Social contract theory

You're likely already familiar with the concept of contracts. Marriage, citizenship, and
employment all are forms of contracts. Put simply, a contract is an agreement between two
parties. If one party violates the terms of the agreement, the contract is no longer valid.

Societies are controlled by governments. This is the starting point for discussing social contract
theory. Thinkers who believe in this theory argue that people benefit from living together in
countries, kingdoms, or under other types of governmental oversight. Living in society, however,
requires rules and laws. Societies are the result of compromises, and social contracts provide the
framework for how people and governments interact.

Individuals who live within a social structure gain protection from outsiders who may seek to
harm them. In return, they must give up certain freedoms (like the ability to commit crimes
without being punished), and they should contribute to making society stable, wealthy, and
happy.

Thomas Hobbes held a dark view of humans, which was likely influenced by the chaotic political events
he witnessed in England during his life. Hobbes believed that in nature, individuals had to do whatever
was necessary to survive. But he also believed that people were still likely to fight even if they lived
together. Therefore, a contract was necessary. In Hobbes' view of the social contract, people were not
capable of living in a democratic society. A powerful, single ruler was needed. If everyone did his or her
part, society could function relatively smoothly.

You are likely familiar with John Locke's philosophy without even realizing it. His ideas are expressed in
the American Declaration of Independence. He argued that people deserve life, liberty, and property. This
trio forms an essential part of social contracts. Governments need to protect individuals' lives, ensure they
are free to prosper, and enforce a system of laws that rewards efforts to improve society economically.

Locke's contractual theory of government outlines his ideal for a modern society. People had
to willingly do things like pay taxes and serve in the military, but in return, the government had
to listen to their desires and provide for their needs. Locke challenged the idea that a king was to
rule unquestioned. Kings might still rule, but the people had a say in how they went about doing
so.

For Locke, governments were created to ensure that wealth and property were protected. In a
primitive state of nature, this would be impossible. Dangerous competition would be the norm
and a cooperative society could not exist.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote, 'Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.' What he
meant was that many European kings and queens ruled unfairly. They took advantage of their
subjects and made life difficult. In order to check the authority of these monarchs, ordinary
people needed access to education. They could then defend themselves against abuses of power
and maybe even participate in government.

If people learned what a truly fair society should look like, they could take steps to make life
better for everyone. Rousseau wanted to rewrite the contract. He believed that everyone could
cooperate, and that human nature was not as bad as Hobbes believed.

Criminal justice theory

Criminal justice is the system of practices and institutions of governments directed at upholding social
control, deterring and mitigating crime, or sanctioning those who violate laws with criminal penalties and
rehabilitation efforts. Those accused of crime have protections against abuse of investigatory and
prosecution powers.

The criminal justice system consists of three main parts: (1) Legislative (create laws); (2) adjudication
(courts); and (3) corrections (jails, prisons, probation and parole). In the criminal justice system, these
distinct agencies operate together both under the rule of law and as the principal means of maintaining the
rule of law within society.
Civil laws are rules and regulations which govern transactions and grievances between individual citizens.
Criminal law is concerned with actions which are dangerous or harmful to society as a whole, in which
prosecution is pursued not by an individual but rather by the state. The purpose of criminal law is to
provide the specific definition of what constitutes a crime and to prescribe punishments for committing
such a crime. No criminal law can be valid unless it includes both of these factors. The subject of criminal
justice is, of course, primarily concerned with the enforcement of criminal law.

Criminal justice cases

Restorative justice
Restorative justice is an approach to justice that focuses on the needs of the victims and the
offenders, as well as the involved community, instead of satisfying abstract legal principles or
punishing the offender. Victims take an active role in the process, while offenders are
encouraged to take responsibility for their actions, "to repair the harm they've done—by
apologizing, returning stolen money, or community service".[1] In addition, it provides help for
the offender in order to avoid future offences. It is based on a theory of justice that considers
crime and wrongdoing to be an offence against an individual or community, rather than the
state.[2] Restorative justice that fosters dialogue between victim and offender shows the highest
rates of victim satisfaction and offender accountability.[3]

With crime, restorative justice is about the idea that because crime hurts, justice should heal. I

it is the citizens who must take up the majority of the responsibility in healing the pains caused by crime

Howard Zehr describes the difference between restorative justice and traditional criminal justice
in terms of the guiding questions each system asks. In Changing Lenses, Zehr asserts that
restorative justice asks:

1. Who has been hurt?

2. What are their needs?
3. Whose obligations are these?
4. What are the causes?
5. Who has a stake in the situation?
6. What is the appropriate process to involve stakeholders in an effort to address causes and
put things right?[6]

This contrasts with the traditional criminal justice, which seeks answers to three questions:

1. What laws have been broken?

2. Who did it?
3. What do the offender(s) deserve

Similarly, citing Greif, Liebmann wrote a way of looking at restorative justice is to think of it as
a balance among a number of different tensions:

 a balance between the therapeutic and the retributive models of justice

 a balance between the rights of offenders and the needs of victims
 a balance between the need to rehabilitate offenders and the duty to protect the
public

Application
In criminal cases, victims can testify about the crime's impact upon their lives, receive answers to
questions about the incident, and participate in holding the offender accountable. Offenders can
tell their story of why the crime occurred and how it has affected their lives. They are given an
opportunity to compensate the victim directly —to the degree possible.[29] In criminal cases, this
can include money, community service in general and/or specific to the offense, education to
prevent recidivism, and/or expression of remorse.

In social justice cases, impoverished victims such as foster children are given the opportunity to
describe their future hopes and make concrete plans to transition out of state custody in a group
process with their supporters.[30] In social justice cases, restorative justice is used for problem
solving.[31]

Restorative justice can proceed in a courtroom or within a community or nonprofit organization.

A courtroom process might employ pretrial diversion, dismissing charges after restitution. In
more serious cases, a prison sentence may precede other restitution.[32]
In the community, concerned individuals meet with all parties to assess the experience and
impact of the crime. Offenders listen to victims' experiences, preferably until they are able to
empathize with the experience. Then they speak to their own experience: how they decided to
commit the offense. A plan is made for prevention of future occurrences, and for the offender to
address the damage to the injured parties. All agree. Community members hold the offender(s)
accountable for adherence to the plan.

While restorative justice typically involves an encounter between the offender and the victim,
some organizations, such as the Mennonite Central Committee Canada, emphasize a program's
values over its participants. This can include programs that only serve victims (or offenders for
that matter), but that have a restorative framework. Indigenous groups are using the restorative
justice process to try to create more community support for victims and offenders, particularly
the young people. For example, different programs are underway at Kahnawake, a Mohawk
reserve in Canada, and at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation of the Oglala Lakota nation, within
the United States.

The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission shows how restorative justice can be
used to address system-wide offenses that affect broad swaths of a group or a society.[33]

Application in prisons

In addition to serving as an alternative to civil or criminal trial, restorative justice is also thought
to be applicable to offenders who are currently incarcerated.[34] The purpose of restorative justice
in prisons is to assist with the prisoner's rehabilitation, and eventual reintegration into society. By
repairing the harm to the relationships between offenders and victims and offenders and the
community that resulted from the crime, restorative justice seeks to understand and address the
circumstances which contributed to the crime in order to prevent recidivism once the offender is
released. The potential for restorative justice to reduce recidivism is one of the strongest and
most promising arguments for its use in prisons, but there are both theoretical and practical
limitations, which can make restorative justice unfeasible in a prison environment-such as:
difficulty engaging offenders and victims to participate in mediation; the controversial influence
of family, friends, and the community; and the prevalence of mental illness among prisoners.[35]
Retributive justice
Retributive justice is a theory of justice that considers punishment, if proportionate, to be the best
response to crime. When an offender breaks the law, justice requires that they forfeit something in return.
Retribution should be distinguished from vengeance. Unlike revenge, retribution is directed only at
wrongs, has inherent limits, is not personal, involves no pleasure at the suffering of others, and employs
procedural standards.

Traditionally, philosophers of punishment have contrasted retributivism with utilitarianism. For

utilitarians, punishment is forward-looking, justified by a purported ability to achieve future social
benefits, such as crime reduction. For retributionists, punishment is backward-looking, justified by the
crime that has been committed and carried out to atone for the damage already done.[4]

Criticisms
Many more jurisdictions following the retributive philosophy, especially in the United States,
follow a set tariff, where judges impose a penalty for a crime within the range set by the tariff.
As a result, some argue that judges do not have enough discretion to allow for mitigating factors,
leading to unjust decisions under certain circumstances. In the case of fines, the financial
position of an offender is not taken into account, leading to situations where an unemployed
individual and a millionaire could be forced to pay the same fine, creating an unjust situation;
either the fine would be too punitive for the unemployed offender, or not large enough to punish
the millionaire.[7] In some countries, such as Finland and several EU countries, fines are fixed as
percentages of the offenders personal income, rather than a certain monetary amount. This
allows for the law to remain fair, in that it applies to all citizens equally, yet prevents the wealthy
from simply paying to break the law without suffering any substantial punishment.
Zero tolerance
In 1982, conservatives James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling formulated their theory in the
article Broken Windows,[9] published in The Atlantic Monthly, a U.S. cultural magazine.

The title of the article comes from the following example:

“Consider a building with a few broken windows. If the windows are not repaired, the tendency
is for vandals to break a few more windows. Eventually, they may even break into the building,
and if it's unoccupied, perhaps become squatters or light fires inside.

Or consider a sidewalk. Some litter accumulates. Soon, more litter accumulates. Eventually,
people even start leaving bags of trash from take-out restaurants.”

According to scholars, zero tolerance is the concept of giving carte blanche to the police for the
inflexible repression of minor offenses, homeless people and the disorders associated with
them.[10][11][12] A well known criticism to this approach is that it redefines social problems in
terms of security,[13] it considers the poor as criminals, and it reduces crimes to only "street
crimes", those committed by lower social classes, excluding white-collar crimes.[14]

Areas of application
Zero tolerance and harassment and bullying in the workplace
See also: Harassment and Workplace bullying

Various institutions have undertaken zero-tolerance policies, for example, in the military, in the
workplace, and in schools, in an effort to eliminate various kinds of illegal behavior, such as
harassment. Proponents hope that such policies will underscore the commitment of
administrators to prevent such behavior. Others raise a concern about this use of zero-tolerance
policies, a concern which derives from analysis of errors of omission vs errors of commission.
Here is the reasoning. Failure to proscribe unacceptable behavior may lead to errors of
omission—too little will be done. But zero tolerance may be seen as a kind of ruthless
management, which may lead to a perception of "too much being done". If people fear that their
co-workers or fellow students may be fired or terminated or expelled, they may not come
forward at all when they see behavior deemed unacceptable. (This is a classic example of Type
One/Type Two errors.) The Type Two error, where it occurs with respect to zero tolerance, leads
to the situation where too stringent a policy may actually reduce reports of illegal behavior.[19]

Zero tolerance and narcotics

See also: War on drugs and Drug policy of Sweden

In the United States, zero tolerance as an approach against drugs, was originally designed as a
part of the War on Drugs under Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, ostensibly to curb the
transfer of drugs at US borders. Law-enforcement was to target the drug users rather than the
transporters or suppliers under the assumptions that harsh sentences and strict enforcement of
personal use would reduce demand, and therefore, strike at root cause of the drug problem. The
policy did not require additional laws, instead existing law was enacted with less leniency.[20]
Similar concepts in other countries, such as Sweden,[21] Italy,[22] Japan,[23] Singapore[24] China,
India and Russia[25] have since been labeled zero tolerance.

A consistence of zero tolerance is the absolute dichotomy between the legality of any use and no
use, equating all illicit drugs and any form of use as undesirable and harmful to society. This is
contrasting to viewpoints of those who stress the disparity in harmfulness among drugs, and who
would like to distinguish between occasional drug use and problem drug use. Although harm
reductionists also see drug use as undesirable, they hold that the resources would do more good
if they were to be allocated towards helping problem drug users instead of combating all drug
users.[20][26] As an example, research findings from Switzerland indicate that emphasis on
problem drug users "seems to have contributed to the image of heroin as unattractive for young
people."[27]
On a more general level, zero tolerance-advocates holds the aim at ridding the society of all
illicit drug use and that criminal justice has an important role in that endeavor.[20] The Swedish
parliament for example set the vision a drug-free society as the official goal for the drug policy
in 1978. These visions were to prompt new practices inspired by Nils Bejerot, practices later
labeled as Zero tolerance. In 1980 the Swedish attorney general finally dropped the practice of
giving waivers for possession of drugs for personal use after years of lowering the thresholds.
The same year police began to prioritize drug users and street-level drug crimes over drug
distributors. In 1988 all non medicinally prescribed usage became illegal and in 1993 the
enforcement of personal use were eased by permitting the police to take blood or urine samples
from suspects. This unrelenting approach towards drug users, together with generous treatment
opportunities have won UNODC's approval and is cited by the UN as one of the main reasons for
Sweden's relatively low drug prevalence rates.[21] However, that interpretation of the statistics
and the more general success of Sweden's drug policies are highly questioned.[28][29][30]

Zero tolerance and driving

The term is used in the context of driving under the influence of alcohol, referring to a lower
illegal blood alcohol content for drivers under the age of 21.[citation needed] In the U.S., the legal
limit in all states is now .08%, but for drivers under 21 the prohibited level in most states is .01%
or .02%. This is also true in Puerto Rico despite a drinking age of 18.

In Europe, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany and Sweden have zero-tolerance law for drugs
and driving, this as opposed to the other main legal approach where laws forbidding impaired
driving is enacted instead. The legislation among countries that practice zero tolerance on drug
use for drivers varies. Only a limited set of (common) drugs are included in the zero-tolerance
legislation in Germany and Belgium, where in Finland and Sweden all controlled substances fall
into the scope of zero tolerance, if they are not covered by a prescription.[31]

In Asia, Japan also practices zero-tolerance for alcohol and driving. The people caught driving
after drinking, including the next morning if there are still traces of alcohol, receive a fine and
can be fired. Foreigners may even be deported.

