergent views. Different schools of thought view the social process differently. Many people and thinkers at different times in history have propounded on the social process of politics but the main schools of thought that have made an impact are as follows: (a) The Liberal View (b) The Marxist View, (c) The Common Good View and (d) The Study of Power View.

The Liberal View - Politics as a Conciliation of Interests

 

The liberal view as has been mentioned evolved over time. The early liberal view was that only the individual human being with his self-interest, enterprise, desire for richness and happiness and reason can be the foundation of a stable society. Thinkers like Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Adam Smith etc not just saw man as a selfish, egotistic being concerned only with his own self-preservation and not a social or moral being, they even argued, this was all for the best, because when everybody tries to promote his own selfish interest, the utility or happiness of society as a whole, is maximised. In the liberal view therefore fundamentally, the individual is the real social entity and the society is artificial. Hobbes for instance called society like a sack of corn with the corns being the individuals who pursue their own interests. Bentham called society the creation of a social contract between individuals who are after individual ends. MacPherson termed this concept of society the 'free market society', a meeting place of self-interested individuals, a society based upon free will, competition and contract. In this process however, liberalism acknowledges there are likely conflicts of various kinds like between individuals, between group, between different economic classes, between groups along lines of economic, geographic, cultural or ethnic etc. Liberalism basically, believes as has been mentioned above that the role of society is to mediate in these disputes but later liberal writers like Green emphasised the social nature of man and the need to get everybody to cooperate. Max Weber and Karl Mannheim also stressed on the need for cooperation and in fact argued that for competition to benefit some cooperation is essential without which chaos and violence would be the likely result. If the liberal view is accepted that politics is a process of finding conciliation, then the next question is how exactly this is to be achieved. The main ways of achieving harmony are (a) laws, (b) political institutions, (c) social welfare, (d) cultural traditions etc.

Traditionally laws have been relied upon the most by liberal societies. In fact, in liberal cultures there is a constant boasting of the rule of law. The fear of punishment is what is supposed to ensure compliance and deter breaking of laws. Over time there are many other methods that have evolved to great efficacy like universal suffrage, electoral democracy, political parties, non-governmental organisations, trade unions etc that fosters individual and mass participation in society. It has to be understood clearly that on questions of economic systems, liberalism is for free market capitalism and private property unhindered and uncontrolled. The later liberals particularly Laski were for a welfare state where government does play an important role economically but on the whole liberals are for a model led and dominated by private business with only the least participation of the government in the economy.

(a)   The Marxist View - Politics as Class Struggle

Marxian philosophy propounds a different view of human nature that hinges on Marx’s view of human nature. According to Marxian thought “existence precedes consciousness” and who a person is, is determined by where and when he is — social context takes precedence over innate behaviour; or, in other words, one of the main features of human nature is adaptability. Nevertheless, Marxist thought rests on the fundamental assumption that it is human nature to transform nature. For Marx, this is a natural capacity for a physical activity, but it is intimately tied to the active role of human consciousness.

 

Marx did not believe that all people worked the same way, or that how one works is entirely personal and individual. Instead, he argued that work is a social activity and that the conditions and forms under and through which people work are socially determined and change over time. Marx's analysis of history is based the distinction between the means of production, such as land, natural resources, and technology, that are necessary for the production of material goods, and the relationships in the process of production, in other words, the social and technical relationships people enter into. Together these tow (means and labour relationships) comprise the mode of production. Marx observed that within any given society the mode of production changes, and that European societies had progressed from a feudal mode of production to a capitalist mode of production. In general, Marx believed that the means of production change more rapidly than the relations of production (for example, we develop a new technology, such as the Internet, and only later do we develop laws to regulate that technology). For Marx this mismatch between (economic) base and (social) superstructure is a major source of social disruption and conflict.

 

Marx argued that the capitalist system of production leads to alienation of human work and gradually results in commodity-fication of labour. This he argued is the defining feature of capitalism. Prior to capitalism, markets existed in Europe where producers and merchants bought and sold commodities but according to Marx, a capitalist mode of production developed in Europe when labour itself became a commodity — when peasants became free to sell their own labour-power, and needed to do so because they no longer possessed their own land. People sell their labour-power when they accept compensation in return for whatever work they do in a given period of time (in other words, they are not selling the product of their labour, but their capacity to work). In return for selling their labour power they receive money, which allows them to survive. Those who must sell their labour power to survive he called "proletarians." The person who buys this labour power, generally someone who does own the land and technology to produce, is a "capitalist" or "bourgeoisie" and the proletarians outnumber the capitalists.