In schools
Main article: Zero tolerance (schools)

Zero-tolerance policies have been adopted in schools and other education venues around the
world. These policies are usually promoted as preventing drug abuse, violence, and gang activity
in schools. In schools, common zero-tolerance policies concern possession or use of drugs or
weapons. Students, and sometimes staff, parents, and other visitors, who possess a banned item
or perform any prohibited action for any reason are automatically punished. School
administrators are barred from using their judgment, reducing severe punishments to be
proportional to minor offenses, or considering extenuating circumstances. For example, the
policies treat possession of a knife identically, regardless of whether the knife is a blunt table
knife being used to eat a meal, a craft knife used in an art class, or switchblade with no
reasonable practical or educational value. Consequently, these policies are sometimes derided as
"zero-intelligence policies".[32]

There is no credible evidence that zero tolerance reduces violence or drug abuse by
students.[33][34][35]

The unintended negative consequences are clearly documented and sometimes severe:[34] school
suspension and expulsion result in a number of negative outcomes for both schools and
students.[33] Although the policies are "facially neutral", minority children are the most likely to
suffer the negative consequences of zero tolerance.[36]

These policies have also resulted in embarrassing publicity for schools and have been struck
down by the courts [37][38] and by Departments of Education, and they have been weakened by
legislatures.[38]
Critisism
Two American specialists, Edward Maguire, a Professor at American University, and John Eck
from the University of Cincinnati, rigorously evaluated all the scientific work designed to test the
effectiveness of the police in the fight against crime. They concluded that "neither the number of
policemen engaged in the battle, or internal changes and organizational culture of law
enforcement agencies (such as the introduction of community policing) have by themselves
impact on the evolution of offenses."[14][16]

The crime decrease was due not the work of the police and judiciary, but to economic and
demographic factors. The main ones were an unprecedented economic growth with jobs for
millions of young people, and a shift from the use of crack towards other drugs.[14][17]
Feminism
Feminism is a range of movements and ideologies that share a common goal: to define,
establish, and achieve equal political, economic, cultural, personal, and social rights for
women.[1][2] This includes seeking to establish equal opportunities for women in education and
employment. A feminist advocates or supports the rights and equality of women.[3]

Feminist movements have campaigned and continue to campaign for women's rights, including
the right to vote, to hold public office, to work, to fair wages or equal pay, to own property, to
education, to enter contracts, to have equal rights within marriage, and to have maternity leave.
Feminists have also worked to promote bodily autonomy and integrity, and to protect women
and girls from rape, sexual harassment, and domestic violence.[4]

Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical or philosophical fields. It encompasses work
in a variety of disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, economics, women's studies, literary
criticism,[73][74] art history,[75] psychoanalysis[76] and philosophy.[77][78] Feminist theory aims to understand
gender inequality and focuses on gender politics, power relations, and sexuality. While providing a
critique of these social and political relations, much of feminist theory also focuses on the promotion of
women's rights and interests. Themes explored in feminist theory include discrimination, stereotyping,
objectification (especially sexual objectification), oppression, and patriarchy.[7][8]

Movements and ideologies

Political movements

Some branches of feminism closely track the political leanings of the larger society, such as
liberalism and conservatism, or focus on the environment. Liberal feminism seeks individualistic
equality of men and women through political and legal reform without altering the structure of
society. Radical feminism considers the male-controlled capitalist hierarchy as the defining
feature of women's oppression and the total uprooting and reconstruction of society as
necessary.[4] Conservative feminism is conservative relative to the society in which it resides.
Libertarian feminism conceives of people as self-owners and therefore as entitled to freedom
from coercive interference.[82] Separatist feminism does not support heterosexual relationships.
Lesbian feminism is thus closely related. Other feminists criticize separatist feminism as sexist.[6]
Ecofeminists see men's control of land as responsible for the oppression of women and
destruction of the natural environment; ecofeminism has been criticised for focusing too much
on a mystical connection between women and nature.[83]

Materialist ideologies

Rosemary Hennessy and Chrys Ingraham say that materialist feminisms grew out of Western
Marxist thought and have inspired a number of different (but overlapping) movements, all of
which are involved in a critique of capitalism and are focussed on ideology's relationship to
women.[84] Marxist feminism argues that capitalism is the root cause of women's oppression, and
that discrimination against women in domestic life and employment is an effect of capitalist
ideologies.[85] Socialist feminism distinguishes itself from Marxist feminism by arguing that
women's liberation can only be achieved by working to end both the economic and cultural
sources of women's oppression.[86] Anarcha-feminists believe that class struggle and anarchy
against the state[87] require struggling against patriarchy, which comes from involuntary
hierarchy.

Black and postcolonial ideologies

Sara Ahmed argues that Black and Postcolonial feminisms pose a challenge "to some of the
organizing premises of Western feminist thought."[88] During much of its history, feminist
movements and theoretical developments were led predominantly by middle-class white women
from Western Europe and North America.[64][67][89] However women of other races have
proposed alternative feminisms.[67] This trend accelerated in the 1960s with the civil rights
movement in the United States and the collapse of European colonialism in Africa, the
Caribbean, parts of Latin America, and Southeast Asia. Since that time, women in developing
nations and former colonies and who are of colour or various ethnicities or living in poverty have
proposed additional feminisms.[89] Womanism[90][91] emerged after early feminist movements
were largely white and middle-class.[64] Postcolonial feminists argue that colonial oppression and
Western feminism marginalized postcolonial women but did not turn them passive or
voiceless.[9] Third-world feminism and Indigenous feminism are closely related to postcolonial
feminism.[89] These ideas also correspond with ideas in African feminism, motherism,[92]
Stiwanism,[93] negofeminism,[94] femalism, transnational feminism, and Africana womanism.[95]

Social constructionist ideologies

In the late twentieth century various feminists began to argue that gender roles are socially
constructed,[96][97] and that it is impossible to generalize women's experiences across cultures and
histories.[98] Post-structural feminism draws on the philosophies of post-structuralism and
deconstruction in order to argue that the concept of gender is created socially and culturally
through discourse.[99] Postmodern feminists also emphasize the social construction of gender and
the discursive nature of reality,[96] however as Pamela Abbot et al. note, a postmodern approach
to feminism highlights "the existence of multiple truths (rather than simply men and women's
standpoints)"

Feminism and sexuality

Main article: Feminist views on sexuality

Feminist views on sexuality vary, and have differed by historical period and by cultural context.
Feminist attitudes to female sexuality have taken a few different directions. Matters such as the
sex industry, sexual representation in the media, and issues regarding consent to sex under
conditions of male dominance have been particularly controversial among feminists. This debate
has culminated in the late 1970s and the 1980s, in what came to be known as the feminist sex
wars, which pitted anti-pornography feminism against sex-positive feminism, and parts of the
feminist movement were deeply divided by these debates.[106][107][108][109][110] Feminists have
taken a variety of positions on different aspects of the sexual revolution from the 1960s and 70s.
Over the course of the 1970s, a large number of influential women accepted lesbian and bisexual
women as part of feminism.[111]

Sex industry
Main articles: Sex industry, Feminist views on pornography, Feminist views on prostitution and Feminist
sex wars

Opinions on the sex industry are diverse. Feminists are generally either critical of it (seeing it as
exploitative, a result of patriarchal social structures and reinforcing sexual and cultural attitudes
that are complicit in rape and sexual harassment) or supportive of at least parts of it (arguing that
some forms of it can be a medium of feminist expression and a means of women taking control
of their sexuality).

Feminist views of pornography range from condemnation of pornography as a form of violence

against women, to an embracing of some forms of pornography as a medium of feminist
expression.[106][107][108][109][110] Feminists' views on prostitution vary, but many of these
perspectives can be loosely arranged into an overarching standpoint that is generally either
critical or supportive of prostitution and sex work.[112]

Affirming female sexual autonomy

For feminists, a woman's right to control her own sexuality is a key issue. Feminists such as
Catharine MacKinnon argue that women have very little control over their own bodies, with
female sexuality being largely controlled and defined by men in patriarchal societies. Feminists
argue that sexual violence committed by men is often rooted in ideologies of male sexual
entitlement, and that these systems grant women very few legitimate options to refuse sexual
advances.[113][114] In many cultures, men do not believe that a woman has the right to reject a
man's sexual advances or to make an autonomous decision about participating in sex. Feminists
argue that all cultures are, in one way or another, dominated by ideologies that largely deny
women the right to decide how to express their sexuality, because men under patriarchy feel
entitled to define sex on their own terms. This entitlement can take different forms, depending on
the culture. In many parts of the world, especially in conservative and religious cultures,
marriage is regarded as an institution which requires a wife to be sexually available at all times,
virtually without limit; thus, forcing or coercing sex on a wife is not considered a crime or even
an abusive behavior.[115][116] In more liberal cultures, this entitlement takes the form of a general
sexualization of the whole culture. This is played out in the sexual objectification of women,
with pornography and other forms of sexual

entertainment

creating the fantasy that all women exist solely for men's sexual pleasure, and that women are readily
available and desiring to engage in sex at any time, with any man, on a man's terms.[117]

Feminism and science

For more details on this topic, see Feminist epistemology.

Sandra Harding says that the "moral and political insights of the women's movement have
inspired social scientists and biologists to raise critical questions about the ways traditional
researchers have explained gender, sex and relations within and between the social and natural
worlds."[118] Some feminists, such as Ruth Hubbard and Evelyn Fox Keller, criticize traditional
scientific discourse as being historically biased towards a male perspective.[119] A part of the
feminist research agenda is the examination of the ways in which power inequities are created
and/or reinforced in scientific and academic institutions.[120] Physicist Lisa Randall, appointed to
a task force at Harvard by then-president Lawrence Summers after his controversial discussion
of why women may be underrepresented in science and engineering, said, "I just want to see a
whole bunch more women enter the field so these issues don't have to come up anymore."[121]

Lynn Hankinson Nelson notes that feminist empiricists find fundamental differences between the
experiences of men and women. Thus, they seek to obtain knowledge through the examination of
the experiences of women, and to "uncover the consequences of omitting, misdescribing, or
devaluing them" to account for a range of human experience.[122] Another part of the feminist
research agenda is the uncovering of ways in which power inequities are created and/or
reinforced in society and in scientific and academic institutions.[120] Furthermore, despite calls
for greater attention to be paid to structures of gender inequity in the academic literature,
structural analyses of gender bias rarely appear in highly cited psychological journals, especially
in the commonly studied areas of psychology and personality.[123]

One criticism of feminist epistemology is that it allows social and political values to influence its
findings.[124] Susan Haack also points out that feminist epistemology reinforces traditional
stereotypes about women's thinking (as intuitive and emotional, etc.), Meera Nanda further
cautions that this may in fact trap women within "traditional gender roles and help justify
patriarchy".[125]

Biology and gender

For more details on this topic, see Gender essentialism and Sexual differentiation.

Modern feminist science challenges the biological essentialist view of gender.[126][127] For
example, Anne Fausto-Sterling's book, Myths of Gender, explores the assumptions embodied in
scientific research that support a biologically essentialist view of gender.[128] In Delusions of
Gender, Cordelia Fine disputes scientific evidence that suggests that there is an innate biological
difference between men's and women's minds, asserting instead that cultural and societal beliefs
are the reason for differences between individuals that are commonly perceived as sex
differences.[129]

Feminist psychology
Main article: Feminist psychology

Feminism in psychology emerged as a critique of the dominant male outlook on psychological

research where only male perspectives were studied with all male subjects. As women earned
doctorates in psychology, females and their issues were introduced as legitimate topics of study.
Feminist psychology emphasizes social context, lived experience, and qualitative analysis.[130]
Projects such as Psychology's Feminist Voices have emerged to catalogue the influence of
feminist psychologists on the discipline.[131]

Feminist culture
Main article: Feminism in culture

Architecture

Gender-based inquiries into and conceptualization of architecture have also come about, leading
to feminism in modern architecture. Piyush Mathur coined the term "archigenderic". Claiming
that "architectural planning has an inextricable link with the defining and regulation of gender
roles, responsibilities, rights, and limitations", Mathur came up with that term "to explore ... the
meaning of 'architecture' in terms of gender" and "to explore the meaning of 'gender' in terms of
architecture".[132]

Visual arts
Main article: Feminist art movement

Corresponding with general developments within feminism, and often including such self-
organizing tactics as the consciousness-raising group, the movement began in the 1960s and
flourished throughout the 1970s.[133] Jeremy Strick, director of the Museum of Contemporary Art
in Los Angeles, described the feminist art movement as "the most influential international
movement of any during the postwar period", and Peggy Phelan says that it "brought about the
most far-reaching transformations in both artmaking and art writing over the past four
decades".[133] Judy Chicago, who with a team of 129 created The Dinner Party, said in 2009 to
ARTnews, "There is still an institutional lag and an insistence on a male Eurocentric narrative.
We are trying to change the future: to get girls and boys to realize that women's art is not an
exception—it's a normal part of art history."[134]

Literature

The feminist movement produced both feminist fiction and non-fiction, and created new interest
in women's writing. It also prompted a general reevaluation of women's historical and academic
contributions in response to the belief that women's lives and contributions have been
underrepresented as areas of scholarly interest.[135] Much of the early period of feminist literary
scholarship was given over to the rediscovery and reclamation of texts written by women.
Studies like Dale Spender's Mothers of the Novel (1986) and Jane Spencer's The Rise of the
Woman Novelist (1986) were ground-breaking in their insistence that women have always been
writing. Commensurate with this growth in scholarly interest, various presses began the task of
reissuing long-out-of-print texts. Virago Press began to publish its large list of 19th and early-
20th-century novels in 1975 and became one of the first commercial presses to join in the project
of reclamation. In the 1980s Pandora Press, responsible for publishing Spender's study, issued a
companion line of 18th-century novels written by women.[136] More recently, Broadview Press
continues to issue 18th- and 19th-century novels, many hitherto out of print, and the University
of Kentucky has a series of republications of early women's novels. A Vindication of the Rights
of Woman (1792) by Mary Wollstonecraft, is one of the earliest works of feminist philosophy. A
Room of One's Own (1929) by Virginia Woolf, is noted in its argument for both a literal and
figural space for women writers within a literary tradition dominated by patriarchy.

The widespread interest in women's writing is related to a general reassessment and expansion of
the literary canon. Interest in post-colonial literatures, gay and lesbian literature, writing by
people of colour, working people's writing, and the cultural productions of other historically
marginalized groups has resulted in a whole scale expansion of what is considered "literature,"
and genres hitherto not regarded as "literary," such as children's writing, journals, letters, travel
writing, and many others are now the subjects of scholarly interest.[135][137][138] Most genres and
subgenres have undergone a similar analysis, so that one now sees work on the "female
gothic"[139] or women's science fiction.

According to Elyce Rae Helford, "Science fiction and fantasy serve as important vehicles for
feminist thought, particularly as bridges between theory and practice."[140] Feminist science
fiction is sometimes taught at the university level to explore the role of social constructs in
understanding gender.[141] Notable texts of this kind are Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of
Darkness (1969), Joanna Russ' The Female Man (1970), Octavia Butler's Kindred (1979) and
Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale (1985).

Music
Main article: Women's music

Women's music (or womyn's music or wimmin's music) is the music by women, for women, and
about women.[142] The genre emerged as a musical expression of the second-wave feminist
movement[143] as well as the labor, civil rights, and peace movements.[144] The movement was
started by lesbians such as Cris Williamson, Meg Christian, and Margie Adam, African-
American women activists such as Bernice Johnson Reagon and her group Sweet Honey in the
Rock, and peace activist Holly Near.[144] Women's music also refers to the wider industry of
women's music that goes beyond the performing artists to include studio musicians, producers,
sound engineers, technicians, cover artists, distributors, promoters, and festival organizers who
are also women.[142]

Feminism became a principal concern of musicologists in the 1980s.[145] Prior to this, in the
1970s, musicologists were beginning to discover women composers and performers, and had
begun to review concepts of

canon

, genius, genre and periodization from a feminist perspective. In other words, the question of how women
musicians fit into traditional music history was now being asked.[145]

Through the 1980s and 1990s, this trend continued as musicologists like Susan McClary, Marcia
Citron and Ruth Solie began to consider the cultural reasons for the marginalizing of women
from the received body of work. Concepts such as music as gendered discourse; professionalism;
reception of women's music; examination of the sites of music production; relative wealth and
education of women; popular music studies in relation to women's identity; patriarchal ideas in
music analysis; and notions of gender and difference are among the themes examined during this
time.[145]

Cinema
Main article: Feminist film theory

See also: Women's cinema

Feminist cinema, advocating or illustrating feminist perspectives, arose largely with the
development of feminist film theory in the late ’60s and early ’70s. Women who were
radicalized during the 1960s by political debate and so-called sexual liberation; but the failure of
radicalism to produce substantive change for women galvanized them to form consciousness-
raising groups and set about analysing, from different perspectives, dominant cinema’s
construction of women.[146] Differences were particularly marked between feminists on either
side of the Atlantic. 1972 saw the first feminist film festivals in the U.S. and U.K. as well as the
first feminist film journal, Women and Film. Trailblazers from this period included Claire
Johnston and Laura Mulvey, who also organised the Women’s Event at the Edinburgh Film
Festival.[147] Other theorists making a powerful impact on feminist film include Teresa de
Lauretis, Anneke Smelik and Kaja Silverman. Approaches in philosophy and psychoanalysis
fuelled Feminist Film Criticism, Feminist Independent Film and Feminist Distribution.

It has been argued that there are two distinct approaches to independent, theoretically inspired
feminist filmmaking. ‘Deconstruction’ concerns itself with analysing and breaking down codes
of mainstream cinema, aiming to create a different relationship between the spectator and
dominant cinema. The second approach, a feminist counterculture, embodies feminine writing to
investigate a specifically feminine cinematic language.[148] Some recent criticism[149] of ‘feminist
film’ approaches has centred around a Swedish rating system called the Bechdel test.

During the 1930s-1950s heyday of the big Hollywood studios, the status of women in the
industry was abysmal[150] and, while much has improved, many would argue that there is still
much to be done. From art films by Sally Potter, Catherine Breillat, Claire Denis and Jane
Campion to action movies by Kathryn Bigelow, women now have a stronger voice, but are only
too aware of the still lingering gender gap.[151]

Relationship to political movements

Feminism had complex interactions with the major political movements of the twentieth century.

Socialism
Main article: Social Progressivism and Counterculture

Since the late nineteenth century some feminists have allied with socialism, whereas others have
criticized socialist ideology for being insufficiently concerned about women's rights. August
Bebel, an early activist of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD), published his work Die
Frau und der Sozialismus, juxtaposing the struggle for equal rights between sexes with social
equality in general. In 1907 there was an International Conference of Socialist Women in
Stuttgart where suffrage was described as a tool of class struggle. Clara Zetkin of the SPD called
for women's suffrage to build a "socialist order, the only one that allows for a radical solution to
the women's question".[152][153]

In Britain, the women's movement was allied with the Labour party. In the U.S., Betty Friedan
emerged from a radical background to take leadership. Radical Women is the oldest socialist
feminist organization in the U.S. and is still active.[154] During the Spanish Civil War, Dolores
Ibárruri (La Pasionaria) led the Communist Party of Spain. Although she supported equal rights
for women, she opposed women fighting on the front and clashed with the anarcha-feminist
Mujeres Libres.[155]

Fascism
Further information: Fascism and ideology

Fascism has been prescribed dubious stances on feminism by its practitioners and by women's
groups. Amongst other demands concerning social reform presented in the Fascist manifesto in
1919 was expanding the suffrage to all Italian citizens of age 18 and above, including women
(accomplished only in 1946, after the defeat of fascism) and eligibility for all to stand for office
from age 25. This demand was particularly championed by special Fascist women's auxiliary
groups such as the fasci femminilli and only partly realized in 1925, under pressure from Prime
Minister Benito Mussolini's more conservative coalition partners.[156][157]

Cyprian Blamires states that although feminists were among those who opposed the rise of Adolf
Hitler, feminism has a complicated relationship with the Nazi movement as well, which saw
several vocal female supporters as well as women's groups. While Nazis glorified traditional
notions of patriarchal society and its role for women, they claimed to recognize women's equality
in employment.[158] However, Hitler and Benito Mussolini declared themselves as opposed to
feminism,[158] and after the rise of Nazism in Germany in 1933, there was a rapid dissolution of
the political rights and economic opportunities that feminists had fought for during the prewar
period and to some extent during the 1920s.[153] Georges Duby et al. note that in practice fascist
society was hierarchical and emphasized male virility, with women maintaining a largely
subordinate position.[153] Blamires also notes that Neofascism has since the 1960s been hostile
towards feminism and advocates that women accept "their traditional roles".[158]

Civil rights movement and anti-racism

The civil rights movement has influenced and informed the feminist movement and vice versa.
Many Western feminists adapted the language and theories of black equality activism and drew
parallels between women's rights and the rights of non-white people.[159] Despite the connections
between the women's and civil rights movements, some tension arose during the late 1960s and
early 1970s as non-white women argued that feminism was predominantly white and middle
class, and did not understand and was not concerned with race issues.[160] Similarly, some
women argued that the civil rights movement had sexist elements and did not adequately address
minority women's concerns.[159] These criticisms created new feminist social theories about the
intersections of racism, classism, and sexism, and new feminisms, such as black feminism and
Chicana feminism.[161][162]

Societal impact
Main article: Feminist effects on society

The feminist movement has effected change in Western society, including women's suffrage;
greater access to education; more nearly equitable pay with men; the right to initiate divorce
proceedings; the right of women to make individual decisions regarding pregnancy (including
access to contraceptives and abortion); and the right to own property.[5]

Civil rights

From the 1960s on, the campaign for women's rights[163] was met with mixed results[164] in the
U.S. and the U.K. Other countries of the EEC agreed to ensure that discriminatory laws would be
phased out across the European Community.

Some feminist campaigning also helped reform attitudes to child sexual abuse. The view that
young girls cause men to have sexual intercourse with them was replaced by that of men's
responsibility for their own conduct, the men being adults.[165]

In the U.S., the National Organization for Women (NOW) began in 1966 to seek women's
equality, including through the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA),[166] which did not pass,
although some states enacted their own. Reproductive rights in the U.S. centered on the court
decision in Roe v. Wade enunciating a woman's right to choose whether to carry a pregnancy to
term. Western women gained more reliable birth control, allowing family planning and careers.
The movement started in the 1910s in the U.S. under Margaret Sanger and elsewhere under
Marie Stopes. In the final three decades of the 20th century, Western women knew a new
freedom through birth control, which enabled women to plan their adult lives, often making way
for both career and family.[167]

The division of labor within households was affected by the increased entry of women into
workplaces in the 20th century. Sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild found that, in two-career
couples, men and women, on average, spend about equal amounts of time working, but women
still spend more time on housework,[168][169] although Cathy Young responded by arguing that
women may prevent equal participation by men in housework and parenting.[170] Judith K.
Brown writes, "Women are most likely to make a substantial contribution when subsistence
activities have the following characteristics: the participant is not obliged to be far from home;
the tasks are relatively monotonous and do not require rapt concentration; and the work is not
dangerous, can be performed in spite of interruptions, and is easily resumed once
interrupted."[171]

In international law, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against
Women (CEDAW) is an international convention adopted by the United Nations General
Assembly and described as an international bill of rights for women. It came into force in those
nations ratifying it.[172]

Jurisprudence
Main article: Feminist legal theory

Feminist jurisprudence is a branch of jurisprudence that examines the relationship between

women and law. It addresses questions about the history of legal and social biases against
women and about the enhancement of their legal rights.[173]

Feminist jurisprudence signifies a reaction to the philosophical approach of modern legal

scholars, who typically see law as a process for interpreting and perpetuating a society's
universal, gender-neutral ideals. Feminist legal scholars claim that this fails to acknowledge
women's values or legal interests or the harms that they may anticipate or experience.[174]
Language
For more details on this topic, see Gender-neutral language in English.

Proponents of gender-neutral language argue that the use of gender-specific language often
implies male superiority or reflects an unequal state of society.[175] According to The Handbook
of English Linguistics, generic masculine pronouns and gender-specific job titles are instances
"where English linguistic convention has historically treated men as prototypical of the human
species."[176]

Theology
See also: Feminist theology and Gender of God

Cmdr. Adrienne Simmons speaking at the 2008 ceremony for the only women's mosque in Khost City, a
symbol of progress for growing women's rights in the Pashtun belt.

Feminist theology is a movement that reconsiders the traditions, practices, scriptures, and
theologies of religions from a feminist perspective. Some of the goals of feminist theology
include increasing the role of women among the clergy and religious authorities, reinterpreting
male-dominated imagery and language about God, determining women's place in relation to
career and motherhood, and studying images of women in the religion's sacred texts.[177] The
Christian Bible refers to women in positions of authority in Judges 4:4 and 2 Kings 22:14.

Christian feminism is a branch of feminist theology which seeks to interpret and understand
Christianity in light of the equality of women and men, and that this interpretation is necessary
for a complete understanding of Christianity. While there is no standard set of beliefs among
Christian feminists, most agree that God does not discriminate on the basis of sex, and are
involved in issues such as the ordination of women, male dominance and the balance of
parenting in Christian marriage, claims of moral deficiency and inferiority of women compared
to men, and the overall treatment of women in the church.[178][179]

Islamic feminists advocate women's rights, gender equality, and social justice grounded within
an Islamic framework. Advocates seek to highlight the deeply rooted teachings of equality in the
Quran and encourage a questioning of the patriarchal interpretation of Islamic teaching through
the Quran, hadith (sayings of Muhammad), and sharia (law) towards the creation of a more
equal and just society.[180] Although rooted in Islam, the movement's pioneers have also utilized
secular and Western feminist discourses and recognize the role of Islamic feminism as part of an
integrated global feminist movement.[181]

Jewish feminism is a movement that seeks to improve the religious, legal, and social status of
women within Judaism and to open up new opportunities for religious experience and leadership
for Jewish women. The main issues for early Jewish feminists in these movements were the
exclusion from the all-male prayer group or minyan, the exemption from positive time-bound
mitzvot, and women's inability to function as witnesses and to initiate divorce.[182] Many Jewish
women have become leaders of feminist movements throughout their history.[183]

Dianic Wicca is a feminist-centered thealogy.[184]

Secular or atheist feminists have engaged in feminist criticism of religion, arguing that many
religions have oppressive rules towards women and misogynistic themes and elements in
religious texts.[185][186][187]

Patriarchy
Main article: Patriarchy

"Female Muslims- The tsar, beys and khans took your rights away" – Soviet poster issued in Azerbaijan,
1921

Patriarchy is a social system in which society is organized around male authority figures. In this
system fathers have authority over women, children, and property. It implies the institutions of
male rule and privilege, and is dependent on female subordination.[188] Most forms of feminism
characterize patriarchy as an unjust social system that is oppressive to women. Carole Pateman
argues that the patriarchal distinction "between masculinity and femininity is the political
difference between freedom and subjection."[189] In feminist theory the concept of patriarchy
often includes all the social mechanisms that reproduce and exert male dominance over women.
Feminist theory typically characterizes patriarchy as a social construction, which can be
overcome by revealing and critically analyzing its manifestations.[190] Some radical feminists
have proposed that because patriarchy is too deeply rooted in society, separatism is the only
viable solution.[191] Other feminists have criticized these views as being anti-men.[192][193][194]

Men and masculinity

Main article: Men and feminism

Feminist theory has explored the social construction of masculinity and its implications for the
goal of gender equality. The social construct of masculinity is seen by feminism as problematic
because it associates males with aggression and competition, and reinforces patriarchal and
unequal gender relations.[63][195] Patriarchal cultures are criticized for "limiting forms of
masculinity" available to men and thus narrowing their life choices.[196] Some feminists are
engaged with men's issues activism, such as bringing attention to male rape and spousal battery
and addressing negative social expectations for men.[197][198][199]

Male participation in feminism is encouraged by feminists and is seen as an important strategy

for achieving full societal commitment to gender equality.[6][200][201] Many male feminists and
pro-feminists are active in both women's rights activism, feminist theory, and masculinity
studies. However, some argue that while male engagement with feminism is necessary, it is
problematic due to the ingrained social influences of patriarchy in gender relations.[202] The
consensus today in feminist and masculinity theories is that both genders can and should
cooperate to achieve the larger goals of feminism.[196] It has been proposed that, in large part, this
can be achieved through considerations of women's agency.[203]

Reactions
Different groups of people have responded to feminism, and both men and women have been
among its supporters and critics. Among American university students, for both men and women,
support for feminist ideas is more common than self-identification as a feminist.[204][205][206] The
US media tends to portray feminism negatively and feminists "are less often associated with day-
to-day work/leisure activities of regular women."[207][208] However, as recent research has
demonstrated, as people are exposed to self-identified feminists and to discussions relating to
various forms of feminism, their own self-identification with feminism increases.[209] Roy
Baumeister has criticized feminists who "look only at the top of society and draw conclusions
about society as a whole. Yes, there are mostly men at the top. But if you look at the bottom,
really at the bottom, you'll find mostly men there, too."[210]

Pro-feminism
Main article: Pro-feminism

Pro-feminism is the support of feminism without implying that the supporter is a member of the
feminist movement. The term is most often used in reference to men who are actively supportive
of feminism. The activities of pro-feminist men's groups include anti-violence work with boys
and young men in schools, offering sexual harassment workshops in workplaces, running
community education campaigns, and counseling male perpetrators of violence. Pro-feminist
men also may be involved in men's health, activism against pornography including anti-
pornography legislation, men's studies, and the development of gender equity curricula in
schools. This work is sometimes in collaboration with feminists and women's services, such as
domestic violence and rape crisis centers.[211][212]

Critique of feminism and anti-feminism

Main article: Anti-feminism

Anti-feminism is opposition to feminism in some or all of its forms.[213]

In the nineteenth century, anti-feminism was mainly focused on opposition to women's suffrage.
Later, opponents of women's entry into institutions of higher learning argued that education was
too great a physical burden on women. Other anti-feminists opposed women's entry into the
labor force, or their right to join unions, to sit on juries, or to obtain birth control and control of
their sexuality.[214]

Some people have opposed feminism on the grounds that they believe it is contrary to traditional
values or religious beliefs. These anti-feminists argue, for example, that social acceptance of
divorce and non-married women is wrong and harmful, and that men and women are
fundamentally different and thus their different traditional roles in society should be
maintained.[215][216][217] Other anti-feminists oppose women's entry into the workforce, political
office, and the voting process, as well as the lessening of male authority in families.[218][219]

Writers such as Camille Paglia, Christina Hoff Sommers, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Elizabeth Fox-
Genovese, Lisa Lucile Owens and Daphne Patai oppose some forms of feminism, though they
identify as feminists. They argue, for example, that feminism often promotes misandry and the
elevation of women's interests above men's, and criticize radical feminist positions as harmful to
both men and women.[220] Daphne Patai and Noretta Koertge argue that the term "anti-feminist"
is used to silence academic debate about feminism.[221] Lisa Lucile Owens argues that certain
rights extended exclusively to women are patriarchal because they relieve women from
exercising a crucial aspect of their moral agency.[222]
Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism is a theory in normative ethics holding that the moral action is the one that
maximizes utility. Utility is defined in various ways, including as pleasure, economic well-being
and the lack of suffering. Utilitarianism is a form of consequentialism, which implies that the
"end justifies the means". This view can be contrasted or combined with seeing intentions,
virtues or the compliance with rules as ethically important. Classical utilitarianism's two most
influential contributors are Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. Bentham, who takes happiness
as the measure for utility, says, "it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the
measure of right and wrong".[1]

Negative utilitarianism

In The Open Society and its Enemies (1945), Karl Popper argued that the principle "maximize
pleasure" should be replaced by "minimize pain". He thought "it is not only impossible but very
dangerous to attempt to maximize the pleasure or the happiness of the people, since such an
attempt must lead to totalitarianism."[57] He claimed that:[58]

there is, from the ethical point of view, no symmetry between suffering and happiness, or
between pain and pleasure… In my opinion human suffering makes a direct moral appeal,
namely, the appeal for help, while there is no similar call to increase the happiness of a man who
is doing well anyway. A further criticism of the Utilitarian formula "Maximize pleasure" is that it
assumes a continuous pleasure-pain scale which allows us to treat degrees of pain as negative
degrees of pleasure. But, from the moral point of view, pain cannot be outweighed by pleasure,
and especially not one man's pain by another man's pleasure. Instead of the greatest happiness for
the greatest number, one should demand, more modestly, the least amount of avoidable suffering
for all...

The actual term negative utilitarianism was introduced by R.N.Smart as the title to his 1958
reply to Popper[59] in which he argued that the principle would entail seeking the quickest and
least painful method of killing the entirety of humanity.