 So Marxian view of politics is based on the fundamental social relationship between the rich and poorer work classes and his theory cum prediction that capitalism leads to a progressive loss of power and pauperisation of the poorer working classes or the proletariat who then ultimately are forced to politically react in a violent manner leading to a revolution. Thus, politics is an expression of the fundamental class conflict leading to class struggle for overthrowing the control over society, economy, state and even religion by the upper classes who control modes of production.

The Common Good View - Politics as Common Good

There is a way of looking at politics, which views the purpose of politics to be the pursuit of the common good. The problem of course is no two people can most of the time agree on what constitutes the common good. It is suggested that when individuals live together in a society their common life creates common interests which constitute the common good. And the pursuit of these common interests is the job of politics. The idea of politics as common good is very old. Plato and Aristotle in the Greek city-states, the political theologists of the middle ages, the utilitarian philosophers like Bentham and Mills, Karl Marx an socialists, the positive liberals like Green and Laski in relatively recent times and even the thoughts of Gandhi in India all fundamentally propose a notion of politics for the common good. But of course they have differed on what constitutes common good.

 Gandhiji had also proposed what must be regarded as a communitarian notion of the common good in his notion of Sarvodaya. He meant by Sarvodaya a harmonious welfare and goodwill to all. He also suggested the purpose of politics is to create a society based upon the principle of Samanvaya, i.e., harmony among classes, groups and individuals and institutions, idea and ideologies. This common good can be achieved through six principles: Equanimity, non-violence, decentralisation, satyagraha, synthesis and world peace.

The Study of Power View - Politics as the Study of Power

There is no single accepted definition of power. Many people have defined power differently. Sociologist Max Weber defined politics in terms of power as follows: "Politics is the struggle to share or influence the distribution of power, whether between states or among the groups within a state. Max Weber defined power itself as 'the probability that one actor within a social relationship will be in a position to carry out his own despite resistance, regardless of the basis on which this probability rests'.

Even thought the concept of power is one of the most important concepts in political theory there is a lack of agreement among thinkers about it's scientific definition and the conceptual context in which it should be placed. Hence the view of politics that relies on a study of power is to that extent weak and limited. All forms of power whether of money-power, muscle-power (legal or illegal), derived from social customs etc can be broadly categorized according to John Kenneth Galbraith in three categories: (i) Condign power or the power of punishment (ii) Compensatory power or the power of winning submission by an offer of reward, i.e., by giving something to those who bow down to the power and (iii) Conditioned power which is the most subtle because it is exercised by changing beliefs and includes persuasion, education, culture etc.

Basically there are only three forms of power: Political, Economic and Ideological.

 

Political Power

The power of political coercion and political authority is referred to as political power. This power is based on the power of force or muscle power ultimately - exerted by the state or potentially capable of being exerted by the state. In fact Law is nothing but a set of rules according to which the coercive physical power will be exercised by the state. It is this power which is used to implement policies in democracies and punish those who disobey whatever the consequences and hardship that it causes to the people on whom it is forced. Thus also unlike power theorists who believe in the decentralisation of political power Marxist thinkers emphasise the unified power of a particular class.

 

Economic Power

A powerful minority can exercise it's will over a powerless majority even more than by political or legal power than by exerting economic power. The holders of economic power can influence submission of others by offering rewards or denying them and thus can be more powerful than political or legal power. In India we often get the feeling that the rich and the powerful get away with legal violations but it is the poor who have to suffer. This is because economic power always leads to political power in the end. As mentioned above Classical Marxist theory considers economic power as the source of all other dimensions of power According to the Marxist definition economic power consists of the ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange of material goods and services in society.

 

Ideological Power

Apart from political and economic power, there is another form of exerting power known as ideological power. The Marxist thinkers were the first to point out the reality of this form of power and pointed out it's subtle power. Later even the liberal schools of thought accepted this form of power and called it by various names like 'political culture', 'political socialisation' etc. Developing and exerting of ideological power is a process where the attitudes, values, symbols, traditions etc of the masses are gradually moulded and shaped by a minority leadership according to their own plans and agendas and thereby a certain level of deference, loyalty and obedience is established. This gradual process of achieving persuasion is even done sometimes by using the mass media like newspapers and television channels or rallies, meetings and yatras etc. Some liberal thinkers like Max Weber, Lucian Pye, Sydney Verba etc associated this ideological power with religion, education, culture, literature and history.

 

Important Question:

1. What is Politics?

2. Compare the Liberal and Marxists views of politics?

3. Write a short note on the communitarian views of politics.