Suppose that a ruler controls a weapon capable of instantly and painlessly destroying the human
race. Now it is empirically certain that there would be some suffering before all those alive on
any proposed destruction day were to die in the natural course of events. Consequently the use of
the weapon is bound to diminish suffering, and would be the ruler's duty on NU grounds.[59]

Negative utilitarianism would seem to call for the destruction of the world even if only to avoid
the pain of a pinprick.[60]

Negative preference utilitarianism avoids the problem of moral killing, but still demands a
justification for the creation of new lives.[61]

Others see negative utilitarianism as a branch within classical utilitarianism, which assigns a
higher weight to the avoidance of suffering than to the promotion of happiness.[62] The moral
weight of suffering can be increased by using a "compassionate" utilitarian metric, so that the
result is the same as in prioritarianism.[63]

Optimistic and non-violent representatives of negative utilitarianism can be found in the

environment of bioethical abolitionism[64] and paradise engineering,[65] pessimistic
representatives can be found in the environment of Buddhism.[66]

Motive utilitarianism

Motive utilitarianism was first proposed by Robert Merrihew Adams in 1976.[67] Whereas act
utilitarianism requires us to choose our actions by calculating which action will maximize utility
and rule utilitarianism requires us to implement rules which will, on the whole, maximize utility,
motive utilitarianism "has the utility calculus being used to select motives and dispositions
according to their general felicific effects, and those motives and dispositions then dictate our
choices of actions."[68]
The arguments for moving to some form of motive utilitarianism at the personal level can be
seen as mirroring the arguments for moving to some form of rule utilitarianism at the social
level.[69] Adams refers to Sidgwick's observation that "Happiness (general as well as individual)
is likely to be better attained if the extent to which we set ourselves consciously to aim at it be
carefully restricted."[70] Trying to apply the utility calculation on each and every occasion is
likely to lead to a sub-optimal outcome. Applying carefully selected rules at the social level and
encouraging appropriate motives at the personal level is, so it is argued, likely to lead to a better
overall outcome even if on some individual occasions it leads to the wrong action when assessed
according to act utilitarian standards.

Adams illustrates his theory by telling a fictitious story about Jack, a lover of art, visiting
Chartres cathedral. Jack is motivated to see, as nearly as possible, everything in the cathedral.
However, there were some things in the cathedral that, on their own, didn't interest him much.
On act utilitarian grounds he should have ignored them. Spending more time in the cathedral
than he had originally planned resulted in him missing his dinner, doing several hours of night
driving, which he hates, and having trouble finding a place to sleep. Adams argues that Jack will
only have skipped the less interesting bits of the cathedral if "he had been less interested in
seeing everything in the cathedral than in maximizing utility. And it is plausible to suppose that
if his motivation had been different in that respect, he would have enjoyed the cathedral much
less."[71]

Adams concludes that "right action, by act-utilitarian standards, and right motivation, by motive-
utilitarian standards, are incompatible in some cases."[72] The necessity of this conclusion is
rejected by Fred Feldman who argues that "the conflict in question results from an inadequate
formulation of the utilitarian doctrines; motives play no essential role in it…(and that)…
Precisely the same sort of conflict arises even when MU is left out of consideration and AU is
applied by itself."[73] Instead, Feldman proposes a variant of act utilitarianism that results in there
being no conflict between it and motive utilitarianism.

Criticisms
Because utilitarianism is not a single theory but a cluster of related theories that have developed
over two hundred years, criticisms can be made for different reasons and have different targets.

Ignores justice

As Rosen[19] has pointed out, claiming that act utilitarians are not concerned about having rules is
to set up a "straw man". Similarly, Hare refers to "the crude caricature of act utilitarianism which
is the only version of it that many philosophers seem to be acquainted with."[74] Given what
Bentham says about second order evils[75] it would be a serious misrepresentation to say that he
and similar act utilitarians would be prepared to punish an innocent person for the greater good.
Nevertheless, whether they would agree or not, this is what critics of utilitarianism claim is
entailed by the theory. A classic version of this criticism was given by H. J. McCloskey:[40]

Suppose that a sheriff were faced with the choice either of framing a Negro for a rape that had
aroused hostility to the Negroes (a particular Negro generally being believed to be guilty but
whom the sheriff knows not to be guilty)—and thus preventing serious anti-Negro riots which
would probably lead to some loss of life and increased hatred of each other by whites and
Negroes—or of hunting for the guilty person and thereby allowing the anti-Negro riots to occur,
while doing the best he can to combat them. In such a case the sheriff, if he were an extreme
utilitarian, would appear to be committed to framing the Negro.

By "extreme" utilitarian, McCloskey is referring to what later came to be called "act"

utilitarianism. Whilst this story might be quoted as part of a justification for moving from act to
rule utilitarianism McCloskey anticipates this and points out that each rule has to be judged on its
utility and it is not at all obvious that a rule with exceptions has less utility. The above story
invites the reply that the sheriff would not frame the innocent because of the rule "do not punish
an innocent person"; it also invites the reply that these issues need to be resolved, and riots might
very well have positive utility in the long run by drawing attention and thus resources to the
racial situation. However, McCloskey asks, what about the rule "punish an innocent person when
and only when to do so is not to weaken the existing institution of punishment and when the
consequences of doing so are valuable"?

In a later article, McCloskey says:[76]

Surely the utilitarian must admit that whatever the facts of the matter may be, it is logically
possible that an 'unjust' system of punishment—e.g. a system involving collective punishments,
retroactive laws and punishments, or punishments of parents and relations of the offender—may
be more useful than a 'just' system of punishment?

Calculating utility is self-defeating

An early criticism, which was addressed by Mill, is that if time is taken to calculate the best
course of action it is likely that the opportunity to take the best course of action will already have
passed. Mill responds, that there has been ample time to calculate the likely effects:[77]

...namely, the whole past duration of the human species. During all that time, mankind have been
learning by experience the tendencies of actions; on which experience all the prudence, as well
as all the morality of life, are dependent…It is a strange notion that the acknowledgment of a
first principle is inconsistent with the admission of secondary ones. To inform a traveller
respecting the place of his ultimate destination, is not to forbid the use of landmarks and
direction-posts on the way. The proposition that happiness is the end and aim of morality, does
not mean that no road ought to be laid down to that goal, or that persons going thither should not
be advised to take one direction rather than another. Men really ought to leave off talking a kind
of nonsense on this subject, which they would neither talk nor listen to on other matters of
practical concernment.

More recently, Hardin has made the same point. "It should embarrass philosophers that they have
ever taken this objection seriously. Parallel considerations in other realms are dismissed with
eminently good sense. Lord Devlin notes, 'if the reasonable man "worked to rule" by perusing to
the point of comprehension every form he was handed, the commercial and administrative life of
the country would creep to a standstill.'"[78]

It is such considerations that lead even act utilitarians to rely on "rules of thumb", as Smart[79]
has called them. The objection arises when utilitarianism is mistakenly taken to be a decision-
making procedure rather than a criterion of what is right.

Predicting consequences

Some argue that it is impossible to do the calculation that utilitarianism requires because
consequences are inherently unknowable. Daniel Dennett describes this as the Three Mile Island
effect.[80] Dennett points out that not only is it impossible to assign a precise utility value to the
incident, it is impossible to know whether, ultimately, the near-meltdown that occurred was a
good or bad thing. He suggests that it would have been a good thing if plant operators learned
lessons that prevented future serious incidents.

Russell Hardin rejects such arguments. He argues that it is possible to distinguish the moral
impulse of utilitarianism (which is "to define the right as good consequences and to motivate
people to achieve these") from our ability to correctly apply rational principles which will among
other things "depend on the perceived facts of the case and on the particular moral actor's mental
equipment."[81] The fact that the latter is limited and can change doesn't mean that the former has
to be rejected. "If we develop a better system for determining relevant causal relations so that we
are able to choose actions that better produce our intended ends, it does not follow that we then
must change our ethics. The moral impulse of utilitarianism is constant, but our decisions under
it are contingent on our knowledge and scientific understanding."[78]

From the beginning, utilitarianism has recognized that certainty in such matters is unobtainable
and both Bentham and Mill said that it was necessary to rely on the tendencies of actions to bring
about consequences. G. E. Moore writing in 1903 said:[82]

We certainly cannot hope directly to compare their effects except within a limited future; and all
the arguments, which have ever been used in Ethics, and upon which we commonly act in
common life, directed to shewing that one course is superior to another, are (apart from
theological dogmas) confined to pointing out such probable immediate advantages…

An ethical law has the nature not of a scientific law but of a scientific prediction: and the latter is
always merely probable, although the probability may be very great.

Too demanding

Act utilitarianism not only requires everyone to do what they can to maximise utility, but to do
so without any favouritism. Mill says, "As between his own happiness and that of others,
utilitarianism requires him to be as strictly impartial as a disinterested and benevolent
spectator."[77] Critics say that this combination of requirements leads to utilitarianism making
unreasonable demands. The well-being of strangers counts just as much as that of friends, family
or self. "What makes this requirement so demanding is the gargantuan number of strangers in
great need of help and the indefinitely many opportunities to make sacrifices to help them."[83]
As Shelly Kagan says, "Given the parameters of the actual world, there is no question that
…(maximally)… promoting the good would require a life of hardship, self-denial, and
austerity…a life spent promoting the good would be a severe one indeed."[84]

Hooker describes two aspects to the problem: act utilitarianism requires huge sacrifices from
those who are relatively better off and also requires sacrifice of your own good even when the
aggregate good will be only slightly increased.[85] Another way of highlighting the complaint is
to say that in utilitarianism, "there is no such thing as morally permissible self-sacrifice that goes
above and beyond the call of duty."[85] Mill was quite clear about this, "A sacrifice which does
not increase, or tend to increase, the sum total of happiness, it considers as wasted."[77]

One response to the problem is to accept its demands. This is the view taken by Peter Singer,
who says: "No doubt we do instinctively prefer to help those who are close to us. Few could
stand by and watch a child drown; many can ignore the avoidable deaths of children in Africa or
India. The question, however, is not what we usually do, but what we ought to do, and it is
difficult to see any sound moral justification for the view that distance, or community
membership, makes a crucial difference to our obligations."[86]

Others argue that a moral theory that is so contrary to our deeply held moral convictions must
either be rejected or modified.[87] There have been various attempts to modify utilitarianism to
escape its seemingly over-demanding requirements.[88] One approach is to drop the demand that
utility be maximized. In Satisficing Consequentialism, Michael Slote argues for a form of
utilitarianism where "an act might qualify as morally right through having good enough
consequences, even though better consequences could have been produced."[89] One advantage of
such a system is that it would be able to accommodate the notion of supererogatory actions.

Samuel Scheffler takes a different approach and amends the requirement that everyone be treated
the same.[90] In particular, Scheffler suggests that there is an "agent-centered prerogative" such
that when the overall utility is being calculated it is permitted to count our own interests more
heavily than the interests of others. Kagan suggests that such a procedure might be justified on
the grounds that "a general requirement to promote the good would lack the

motivational

underpinning necessary for genuine moral requirements" and, secondly, that personal independence is
necessary for the existence of commitments and close personal relations and that "the value of such
commitments yields a positive reason for preserving within moral theory at least some moral
independence for the personal point of view."[91]

Robert Goodin takes yet another approach and argues that the demandingness objection can be
"blunted" by treating utilitarianism as a guide to public policy rather than one of individual
morality. He suggests that many of the problems arise under the traditional formulation because
the conscientious utilitarian ends up having to make up for the failings of others and so
contributing more than their fair share.[92]

Harsanyi argues that the objection overlooks the fact that "people attach considerable utility to
freedom from unduly burdensome moral obligations… most people will prefer a society with a
more relaxed moral code, and will feel that such a society will achieve a higher level of average
utility—even if adoption of such a moral code should lead to some losses in economic and
cultural accomplishments (so long as these losses remain within tolerable limits). This means
that utilitarianism, if correctly interpreted, will yield a moral code with a standard of acceptable
conduct very much below the level of highest moral perfection, leaving plenty of scope for
supererogatory actions exceeding this minimum standard."[93]

Aggregating utility

The objection that "utilitarianism does not take seriously the distinction between persons"[94]
came to prominence in 1971 with the publication of John Rawls' A Theory of Justice. The
concept is also important in animal rights advocate Richard Ryder's rejection of utilitarianism, in
which he talks of the "boundary of the individual", through which neither pain nor pleasure may
pass.[95] However, a similar objection was noted in 1970 by Thomas Nagel (who claimed that
consequentialism "treats the desires, needs, satisfactions, and dissatisfactions of distinct persons
as if they were the desires, etc., of a mass person"[96]), and even earlier by David Gauthier, who
wrote that utilitarianism supposes "that mankind is a super-person, whose greatest satisfaction is
the objective of moral action. . . . But this is absurd. Individuals have wants, not mankind;
individuals seek satisfaction, not mankind. A person's satisfaction is not part of any greater
satisfaction."[97] Thus, the aggregation of utility becomes futile as both pain and happiness are
intrinsic to and inseparable from the consciousness in which they are felt, rendering impossible
the task of adding up the various pleasures of multiple individuals.

A response to this criticism is to point out that whilst seeming to resolve some problems it
introduces others. Intuitively, there are many cases where people do want to take the numbers
involved into account. As Alastair Norcross has said, "suppose that Homer is faced with the
painful choice between saving Barney from a burning building or saving both Moe and Apu
from the building…it is clearly better for Homer to save the larger number, precisely because it
is a larger number… Can anyone who really considers the matter seriously honestly claim to
believe that it is worse that one person die than that the entire sentient population of the universe
be severely mutilated? Clearly not."[98]

It may be possible to uphold the distinction between persons whilst still aggregating utility, if it
accepted that people can be influenced by empathy.[99] This position is advocated by Iain
King,[100] who has suggested the evolutionary basis of empathy means humans can take into
account the interests of other individuals, but only on a one-to-one basis, "since we can only
imagine ourselves in the mind of one other person at a time."[101] King uses this insight to adapt
utilitarianism, and it may help reconcile Bentham's philosophy with deontology and virtue
ethics.[102]

Additional considerations
Average v. total happiness
Main article: Average and total utilitarianism

In The Methods of Ethics, Henry Sidgwick asked, "Is it total or average happiness that we seek to
make a maximum?"[109] He noted that aspects of the question had been overlooked and answered
the question himself by saying that what had to be maximized was the average multiplied by the
number of people living.[110] He also argued that, if the "average happiness enjoyed remains
undiminished, Utilitarianism directs us to make the number enjoying it as great as possible."[110]
This was also the view taken earlier by Paley. He notes that, although he speaks of the happiness
of communities, "the happiness of a people is made up of the happiness of single persons; and
the quantity of happiness can only be augmented by increasing the number of the percipients, or
the pleasure of their perceptions" and that if extreme cases, such a people held as slaves, are
excluded the amount of happiness will usually be in proportion to the number of people.
Consequently, "the decay of population is the greatest evil that a state can suffer; and the
improvement of it the object which ought, in all countries, to be aimed at in preference to every
other political purpose whatsoever."[111] More recently, a similar view has been expressed by
Smart, who argued that all other things being equal a universe with two million happy people is
better than a universe with only one million happy people.[112]
Since Sidgwick raised the question it has been studied in detail and philosophers have argued
that using either total or average happiness can lead to objectionable results.

According to Derek Parfit, using total happiness falls victim to the repugnant conclusion,
whereby large numbers of people with very low but non-negative utility values can be seen as a
better goal than a population of a less extreme size living in comfort. In other words, according
to the theory, it is a moral good to breed more people on the world for as long as total happiness
rises.[113]

On the other hand, measuring the utility of a population based on the average utility of that
population avoids Parfit's repugnant conclusion but causes other problems. For example,
bringing a moderately happy person into a very happy world would be seen as an immoral act;
aside from this, the theory implies that it would be a moral good to eliminate all people whose
happiness is below average, as this would raise the average happiness.[114]

William Shaw suggests that the problem can be avoided if a distinction is made between
potential people, who need not concern us, and actual future people, who should concern us. He
says, "utilitarianism values the happiness of people, not the production of units of happiness.
Accordingly, one has no positive obligation to have children. However, if you have decided to
have a child, then you have an obligation to give birth to the happiest child you can."[115]

Motives, intentions, and actions

Utilitarianism is typically taken to assess the rightness or wrongness of an action by considering

just the consequences of that action. Bentham very carefully distinguishes motive from intention
and says that motives are not in themselves good or bad but can be referred to as such on account
of their tendency to produce pleasure or pain. He adds that, "from every kind of motive, may
proceed actions that are good, others that are bad, and others that are indifferent."[116] Mill makes
a similar point[117] and explicitly says that "motive has nothing to do with the morality of the
action, though much with the worth of the agent. He who saves a fellow creature from drowning
does what is morally right, whether his motive be duty, or the hope of being paid for his
trouble."[118]

However, with intention the situation is more complex. In a footnote printed in the second
edition of Utilitarianism, Mill says: "the morality of the action depends entirely upon the
intention—that is, upon what the agent wills to do."[118] Elsewhere, he says, "Intention, and
motive, are two very different things. But it is the intention, that is, the foresight of
consequences, which constitutes the moral rightness or wrongness of the act."[119]

The correct interpretation of Mill's footnote is a matter of some debate. The difficulty in
interpretation centres around trying to explain why, since it is consequences that matter,
intentions should play a role in the assessment of the morality of an action but motives should
not. One possibility "involves supposing that the 'morality' of the act is one thing, probably to do
with the praiseworthiness or blameworthiness of the agent, and its rightness or wrongness
another."[120] Jonathan Dancy rejects this interpretation on the grounds that Mill is explicitly
making intention relevant to an assessment of the act not to an assessment of the agent.

An interpretation given by Roger Crisp draws on a definition given by Mill in A System of Logic,
where he says that an "intention to produce the effect, is one thing; the effect produced in
consequence of the intention, is another thing; the two together constitute the action."[121]
Accordingly, whilst two actions may outwardly appear to be the same they will be different
actions if there is a different intention. Dancy notes that this does not explain why intentions
count but motives do not.

A third interpretation is that an action might be considered a complex action consisting of several
stages and it is the intention that determines which of these stages are to be considered part of the
action. Although this is the interpretation favoured by Dancy, he recognizes that this might not
have been Mill's own view, for Mill "would not even allow that 'p & q' expresses a complex
proposition. He wrote in his System of Logic I iv. 3, of 'Caesar is dead and Brutus is alive', that
'we might as well call a street a complex house, as these two propositions a complex
proposition'."[120]
Finally, whilst motives may not play a role in determining the morality of an action, this does not
preclude utilitarians from fostering particular motives if doing so will increase overall happiness.

Issues
Application to specific issues
In An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation Bentham wrote "the question is
not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?"[122] Mill's distinction between
higher and lower pleasures might suggest that he gave more status to humans but in The Methods
of Ethics, philosopher Henry Sidgwick says "We have next to consider who the "all" are, whose
happiness is to be taken into account. Are we to extend our concern to all the beings capable of
pleasure and pain whose feelings are affected by our conduct? or are we to confine our view to
human happiness? The former view is the one adopted by Bentham and Mill, and (I believe) by
the Utilitarian school generally: and is obviously most in accordance with the universality that is
characteristic of their principle...it seems arbitrary and unreasonable to exclude from the end, as
so conceived, any pleasure of any sentient being."[123]

Moreover, John Stuart Mill himself, in Whewell on Moral Philosophy, defends Bentham's
advocacy for animal rights, calling it a "noble anticipation", and writing: "Granted that any
practice causes more pain to animals than it gives pleasure to man; is that practice moral or
immoral? And if, exactly in proportion as human beings raise their heads out of the slough of
selfishness, they do not with one voice answer "immoral," let the morality of the principle of
utility be for ever condemned." [124]

The utilitarian philosopher Peter Singer and many other animal rights activists have continued to
argue that the well-being of all sentient beings ought to be seriously considered. Singer suggests
that rights are conferred according to the level of a creature's self-awareness, regardless of their
species. He adds that humans tend to be speciesist (discriminatory against non-humans) in ethical
matters, and argues that, on utilitarianism, speciesism cannot be justified as there is no rational
distinction that can be made between the suffering of humans and the suffering of nonhuman
animals; all suffering ought to be reduced. Singer writes: "The racist violates the principle of
equality by giving greater weight to the interests of members of his own race, when there is a
clash between their interests and the interests of those of another race. Similarly the speciesist
allows the interests of his own species to override the greater interests of members of other
species. The pattern is the same in each case... Most human beings are speciesists."[125]

In his 1990 edition of Animal Liberation, Peter Singer said that he no longer ate oysters and
mussels, because although the creatures might not suffer, they might, it's not really known, and
it's easy enough to avoid eating them in any case[126] (and this aspect of seeking better
alternatives is a prominent part of utilitarianism).

This view still might be contrasted with deep ecology, which holds that an intrinsic value is
attached to all forms of life and nature, whether currently assumed to be sentient or not.
According to utilitarianism, the forms of life that are unable to experience anything akin to either
enjoyment or discomfort are denied moral status, because it is impossible to increase the
happiness or reduce the suffering of something that cannot feel happiness or suffer. Singer
writes: "The capacity for suffering and enjoying things is aprerequisite for having interests at all,
a condition that must be satisfied before we can speak of interests in any meaningful way. It
would be nonsense to say that it was not in the interests of a stone to be kicked along the road by
a schoolboy. A stone does not have interests because it cannot suffer. Nothing that we can do to
it could possibly make any difference to its welfare. A mouse, on the other hand, does have an
interest in not being tormented, because it will suffer if it is. If a being suffers, there can be no
moral justification for refusing to take that suffering into consideration. No matter what the
nature of the being, the principle of equality requires that its suffering be counted equally with
the like suffering—in so far as rough comparisons can be made—of any other being. If a being is
not capable of suffering, or of experiencing enjoyment or happiness, there is nothing to be taken
into account."

Thus, the moral value of one-celled organisms, as well as some multi-cellular organisms, and
natural entities like a river, is only in the benefit they provide to sentient beings. Similarly,
utilitarianism places no direct intrinsic value on biodiversity, although the benefits that
biodiversity bring to sentient beings may mean that, on utilitarianism, biodiversity ought to be
maintained in general.

Tyler Cowen argues that, if individual animals are carriers of utility, then we should consider
limiting the predatory activity of carnivores relative to their victims: "At the very least, we
should limit current subsidies to nature's carnivores."[127]

Some members of the effective altruism movement use utilitarian logic to donate to the most
cost-effective animal and vegetarian advocacy charities in order to relieve the greatest amount of
animal suffering for the greatest number. For example, Peter Singer is a board member of the
organisation Animal Charity Evaluators, which assesses how effective animal charities are.[128]

World poverty

An article in the American journal for Economics has addressed the issue of Utilitarian ethics
within redistribution of wealth. The journal stated that taxation of the wealthy is the best way to
make use of the disposable income they receive. This says that the money creates utility for the
most people by funding government services. [129]Many utilitarian philosophers, including Peter
Singer and Toby Ord, argue that inhabitants of developed countries in particular have an
obligation to help to end extreme poverty across the world, for example by regularly donating
some of their income to charity. Peter Singer, for example, argues that donating some of one's
income to charity could help to save a life or cure somebody from a poverty-related illness,
which is a much better use of the money as it brings someone in extreme poverty far more
happiness than it would bring to oneself if one lived in relative comfort. However, Singer not
only argues that one ought to donate a significant proportion of one's income to charity, but also
that this money should be directed to the most cost-effective charities, in order to bring about the
greatest good for the greatest number, consistent with utilitarian thinking.[130]

Similar to animal advocacy, some members of the effective altruism movement use utilitarian
logic to advocate donating in a cost-effective manner to charities helping to end extreme poverty.

Future generations

The number of future generations is potentially very large. If a utilitarian values the welfare of
future humans, even small risks of human extinction (for example, from meteor impacts[131])
should be given a high priority.[132][133] Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom in his New York Times
bestseller,[134] Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies, attempts to instill the value of the
lives of future humans. If 10% of the 2*10^20 stars in our Hubble volume were eventually able
to be habitable by 1 billion humans, for 1 billion years (one quarter of the time life has been on
earth), 10^35 lives are at stake. Representing "all the happiness experienced during one entire
such life with a single teardrop of joy, the happiness could fill and refill the Earth's oceans every
second, and keep doing so for a billion billion millennia. It is really important that we make sure
these truly are tears of joy." [135]
Kantianism
Kantian ethics are deontological, revolving entirely around duty rather than emotions or end
goals. All actions are performed in accordance with some underlying maxim or principle, which
are deeply different from each other; it is according to this that the moral worth of any action is
judged. Kant's ethics are founded on his view of rationality as the ultimate good and his belief
that all people are fundamentally rational beings. This led to the most important part of Kant's
ethics, the formulation of the categorical imperative, which is the criterion for whether a maxim
is good or bad.

Simply put, this criterion amounts to a thought experiment: to attempt to universalize the maxim
(by imagining a world where all people necessarily acted in this way in the relevant
circumstances) and then see if the maxim and its associated action would still be conceivable in
such a world. For instance, holding the maxim kill anyone who annoys you and applying it
universally would result in a world which would soon be devoid of people and without anyone
left to kill. Thus holding this maxim is irrational as it ends up being impossible to hold it.

Universalizing a maxim (statement) leads to it being valid, or to one of two contradictions — a

contradiction in conception (where the maxim, when universalized, is no longer a viable means
to the end) or a contradiction in will (where the will of a person contradicts what the
universalization of the maxim implies). The first type leads to a "perfect duty", and the second
leads to an "imperfect duty."

Kant's ethics focus then only on the maxim that underlies actions and judges these to be good or
bad solely on how they conform to reason. Kant showed that many of our common sense views
of what is good or bad conform to his system but denied that any action performed for reasons
other than rational actions can be good (saving someone who is drowning simply out of a great
pity for them is not a morally good act). Kant also denied that the consequences of an act in any
way contribute to the moral worth of that act, his reasoning being (highly simplified for brevity)
that the physical world is outside our full control and thus we cannot be held accountable for the
events that occur in it.

The Formulations of the Categorical Imperative:

1. Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should
become a universal law.[1]
2. Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person
of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end.[1]
3. Therefore, every rational being must so act as if he were through his maxim always a
legislating member in the universal kingdom of ends.[1]

In political philosophy, Kant has had wide and increasing influence with the major political
philosopher of the late twentieth century, John Rawls, drawing heavily on his inspiration in
setting out the basis for a liberal view of political institutions. The nature of Rawls' use of Kant
has engendered serious controversy but has demonstrated the vitality of Kantian considerations
across a wider range of questions than was once thought plausible.
Liberal democracy
Liberal democracy is a form of government in which representative democracy operates under the
principles of liberalism, i.e. protecting the rights of the individual, which are generally enshrined in law. It
is characterised by fair, free, and competitive elections between multiple distinct political parties, a
separation of powers into different branches of government, the rule of law in everyday life as part of an
open society, and the equal protection of human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, and political freedoms
for all persons. To define the system in practice, liberal democracies often draw upon a constitution,
either formally written or uncodified, to delineate the powers of government and enshrine the social
contract. After a period of sustained expansion throughout the 20th century, liberal democracy became the
predominant political system in the world.

Rights and freedoms

In practice, democracies do have limits on certain freedoms. There are various legal limitations
such as copyright and laws against defamation. There may be limits on anti-democratic speech,
on attempts to undermine human rights, and on the promotion or justification of terrorism. In the
United States more than in Europe, during the Cold War, such restrictions applied to
Communists. Now they are more commonly applied to organisations perceived as promoting
actual terrorism or the incitement of group hatred. Examples include anti-terrorism legislation,
the shutting down of Hezbollah satellite broadcasts, and some laws against hate speech. Critics
claim that these limitations may go too far and that there may be no due and fair judicial process.

The common justification for these limits is that they are necessary to guarantee the existence of
democracy, or the existence of the freedoms themselves. For example, allowing free speech for
those advocating mass murder undermines the right to life and security. Opinion is divided on
how far democracy can extend to include the enemies of democracy in the democratic process. If
relatively small numbers of people are excluded from such freedoms for these reasons, a country
may still be seen as a liberal democracy. Some argue that this is only quantitatively (not
qualitatively) different from autocracies that persecute opponents, since only a small number of
people are affected and the restrictions are less severe. Others emphasise that democracies are
different. At least in theory, opponents of democracy are also allowed due process under the rule
of law. In principle, democracies allow criticism and change of the leaders and the political and
economic system itself; it is only attempts to do so violently and the promotion of such violence
that is prohibited.

However, many governments considered to be democratic have restrictions upon expressions

considered anti-democratic, such as Holocaust denial[citation needed] and hate speech. Members of
political organisations with connections to prior totalitarianism (typically Soviet-style-
Communist or fascist National Socialists) parties prohibited any current or former members of
such organisations may be deprived of the vote and the privilege of holding certain jobs.
Discriminatory behaviour may be prohibited, such as refusal by owners of public
accommodations to serve persons on grounds of race, religion, ethnicity, gender, or sexual
orientation. For example, in Canada, a printer who refused to print materials for the Canadian
Lesbian and Gay Archives was fined $5,000, incurred $100,000 in legal fees, and was ordered to
pay a further $40,000 of his opponents' legal fees by the Human Rights Tribunal.[1]

Other rights considered fundamental in one country may be foreign to other governments. For
instance, the constitutions of Canada, India, Israel, Mexico and the United States guarantee
freedom from double jeopardy, a right not provided in other legal systems. Similarly, many
Americans consider gun rights to be important, while other countries do not recognise them as
fundamental rights.

Preconditions
Although they are not part of the system of government as such, a modicum of individual and
economic freedoms, which result in the formation of a significant middle class and a broad and
flourishing civil society, are often seen as pre-conditions for liberal democracy (Lipset 1959).

For countries without a strong tradition of democratic majority rule, the introduction of free
elections alone has rarely been sufficient to achieve a transition from dictatorship to democracy;
a wider shift in the political culture and gradual formation of the institutions of democratic
government are needed. There are various examples—for instance, in Latin America—of
countries that were able to sustain democracy only temporarily or in a limited fashion until wider
cultural changes established the conditions under which democracy could flourish.[citation needed]

One of the key aspects of democratic culture is the concept of a "loyal opposition", where
political competitors may disagree, but they must tolerate one another and acknowledge the
legitimate and important roles that each play. This is an especially difficult cultural shift to
achieve in nations where transitions of power have historically taken place through violence. The
term means, in essence, that all sides in a democracy share a common commitment to its basic
values. The ground rules of the society must encourage tolerance and civility in public debate. In
such a society, the losers accept the judgment of the voters when the election is over, and allow
for the peaceful transfer of power. The losers are safe in the knowledge that they will neither lose
their lives nor their liberty, and will continue to participate in public life. They are loyal not to
the specific policies of the government, but to the fundamental legitimacy of the state and to the
democratic process itself.

Example:

Several organisations and political scientists maintain lists of free and unfree states, both in the
present and going back a couple centuries. Of these, the best known may be the Polity Data Set[9]
and that produced by Freedom House.

There is agreement amongst several intellectuals and organisations such as Freedom House that
the states of the European Union, Norway, Iceland, Switzerland, Japan, Argentina, Brazil, Chile,
South Korea, Taiwan, the United States, India, Canada,[10][11][12][13][14] Mexico, Israel, South
Africa, Australia, and New Zealand[15] are liberal democracies, with Canada having the largest
land area and India currently having the largest population among the democracies in the
world.[16]

Freedom House considers many of the officially democratic governments in Africa and the
former Soviet Union to be undemocratic in practice, usually because the sitting government has a
strong influence over election outcomes. Many of these countries are in a state of considerable
flux.

Officially non-democratic forms of government, such as single-party states and dictatorships are
more common in East Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa.

Types
Proportional vs. plurality representation

Plurality voting system award seats according to regional majorities. The political party or
individual candidate who receives the most votes, wins the seat which represents that locality.
There are other democratic electoral systems, such as the various forms of proportional
representation, which award seats according to the proportion of individual votes that a party
receives nation-wide or in a particular region.

One of the main points of contention between these two systems, is whether to have
representatives who are able to effectively represent specific regions in a country, or to have all
citizens' vote count the same, regardless of where in the country they happen to live.

Some countries such as Germany and New Zealand, address the conflict between these two
forms of representation, by having two categories of seats in the lower house of their national
legislative bodies. The first category of seats is appointed according to regional popularity, and
the remainder are awarded to give the parties a proportion of seats that is equal—or as equal as
practicable—to their proportion of nation-wide votes. This system is commonly called mixed
member proportional representation.

Australia incorporates both systems in having the preferential voting system applicable to the
lower house and proportional representation by state in the upper house. This system is argued to
result in a more stable government, while having a better diversity of parties to review its
actions.

Presidential vs. parliamentary systems

A presidential system is a system of government of a republic in which the executive branch is

elected separately from the legislative. A parliamentary system is distinguished by the executive
branch of government being dependent on the direct or indirect support of the parliament, often
expressed through a vote of confidence.

The presidential system of democratic government has become popular in Latin America, Africa,
and parts of the former Soviet Union, largely by the example of the United States. Constitutional
monarchies (dominated by elected parliaments) are popular in Northern Europe and some former
colonies which peacefully separated, such as Australia and Canada. Others have also arisen in
Spain, East Asia, and a variety of small nations around the world. Former British territories such
as South Africa, India, Ireland, and the United States opted for different forms at the time of
independence. The parliamentary system is popular in the European Union and neighboring
countries.

Critisism
Lacking direct democracy

As liberal democracy is a variant of representative democracy, it does not directly respect the
will of average citizens except when citizens elect representatives. Given this that a small
number of elected representatives make decisions and policies about how a nation is governed,
the laws that govern the lives of its citizens, elite theorists such as Robert Michels argue that
representative democracy and thereby liberal democracy is merely a decoration over an
oligarchy;[17] political theorist Robert A. Dahl has described liberal democracies as polyarchies.
For these reasons and others, opponents support other, more direct forms of governance such as
direct democracy.[citation needed]

It has generally been argued by those who support liberal democracy or representative
democracy that minority interests and individual liberties must be protected from the majority;
for instance in Federalist No. 10 James Madison states, "the most common and durable source of
factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those
who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society." In order to prevent a
minority, in this case, land owners, from being marginalised by a majority, in this case non-land
owners, it prescribes what it calls a republic. Unmoderated majority rule could, in this view, lead
to an oppression of minorities (see Majoritarianism below.) Another argument is that the elected
leaders may be more interested and able than the average voter. A third is that it takes much
effort and time if everyone should gather information, discuss, and vote on most issues. Direct
democracy proponents in turn have counter-arguments, see the Direct democracy. Switzerland is
a functioning example of direct democracy.[citation needed]

Today, Many liberal democracies have elements of direct democracy such as referendums,
plebiscites, initiatives, recall elections, and models of "Deliberative democracy". For example,
former Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez recently allowed referendums on important aspects
of the government. Also, several states in the United States have functional aspects that are
directly democratic. Uruguay is another example. Many other countries have referendums to a
lesser degree in their political system.

Dictatorship of the bourgeoisie

Some Marxists, Communists, Socialists and anarchists, argue that liberal democracy, under
capitalist ideology, is constitutively class-based and therefore can never be democratic or
participatory. It is referred to as bourgeois democracy because ultimately politicians fight only
for the rights of the bourgeoisie. According to Marx, representation of the interests of different
classes is proportional to the influence which the economic clout that a particular class can
purchase (through bribes, transmission of propaganda, economic blackmail, campaign
'donations', etc.). Thus, the public interest, in so-called liberal democracies, is systematically
corrupted by the wealth of those classes rich enough to gain (the appearance of) representation.
Because of this, multi-party democracies under capitalist ideology are always distorted and anti-
democratic, their operation merely furthering the class interests of the owners of the means of
production.

According to Marx, the bourgeois class becomes wealthy through a drive to appropriate the
surplus-value of the creative labours of the working class. This drive obliges the bourgeois class
to amass ever-larger fortunes by increasing the proportion of surplus-value by exploiting the
working class through capping workers' terms and conditions as close to poverty levels as
possible. (Incidentally, this obligation demonstrates the clear limit to bourgeois freedom, even
for the bourgeoisie itself.)

Thus, according to Marx, parliamentary elections are no more than a cynical, systemic attempt to
deceive the people by permitting them, every now and again, to endorse one or other of the
bourgeoisie's predetermined choices of which political party can best advocate the interests of
capital. Once elected, this parliament, as a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, enacts regulations that
actively support the interests of its true constituency, the bourgeoisie (such as bailing out Wall St
investment banks; direct socialisation/subsidisation of business - GMH, US/European
agricultural subsidies; and even wars to guarantee trade in commodities such as oil).

Vladimir Lenin once argued that liberal democracy had simply been used to give an illusion of
democracy while maintaining the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.

In short, popular elections are nothing but the appearance of having the power of decision of who
among the ruling classes will misrepresent the people in parliament.[18]

The cost of political campaigning in representative democracies favors the rich, a form of
plutocracy where only a very small number of individuals can actually affect government
policy.[citation needed] In Athenian democracy, some public offices were randomly allocated to
citizens, in order to inhibit the effects of plutocracy. Aristotle described the law courts in Athens
which were selected by lot as democratic[19] and described elections as oligarchic.[20]

Liberal democracy has also been attacked by some socialists as a dishonest farce used to keep the
masses from realizing that their will is irrelevant in the political process, while at the same time a
conspiracy for making them restless for some political agenda. Some contend that it encourages
candidates to make deals with wealthy supporters, offering favorable legislation if the candidate
is elected—perpetuating conspiracies for monopolisation of key areas. Campaign finance reform
is an attempt to correct this perceived problem.

In response to these claims, United States economist Steven Levitt argues in his book
Freakonomics that campaign spending is no guarantee of electoral success. He compared
electoral success of the same pair of candidates running against one another repeatedly for the
same job, as often happens in United States Congressional elections, where spending levels
varied. He concludes:

"A winning candidate can cut his spending in half and lose only 1 percent of the vote. Meanwhile,
a losing candidate who doubles his spending can expect to shift the vote in his favor by only that
same 1 percent."[21]

It might be said that Levitt's response misses the Socialist point, which is that citizens who have
little to no money at all are blocked from political office entirely. This argument is not refuted
merely by noting that either doubling or halving of electoral spending will only shift a given
candidate's chances of winning by 1 percent. However, whether this constitutes a strong criticism
of liberal democracy is not clear. The Social Democratic point is that, while there is no de jure
limitations on the poor standing for office, there are de facto limitations. But, if to be
insufficiently wealthy to pursue political office is not different from being actively prevented
from doing so by law, then it is not clear that other practical impediments, even ones such as
muteness or stupidity, do not similarly qualify as arbitrary restrictions on democratic freedom.

Media

Critics of the role of the media in liberal democracies allege that concentration of media
ownership leads to major distortions of democratic processes. In Manufacturing Consent: The
Political Economy of the Mass Media, Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky argue, via their
Propaganda Model[22] that the corporate media limits the availability of contesting views, and
assert this creates a narrow spectrum of elite opinion. This is a natural consequence, they say, of
the close ties between powerful corporations and the media and thus limited and restricted to the
explicit views of those who can afford it.[23]

Media commentators also point out that the influential early champions of the media industry
held fundamentally anti-democratic views, opposing the general population's involvement in
creating policy.[24] Walter Lippmann writing in The Phantom Public (1925), sought to "put the
public in its place" so that those in power would be "free of the trampling and roar of a
bewildered herd,"[25] while Edward Bernays, originator of public relations, sought to "regiment
the public mind every bit as much as an army regiments their bodies."[26]

Defenders responding to such arguments assert that constitutionally protected freedom of speech
makes it possible for both for-profit and non-profit organisations to debate the issues. They argue
that media coverage in democracies simply reflects public preferences, and does not entail
censorship. Especially with new forms of media such as the Internet, it is not expensive to reach
a wide audience, if there is an interest for the ideas presented.

Limited voter turnout

For more details on this topic, see Voter turnout.

Low voter turnout, whether the cause is disenchantment, indifference or contentment with the
status quo, may be seen as a problem, especially if disproportionate in particular segments of the
population. Although turnout levels vary greatly among modern democratic countries, and in
various types and levels of elections within countries, at some point low turnout may prompt
questions as to whether the results reflect the will of the people, whether the causes may be
indicative of concerns to the society in question, or in extreme cases the legitimacy of the
electoral system.

Get out the vote campaigns, either by governments or private groups, may increase voter turnout,
but distinctions must be made[why?] between general campaigns to raise the turnout rate and
partisan efforts to aid a particular candidate, party or cause.

Several nations have forms of compulsory voting, with various degrees of enforcement.
Proponents argue that this increases the legitimacy, and thus also popular acceptance, of the
elections and ensures political participation by all those affected by the political process, and
reduces the costs associated with encouraging voting. Arguments against include restriction of
freedom, economic costs of enforcement, increased number of invalid and blank votes, and
random voting.[27]
Other alternatives include increased use of absentee ballots, or other measures to ease or improve
the ability to vote, including Electronic voting.

Ethnic and religious conflicts

For historical reasons, many states are not culturally and ethnically homogeneous. There may be
sharp ethnic, linguistic, religious and cultural divisions. In fact, some groups may be actively
hostile to each other. A democracy, which by definition allows mass participation in decision-
making theoretically also allows the use of the political process against 'enemy' groups.

The collapse of the Soviet Union and the partial democratisation of Soviet bloc states was
followed by wars in the former Yugoslavia, in the Caucasus, and in Moldova. Nevertheless,
some people believe that the fall of Communism and the increase in the number of democratic
states were accompanied by a sudden and dramatic decline in total warfare, interstate wars,
ethnic wars, revolutionary wars, and the number of refugees and displaced people (worldwide,
not in the countries of the former sovietic bloc).[citation needed] This trend, however, can be
attributed to the end of cold war and the natural exhaustion of said conflicts, many of which were
fueled by the USA and the USSR[28] See also the section below on Majoritarianism and
Democratic peace theory.

In her book World on Fire, Yale Law School professor Amy Chua posits that "when free market
democracy is pursued in the presence of a market-dominant minority, the almost invariable result
is backlash. This backlash typically takes one of three forms. The first is a backlash against
markets, targeting the market-dominant minority's wealth. The second is a backlash against
democracy by forces favorable to the market-dominant minority. The third is violence,
sometimes genocidal, directed against the market-dominant minority itself.".[29]

Bureaucracy
A persistent libertarian and monarchist critique of democracy is the claim that it encourages the
elected representatives to change the law without necessity, and in particular to pour forth a flood
of new laws (as described in Herbert Spencer's The Man versus the State). This is seen as
pernicious in several ways. New laws constrict the scope of what were previously private
liberties. Rapidly changing laws make it difficult for a willing non-specialist to remain law-
abiding. This may be an invitation for law-enforcement agencies to misuse power. The claimed
continual complication of the law may be contrary to a claimed simple and eternal natural law—
although there is no consensus on what this natural law is, even among advocates. Supporters of
democracy point to the complex bureaucracy and regulations that has occurred in dictatorships,
like many of the former Communist states.

The bureaucracy in Liberal democracies is often criticised for a claimed slowness and
complexity of their decision-making. The term "Red tape" is a synonym of slow bureaucratic
functioning that hinders quick results in a liberal democracy.

Short-term focus

Modern liberal democracies, by definition, allow for regular changes of government. That has
led to a common criticism of their short-term focus. In four or five years the government will
face a new election, and it must think of how it will win that election. That would encourage a
preference for policies that will bring short term benefits to the electorate (or to self-interested
politicians) before the next election, rather than unpopular policy with longer term benefits. This
criticism assumes that it is possible to make long term predictions for a society, something Karl
Popper has criticised as historicism.

Besides the regular review of governing entities, short-term focus in a democracy could also be
the result of collective short-term thinking. For example, consider a campaign for policies aimed
at reducing environmental damage while causing temporary increase in unemployment.
However, this risk applies also to other political systems.

Anarcho-capitalist Hans-Herman Hoppe explained short-termism of the democratic governments

by the rational choice of currently ruling group to over exploit temporarily accessible resources,
thus deriving maximal economic advantage to the members of this group. (He contrasted this
with hereditary monarchy, in which a monarch has an interest in preserving the long-term capital
value of his property (i.e. the country he owns) counterbalancing his desire to extract immediate
revenue. He argues that the historical record of levels of taxation in certain monarchies (20-
25%)[30] and certain liberal democracies (30–60%) seems to confirm this contention.[31]

Public choice theory

Public choice theory is a branch of economics that studies the decision-making behaviour of
voters, politicians and government officials from the perspective of economic theory. One
studied problem is that each voter has little influence and may therefore have a rational
ignorance regarding political issues.[citation needed] This may allow special interest groups to gain
subsidies and regulations beneficial to them but harmful to society.[citation needed] However, special
interest groups may be equally or more influential in nondemocracies.[citation needed]

Majoritarianism

The tyranny of the majority is the fear that a direct democratic government, reflecting the
majority view, can take action that oppresses a particular minority; for instance a minority
holding wealth, property ownership, or power (see Federalist No. 10). Theoretically, the majority
is a majority of all citizens. If citizens are not compelled by law to vote it is usually a majority of
those who choose to vote. If such of group constitutes a minority then it is possible that a
minority could, in theory, oppress another minority in the name of the majority. However, such
an argument could apply to both direct democracy or representative democracy. In comparison to
a direct democracy where every citizen is forced to vote, under liberal democracies the wealth
and power is usually concentrated in the hands of a small privileged class who have significant
power over the political process (See inverted totalitarianism). It is argued by some[who?] that in
representative democracies this minority makes the majority of the policies and potentially
oppresses the minority or even the majority in the name of the majority (see Silent majority).
Several de facto dictatorships also have compulsory, but not "free and fair", voting in order to try
to increase the legitimacy of the regime.[citation needed]

Possible examples of a minority being oppressed by or in the name of the majority:

 Those potentially subject to conscription are a minority possibly because of socioeconomic

reasons.
 The minority who are wealthy often use their money and influence to manipulate the political
process against the interests of the rest of the population, who are the minority in terms of income
and access.
 Several European countries have introduced bans on personal religious symbols in state schools.
Opponents see this as a violation of rights to freedom of religion. Supporters see it as following
from the separation of state and religious activities.
 Prohibition of pornography is typically determined by what the majority is prepared to accept.
 The private possession of various weapons (i.e. batons, nunchakus, brass knuckles, pepper spray,
firearms etc...) is arbitrarily criminalized in several democracies (i.e. the United Kingdom,
Belgium, etc...), with such arbitrary criminalization often being motivated by moralism, racism,
classism and/or paternalism.
 Recreational drug, caffeine, tobacco and alcohol use is too often criminalised or otherwise
suppressed by majorities, originally for racist, classist, religious or paternalistic
motives.[32][33][34][35]
 Society's treatment of homosexuals is also cited in this context. Homosexual acts were widely
criminalised in democracies until several decades ago; in some democracies they still are,
reflecting the religious or sexual mores of the majority.
 The Athenian democracy and the early United States had slavery.
 The majority often taxes the minority who are wealthy at progressively higher rates, with the
intention that the wealthy will incur a larger tax burden for social purposes.
 In prosperous western representative democracies, the poor form a minority of the population,
and may not have the power to use the state to initiate redistribution when a majority of the
electorate opposes such designs. When the poor form a distinct underclass, the majority may use
the democratic process to, in effect, withdraw the protection of the state.
 An often quoted example of the 'tyranny of the majority' is that Adolf Hitler came to power by
legitimate democratic procedures. The Nazi party gained the largest share of votes in the
democratic Weimar republic in 1933. Some might consider this an example of "tyranny of a
minority" since he never gained a majority vote, but it is common for a plurality to exercise
power in democracies, so the rise of Hitler cannot be considered irrelevant. However, his regime's
 large-scale human rights violations took place after the democratic system had been abolished.
Also, the Weimar constitution in an "emergency" allowed dictatorial powers and suspension of
the essentials of the constitution itself without any vote or election.

Proponents of democracy make a number of defenses concerning 'tyranny of the majority'. One
is to argue that the presence of a constitution protecting the rights of all citizens in many
democratic countries acts as a safeguard. Generally, changes in these constitutions require the
agreement of a supermajority of the elected representatives, or require a judge and jury to agree
that evidentiary and procedural standards have been fulfilled by the state, or two different votes
by the representatives separated by an election, or, sometimes, a referendum. These requirements
are often combined. The separation of powers into legislative branch, executive branch, judicial
branch also makes it more difficult for a small majority to impose their will. This means a
majority can still legitimately coerce a minority (which is still ethically questionable), but such a
minority would be very small and, as a practical matter, it is harder to get a larger proportion of
the people to agree to such actions.

Another argument is that majorities and minorities can take a markedly different shape on
different issues. People often agree with the majority view on some issues and agree with a
minority view on other issues. One's view may also change. Thus, the members of a majority
may limit oppression of a minority since they may well in the future themselves be in a minority.

A third common argument is that, despite the risks, majority rule is preferable to other systems,
and the tyranny of the majority is in any case an improvement on a tyranny of a minority. All the
possible problems mentioned above can also occur in nondemocracies with the added problem
that a minority can oppress the majority. Proponents of democracy argue that empirical statistical
evidence strongly shows that more democracy leads to less internal violence and mass murder by
the government. This is sometimes formulated as Rummel's Law, which states that the less
democratic freedom a people have, the more likely their rulers are to murder them.

Political stability

One argument for democracy is that by creating a system where the public can remove
administrations, without changing the legal basis for government, democracy aims at reducing
political uncertainty and instability, and assuring citizens that however much they may disagree
with present policies, they will be given a regular chance to change those who are in power, or
change policies with which they disagree. This is preferable to a system where political change
takes place through violence.

Some think that political stability may be considered as excessive when the group in power
remains the same for an extended period of time. On the other hand, this is more common in
nondemocracies.

One notable feature of liberal democracies is that their opponents (those groups who wish to
abolish liberal democracy) rarely win elections. Advocates use this as an argument to support
their view that liberal democracy is inherently stable and can usually only be overthrown by
external force, while opponents argue that the system is inherently stacked against them despite
its claims to impartiality. In the past, it was feared that democracy could be easily exploited by
leaders with dictatorial aspirations, who could get themselves elected into power. However, the
actual number of liberal democracies that have elected dictators into power is low. When it has
occurred, it is usually after a major crisis has caused many people to doubt the system or in
young/poorly functioning democracies. Some possible examples include Adolf Hitler during the
Great Depression and Napoleon III, who became first President of the Second French Republic
and later Emperor.

Effective response in wartime

A liberal democracy, by definition, implies that power is not concentrated. One criticism is that
this could be a disadvantage for a state in wartime, when a fast and unified response is necessary.
The legislature usually must give consent before the start of an offensive military operation,
although sometimes the executive can do this on its own while keeping the legislature informed.
If the democracy is attacked, then no consent is usually required for defensive operations. The
people may vote against a conscription army.

However, actual research shows that democracies are more likely to win wars than non-
democracies. One explanation attributes this primarily to "the transparency of the polities, and
the stability of their preferences, once determined, democracies are better able to cooperate with
their partners in the conduct of wars". Other research attributes this to superior mobilisation of
resources or selection of wars that the democratic states have a high chance of winning.[36]

Stam and Reiter also note that the emphasis on individuality within democratic societies means
that their soldiers fight with greater initiative and superior leadership.[37] Officers in dictatorships
are often selected for political loyalty rather than military ability. They may be exclusively
selected from a small class or religious/ethnic group that support the regime. The leaders in
nondemocracies may respond violently to any perceived criticisms or disobedience. This may
make the soldiers and officers afraid to raise any objections or do anything without explicit
authorisation. The lack of initiative may be particularly detrimental in modern warfare. Enemy
soldiers may more easily surrender to democracies since they can expect comparatively good
treatment. In contrast, Nazi Germany killed almost 2/3 of the captured Soviet soldiers, and 38%
of the American soldiers captured by North Korea in the Korean War were killed.

Better information on and corrections of problems

A democratic system may provide better information for policy decisions. Undesirable
information may more easily be ignored in dictatorships, even if this undesirable or contrarian
information provides early warning of problems. The democratic system also provides a way to
replace inefficient leaders and policies. Thus, problems may continue longer and crises of all
kinds may be more common in autocracies.[38]

Corruption

Research by the World Bank suggests that political institutions are extremely important in
determining the prevalence of corruption: (long term) democracy, parliamentary systems,
political stability, and freedom of the press are all associated with lower corruption.[39] Freedom
of information legislation is important for accountability and transparency. The Indian Right to
Information Act "has already engendered mass movements in the country that is bringing the
lethargic, often corrupt bureaucracy to its knees and changing power equations completely."[40]

Terrorism

Several studies[citation needed] have concluded that terrorism is most common in nations with
intermediate political freedom; meaning countries transitioning from autocratic governance to
democracy. Nations with strong autocratic governments and governments that allow for more
political freedom experience less terrorism.[41]

Economic growth and financial crises

Statistically, more democracy correlates with a higher gross domestic product (GDP) per capita.

However, there is disagreement regarding how much credit the democratic system can take for
this. One observation is that democracy became widespread only after the industrial revolution
and the introduction of capitalism. On the other hand, the industrial revolution started in England
which was one of the most democratic nations for its time within its own borders. (But this
democracy was very limited and did not apply to the colonies which contributed significantly to
the wealth.)

Several statistical studies support the theory that more capitalism, measured for example with
one the several Indices of Economic Freedom which has been used in hundreds of studies by
independent researchers,[42] increases economic growth and that this in turn increases general
prosperity, reduces poverty, and causes democratisation. This is a statistical tendency, and there
are individual exceptions like Mali, which is ranked as "Free" by Freedom House but is a Least
Developed Country, or Qatar, which has arguably the highest GDP per capita in the world but
has never been democratic. There are also other studies suggesting that more democracy
increases economic freedom although a few find no or even a small negative
effect.[43][44][45][46][47][48] One objection might be that nations like Sweden and Canada today score
just below nations like Chile and Estonia on economic freedom but that Sweden and Canada
today have a higher GDP per capita. However, this is a misunderstanding, the studies indicate
effect on economic growth and thus that future GDP per capita will be higher with higher
economic freedom. Also, according to the index, Sweden and Canada are among the world's
most capitalist nations, due to factors such as strong rule of law, strong property rights, and few
restrictions against free trade. Critics might argue that the Index of Economic Freedom and other
methods used does not measure the degree of capitalism, preferring some other definition.

Some argue that economic growth due to its empowerment of citizens, will ensure a transition to
democracy in countries such as Cuba. However, other dispute this. Even if economic growth has
caused democratisation in the past, it may not do so in the future. Dictators may now have
learned how to have economic growth without this causing more political freedom.[49]

A high degree of oil or mineral exports is strongly associated with nondemocratic rule. This
effect applies worldwide and not only to the Middle East. Dictators who have this form of wealth
can spend more on their security apparatus and provide benefits which lessen public unrest. Also,
such wealth is not followed by the social and cultural changes that may transform societies with
ordinary economic growth.[50]

A recent meta-analysis finds that democracy has no direct effect on economic growth. However,
it has a strong and significant indirect effects which contribute to growth. Democracy is
associated with higher human capital accumulation, lower inflation, lower political instability,
and higher economic freedom. There is also some evidence that it is associated with larger
governments and more restrictions on international trade.[51]

If leaving out East Asia, then during the last forty-five years poor democracies have grown their
economies 50% more rapidly than nondemocracies. Poor democracies such as the Baltic
countries, Botswana, Costa Rica, Ghana, and Senegal have grown more rapidly than
nondemocracies such as Angola, Syria, Uzbekistan, and Zimbabwe.[38]

Of the eighty worst financial catastrophes during the last four decades, only five were in
democracies. Similarly, poor democracies are half likely as nondemocracies to experience a 10
percent decline in GDP per capita over the course of a single year.[38]

Famines and refugees

A prominent economist, Amartya Sen, has noted that no functioning democracy has ever
suffered a large scale famine.[52] Refugee crises almost always occur in nondemocracies.
Looking at the volume of refugee flows for the last twenty years, the first eighty-seven cases
occurred in autocracies.[38]

Human development

Democracy correlates with a higher score on the human development index and a lower score on
the human poverty index.

Democracies have the potential to put in place better education, longer life expectancy, lower
infant mortality, access to drinking water, and better health care than dictatorships. This is not
due to higher levels of foreign assistance or spending a larger percentage of GDP on health and
education. Instead, the available resources are managed better.[38]

Several health indicators (life expectancy and infant and maternal mortality) have a stronger and
more significant association with democracy than they have with GDP per capita, rise of the
public sector, or income inequality.[53]

In the post-Communist nations, after an initial decline, those that are the most democratic have
achieved the greatest gains in life expectancy.[54]

Democratic peace theory

Main article: Democratic peace theory

Numerous studies using many different kinds of data, definitions, and statistical analyses have
found support for the democratic peace theory. The original finding was that liberal democracies
have never made war with one another. More recent research has extended the theory and finds
that democracies have few Militarized Interstate Disputes causing less than 1000 battle deaths
with one another, that those MIDs that have occurred between democracies have caused few
deaths, and that democracies have few civil wars.[55] There are various criticisms of the theory,
including specific historic wars and that correlation is not causation.

Mass murder by government

Research shows that the more democratic nations have much less democide or murder by
government.[56] Similarly, they have less genocide and politicide.[57]

Freedoms and rights

The freedoms and rights of the citizens in liberal democracies are usually seen as
beneficial.[citation needed]
Social democracy
Social democracy is a political ideology that officially has as its goal the establishment of
democratic socialism through reformist and gradualist methods.[1] Alternatively, social
democracy is defined as a policy regime involving a universal welfare state and collective
bargaining schemes within the framework of a capitalist economy. It is often used in this manner
to refer to the social models and economic policies prominent in Western and Northern Europe
during the latter half of the 20th century.[2][3]

Below, you will see some of the most socialistic nations in the world today:

 China
 Denmark
 Finland
 Netherlands
 Canada
 Sweden
 Norway
 Ireland
 New Zealand

Response to neoliberalism, contemporary era, 1979 to present

The economic crisis in the Western world during the mid to late 1970s resulted in the rise of
neoliberalism and politicians elected on neoliberal platforms such as British Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher and US President Ronald Reagan. The rise in support for neoliberalism raised
questions over the political viability of social democracy, such as sociologist Ralf Dahrendorf
predicting the "end of the social democratic century".[113]

In 1985, an agreement was made between several social democratic parties in the Western bloc
countries of Belgium, Denmark, and the Netherlands; with the communist parties of the Eastern
Bloc countries of Bulgaria, East Germany, and Hungary; to have multilateral discussions on
trade, nuclear disarmament and other issues.[114]

In 1989, the Socialist International adopted its present Declaration of Principles. The Declaration
of Principles addressed issues concerning the "internationalization of the economy". The
Declaration of Principles defined its interpretation of the nature of socialism. It stated that
socialist values and vision include "a peaceful and democratic world society combining freedom,
justice and solidarity". It defined the rights and freedoms it supported, stating: "Socialists protect
the inalienable right to life and to physical safety, to freedom of belief and free expression of
opinion, to freedom of association and to protection from torture and degradation. Socialists are
committed to achieve freedom from hunger and want, genuine social security, and the right to
work." However it also clarified that it did not promote any fixed and permanent definition for
socialism, stating: "Socialists do not claim to possess the blueprint for some final and fixed
society which cannot be changed, reformed or further developed. In a movement committed to
democratic self-determination there will always be room for creativity since each people and
every generation must set its own goals."[115]

The 1989 Socialist International congress was politically significant in that members of
Communist Party of the Soviet Union during the reformist leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev,
attended the congress. The SI's new Declaration of Principles abandoned previous statements
made in the Frankfurt Declaration of 1951 against Soviet-style communism. After the congress,
the Soviet state newspaper Pravda noted that thanks to dialogue between the Soviet Communist
Party and the SI since 1979 that "the positions of the CPSU and the Socialist International on
nuclear disarmament issues today virtually coincide".[114]

The collapse of the Marxist–Leninist regimes in Eastern Europe after the end of the Cold War,
and the creation of multiparty democracy in many many of those countries, resulted in the
creation of multiple social democratic parties. Though many of these parties did not achieve
initial electoral success, they became a significant part of the political landscape of Eastern
Europe. In Western Europe, the prominent Italian Communist Party transformed itself into the
post-communist Democratic Party of the Left in 1991.

A highly controversial development in social democracy occurred in the 1990s, with the
development of Third Way politics and social democratic adherents of it. The social democratic
variant of the Third Way has been advocated by its proponents as an alternative to both
capitalism and what it regards as the traditional forms of socialism, including Marxist socialism
and state socialism, that Third Way social democrats reject. It officially advocates ethical
socialism, reformism, gradualism - that includes advocating the humanized capitalism, a mixed
economy, political pluralism, and liberal democracy.[117] Left-wing opponents of Third Way
social democracy claim that it is not a form of socialism, and claim that it represents social
democrats who responded to the New Right by accepting capitalism.[118] The Third Way has
been strongly criticized within the social democratic movement.[119] Supporters of Third Way
ideals argue that they merely represent a necessary or pragmatic adaptation of social democracy
to the realities of the modern world: traditional social democracy thrived during the prevailing
international climate of the post-war Bretton Woods consensus, which collapsed in the 1970s.

Third Way supporter and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair when he was a British
Labour Party MP wrote in a Fabian pamphlet in 1994 of the existence of two prominent variants
of socialism: one is based on a Marxist economic determinist and collectivist tradition that he
rejected, and the other is an "ethical socialism" that he supported, that was based on values of
"social justice, the equal worth of each citizen, equality of opportunity, community".[120]

Prominent Third Way proponent Anthony Giddens views conventional socialism as essentially
having become obsolete. However Giddens claims that a viable form of socialism was advocated
by Anthony Crosland in his major work The Future of Socialism (1956).[121] Giddens has
complimented Crosland as well as Thomas Humphrey Marshall for promoting a viable
socialism.[122] Giddens views what he considers the conventional form of socialism - state
socialism - that defines socialism as a theory of economic management, as no longer viable.[123]
Giddens rejects what he considers top-down socialism as well as rejecting neoliberalism.[117]
Giddens criticizes conventional socialism for its common advocacy that socialization of
production, as achieved by central planning, can overcome the irrationalities of capitalism.
Giddens claims that this claim "can no longer be defended". He says that with the collapse of
legitimacy of centrally planned socialization of production, "With its dissolution, the radical
hopes for by socialism are as dead as the Old Conservatism that opposed them". Giddens says
that although there have been proponents of market socialism who have rejected such central
planned socialism as well as being resistant to capitalism, that "There are good reasons, in my
view, to argue that market socialism isn't a realistic possibility". Giddens makes clear that Third
Way as he envisions it, is not market socialist and says "There is no Third Way of this sort, and
with this realization the history of socialism as the avant-garde of political theory comes to a
close.".[121]

However Giddens contends that Third Way is connected to the legacy of reformist revisionist
socialism, saying "Third way politics stands in the traditions of social democratic revisionism
that stretch back to Eduard Bernstein and Karl Kautsky."[124]

Giddens commends Crosland's A Future of Socialism for recognizing that socialism cannot be
defined merely in terms of a rejection of capitalism, because if capitalism did end and was
replaced with socialism, then socialism would have no purpose with the absence of
capitalism.[125] From Crosland's analysis, Giddens proposes a description of socialism:

The only common characteristic of socialist doctrines is their ethical content. Socialism is the
pursuit of ideas of social cooperation, universal welfare, and equality - ideas brought together
by a condemnation of the evils and injustices of capitalism. It is based on the critique of
individualism and depends on a 'belief in group action and "participation", and collective
responsibility for social welfare'.

—Anthony Giddens, Beyond Left and Right: The Future of Radical Politics

Paul Cammack has condemned the Third Way as conceived by Anthony Giddens as being a
complete attack upon the foundations of social democracy and socialism in which Giddens has
sought to replace them with capitalism. Cammack claims that Giddens devotes more energy into
criticizing conventional social democracy and conventional socialism, including Giddens' claim
that conventional socialism has "died" because Marx's vision of a new economy with wealth
spread in an equitable way is not possible, while at the same time making no criticism of
capitalism. As such, Cammack condemns Giddens and his Third Way for being anti-social-
democratic, anti-socialist, and pro-capitalist that Giddens disguises in rhetoric to make appealing
within social democracy.[127]

British political theorist Robert Corfe who was in the past a social democratic proponent of a
new socialism free of class-based prejudices, criticized both Marxist classists and Third Way
proponents within the Labour Party.[128] Corfe has denounced the Third Way as developed by
Giddens for "intellectual emptiness and ideological poverty".[129] Corfe has despondently noted
and agreed with former long-term British Labour Party MP Alice Mahon's statement in which
she said "Labour is the party of bankers, not workers. The party has lost its soul, and what has
replace it is harsh, American style politics..." Corfe claims that the failure to develop a new
socialism has resulted in what he considers the "death of socialism" that left social capitalism as
only feasible alternative.[130]

Former SPD chairman Oskar Lafontaine condemned then-SPD leader and German Chancellor
Gerhard Schröder for his Third Way policies, saying that the SPD under Schröder had adopted "a
radical change of direction towards a policy of neoliberalism".[131] After resigning from the SPD,
Lafontaine co-founded The Left in 2007.[132] The Left was founded out of a merger of the Party
of Democratic Socialism (PDS) and Labour and Social Justice – The Electoral Alternative
(WASG) - a breakaway faction from the SPD. The Left has been controversial because as a
direct successor to the PDS, it is also a direct successor of former East Germany's ruling
Marxist–Leninist Socialist Unity Party (SED) that transformed into the PDS after the end of the
Cold War. However the PDS did not continue the SED's policies, as the PDS adopted policies to
appeal to democratic socialists, greens, feminists, and pacifists.[133] Lafontaine said in an
interview that he supports the type of social democracy pursued by Willy Brandt but claims that
the creation of The Left was necessary because "formerly socialist and social democratic parties"
had effectively accepted neoliberalism.[132] The Left grew in strength and in the 2009 German
parliamentary election gained 11 percent of the vote while the SPD gained 23 percent of the
vote.[133]

Lafontaine has noted that the founding of The Left in Germany has resulted in emulation in other
countries, with several Left parties being founded in Greece, Portugal, Netherlands, and
Syria.[134] Lafontaine claims that a de facto British Left movement exists, identifying British
Green Party MEP Caroline Lucas as holding similar values

Others have claimed that social democracy needs to move past the Third Way, such as Olaf
Cramme and Patrick Diamond in their book After the Third Way: The Future of Social
Democracy in Europe (2012).[136] Cramme and Diamond recognize that the Third Way arose as
an attempt to break down the traditional dichotomy within social democracy between state
intervention and markets in the economy, however they contend that the global financial crisis of
the late 2000s requires that social democracy must rethink its political economy. Cramme and
Diamond note that optimism in economic planning amongst socialists was strong in the early to
mid-twentieth century, but declined with the rise of the neoliberal right that both attacked
economic planning and associated the left with economic planning. They claim that this formed
the foundation of the "Right's moral trap" in which the neoliberal right attacks on economic
planning policies by the left, that provokes a defense of such planning by the left as being
morally necessary, and ends with the right then rebuking such policies as being inherently
economically incompetent while presenting itself as the champion of economic competence.[137]
Cramme and Diamond state that social democracy has four different strategies both to address
the economic crisis in global markets at present that it could adopt in response: market
conforming, market complimenting, market resisting, market substituting, and market
transforming.[138]

Cramme and Diamond identify market conforming as being equivalent to historic social
democratic policymaker Philip Snowden's desire for a very moderate socialist agenda based
above all upon fiscal prudence, as Snowden insisted that socialism had to build upon fiscal
prudence or else it would not be achieved.
Critisism
Critics of contemporary social democracy such as Jonas Hinnfors argue that when social
democracy abandoned Marxism it also abandoned socialism and has become in effect a liberal
capitalist movement,[140] in effect making social democrats similar to centre-left, but pro-
capitalist groups, such as the U.S. Democratic Party.

Marxian socialists of the classical, orthodox and analytical variations argue that because social
democratic programs retain the capitalist mode of production, they also retain the fundamental
issues of capitalism, including cyclical fluctuations, exploitation and alienation. Social
democratic programs intended to ameliorate capitalism, such as unemployment benefits, taxation
on profits and the wealthy, create contradictions of their own by limiting the efficiency of the
capitalist system by reducing incentives for capitalists to invest in production.[141]

Democratic socialists, such as David Schweickart, contrast social democracy with democratic
socialism by defining the former as an attempt to strengthen the welfare state, and the latter as an
alternative socialist economic system to capitalism. According to Schweickart, the democratic
socialist critique of social democracy states that capitalism could never be sufficiently
"humanized", and any attempt to suppress the economic contradictions of capitalism would only
cause them to emerge elsewhere. For example, attempts to reduce unemployment too much
would result in inflation, and too much job security would erode labour discipline.[142] In contrast
to social democracy, democratic socialists advocate a post-capitalist economic system based
either on market socialism combined with workers self-management, or on some form of
participatory-economic planning.[143]

Market socialists contrast social democracy with market socialism. While a common goal of both
systems is to achieve greater social and economic equality, market socialism does so by changes
in enterprise ownership and management, whereas social democracy attempts to do so by
government-imposed taxes and subsidies on privately owned enterprises. Frank Roosevelt and
David Belkin criticize social democracy for maintaining a property-owning capitalist class,
which has an active interest in reversing social democratic policies and a disproportionate
amount of power over society to influence governmental policy as a class.[144]

There are critics that claim that social democracy abandoned socialism in the 1930s by endorsing
Keynesian welfare capitalism.[145][146] Socialist political theorist Michael Harrington argues that
social democracy historically supported Keynesianism as part of a "social democratic
compromise" between capitalism and socialism. This compromise created welfare states; thus
Harrington contends that, although this compromise did not allow for the immediate creation of
socialism, it "recognized noncapitalist, and even anticapitalist, principles of human need over
and above the imperatives of profit".[147] More recently, social democrats in favour of the Third
Way have been accused of having endorsed capitalism, including by anti-Third Way social
democrats who have accused Third Way proponents such as Anthony Giddens of being anti-
social democratic and anti-socialist in practice.[148]
Benevolent dictatorship/ guided democracy
Viktor Yanukovych is the kind of dictator we love to hate. A kleptocrat who chose a bribe from
Russia over his people's future in the EU. A thug who sent other thugs to beat up protesters, until
he was finally ousted by his own people. A man who left his country bankrupt while pictures of
his palatial estate and private zoo are broadcast around the world. We vilify dictators like this.
And, yet, there remains a dream, for far too many development experts, business people and
others around the globe that a strong leader with authoritarian powers is needed to move poor
countries into the developed world.

I am watching Ukraine implode from a West Africa nation where corruption is perceived to be
growing, development is stalled and the economy is heading downhill. From high-level
government appointees to members of civil society, I hear: "What we need is a benevolent
dictator. ... " The sentiment is generally followed by praise for Paul Kagame, who has created a
remarkably clean and efficient Rwanda after that country's genocide, or Lee Kuan Yew, the
"father of Singapore," who corralled government corruption and thrust his nation into the first
world.

The desire for benevolent dictatorship is not confined to developing nations. I hear it even more
often from America's business community and those working on international development -
often accompanied by praise for China's ability to "get things done." The problem is that the
entire 20th century seems to have produced at most one largely benevolent dictator and one
efficient but increasingly repressive leader, both in tiny countries.

Meanwhile, we have seen scores of Yanukovych-like kleptocrats, Pinochet-style military

dictatorships that torture dissenters in secret prisons and "disappear" those who disagree, and
North Korean-style totalitarians whose gulags and concentration camps starve and murder
hundreds of thousands or even millions of their countrymen.

Occasionally, dictators begin benevolently and grow worse. The world is littered with Kwame
Nkrumahs, Fidel Castros and Robert Mugabes who rose to power with great popularity, built
their nations, then turned their people's hopes to ash through corruption, personality cults and
violence. One Lee Kuan Yew and a Kagame teetering from benevolence toward repression,
versus every other dictatorship of the 20th century? Those are not odds to bet your country on.

And yet, the longing for benevolent dictators continues, particularly in California among our
technology titans, whose denigration of politics leads to a special Silicon Valley ideology that
mixes libertarianism with dictatorship. They seem to want politics to work the way their products
do: with elegant, clear solutions implemented by smart, creative doers.

But politics does not have a "right" answer. It is the field where our values compete. Surely, you
say, there is a right way to get the job done: to fill in the potholes, build the roads, keep our
streets safe, get our kids to learn reading and math. Ah, but look how quickly those issues get
contentious.

Whose potholes should get filled first? Do we try to keep our streets safe through community
policing or long prison sentences? Should teachers be given merit pay, are small classrooms
better, or should we lengthen the school day? These issues engender deep political fights, all -
even in the few debates where research provides clear, technocratic answers. That is because the
area of politics is an area for values disputes, not technical solutions.

One person's "right" is not another's because people prioritize different values: equity versus
excellence, efficiency versus voice and participation, security versus social justice, short-term
versus long-term gains.

At a conference I attended recently, a businessman extolled the Chinese government ministers in

attendance for "building 100 airport runways while we in the West have failed to add even a
single runway to notoriously overburdened Heathrow." That was, of course, because the British
have civil liberties and private property, while the Chinese do not have to worry about such
niceties. Democracy allows many ideas of "right" to flourish. It is less efficient than dictatorship.
It also makes fewer tremendous mistakes.

The longing for a leader who knows what is in her people's best interests, who rules with care
and guides the nation on a wise path, was Plato's idea of a philosopher-king. It's a tempting
picture, but it's asking the wrong question. In political history, philosophers moved from a
preference for such benevolent dictators to the ugly realities of democracy when they switched
the question from "who could best rule?" to "what system prevents the worst rule?"

And as problematic as democracy is, the ability to throw the bums out does seem to prevent the
worst rule. Corruption, vast inequality and failure to deliver basic goods and services are real
problems with democracies in developed and developing nations. These ills are dangerous,
leading to anger, stagnation and political violence. But dictatorship is no answer: it's playing
roulette where almost every spot on the wheel leads to a Yanukovych or worse.

As Syria burns and Ukraine implodes, Americans tempted by the security or simplicity of
dictators, benevolent or otherwise, should give up such simple answers and face the messy
realities of politics.

Until Africans are vigorously and mercilessly disciplined, we can forget the hope that they would
catch up with the rest of humanity in economic or any other type of developments.

Consider corruption. Africans too easily give in to corruption; it is as if they have no moral fiber
and do not have the ability to resist the temptation to take easy money; it is as if they lack
appreciation that corruption is antithetical to economic development. Give an African monetary
bribe and, I do not care what his level of education is, he takes it. Even those Africans that talk
loudest about the evil of corruption are prone to taking bribes. Therefore, merely expecting them
to be corruption free would not do it; what would do it is cracking their heads and sending them
to long term prisons.

(We must create our own version of Siberia; I suggest the Sahara Desert; we should send
convicted corrupt persons to desert colonies and have them desalinize the ocean, build canals,
irrigate and reforest the desert.)

I admire Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler's iron fisted rule. I do not admire their goals (socialism
and fascism) but the tough minded, unsentimental means through which they sought to attain
their ends. I am not a socialist and I am not a fascist either; I am an African nationalist. My
primary interest is modernizing Africa, bringing Africa to where the rest of mankind is and doing
so in a hurry.

In political ideology, I am somewhat of a conservative; in economic ideology I am a mixed

economist. I have addressed these issues elsewhere and would not permit them to detain us here;
at present, we are talking means, not end.

THE AFRICAN AS I SEE HIM

Every approach to politics is predicated on the perception of human beings, their nature and their
habitual patterns of behaviors. Africans are human beings. They are like any other group of
human beings.

As Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan) pointed out, and my experience agrees, human beings are
primarily self interested. Human beings pursue their individual self interests and when it serves
them well cooperate with one another for their mutual interests. Left alone, however, each
human being does what, in his opinion, serves his personal interests; and he would not hesitate
for a second placing his self interest ahead of other peoples interests.

Adam Smith (Wealth of Nations), I believe, is correct in stating that though at the conscious
level human beings would like to see themselves as moral beings and as social interest serving
that at the deeper level they are selfish. (I also agree that selfishness is not necessarily bad,
especially, if taken advantage of, as the capitalist economy does.)
For our present purposes, because they are motivated by self interest, human beings tend to harm
other people's interests. In nature people are at war with one another and the strong take from the
weak. The weak, of course, resent been taken from and fight with the strong; thus in nature is
war of all against all.

The result is insecurity for all and life in nature is nasty, brutish and short. To reduce their
insecurity human beings everywhere formed governments. The primary function of government
is to pass laws that protect all the people within a specific polity.

Human beings are safe in situations where there are laws and where those laws are vigorously
implemented. If there are no police, courts, prisons and other law enforcement institutions that
rigorously enforce laws human life is precarious. For there to be political stability and personal
security there must be laws, laws that are impersonally implemented by law enforcement
officials. You engage in an illegal act, you are arrested, tried and sent to prison (or killed, as in
capital punishment). There are no ifs and buts about it, no misguided sentimentality.

In sum, human nature, as observed in the empirical world, not as we necessarily want it to be, is
selfish and, as such, we must have laws and implement them if we seek to have a society where
people respected each other's life and property.

There is a general human nature, a nature which Africans share with the rest of humanity. On the
other hand, the peculiarities of each human group make their situation a bit different thus
necessitating different political arrangements.

Africans, for any number of reasons, did not go through the modernization process that
transformed barbaric Germanic, Celtic and Slavic tribes into the relative law abiding people they
are today. Africa did not go through the specific steps we know that the West went through: fall
of classical Greek/Roman civilization; the dark ages where the primitive Catholic Church
superimposed its superstitious world view on European society and in the process destroyed all
scientific inquiries; Mohammed's establishment of Islam; Arab-Muslim conquest of southern
Europe; the Arab reintroduction of Greek rationalism into Europe; the Renaissance; the
reformation of the Catholic Behemoth; the age of enlightenment; the Industrial revolution; the
Urbanization revolution that brought primitive Europeans to urban centers; the Romantic
backlash against reason; the modern age of science and democratic governments beginning with
the American and French revolutions.

These revolutions changed Western man's ways of living. They did not take place in Africa and
Africans are still living in situations best characterized as pre-modern. The contemporary African
is, perhaps, where the European was before the renaissance.

All things being equal, it would probably take a thousand years for the African to eventually drag
himself to where the modern West is. (And the West would not be standing still waiting for
Africans to catch up; the West would probably be another thousand years ahead of the African.)

Obviously, Africans do not have that kind of time and must use every means necessary to drag
themselves to the modern world.

That was exactly what Joseph Stalin did: use brute force to drag a primitive Russian people to
the modern world. Stalin, like him or not, used brute force to industrialize Russia, to bridge the
gap between the modern West and a primitive Russia. In the process, he killed many millions of
people, especially those that resisted modernization and, unfortunately, those that his paranoid
misinterpretation of peoples motives led him to believe opposed his modernization efforts, when,
in fact, they did not.

Give me thirty four years and I will modernize Africa, not by been sentimental with people but
by exercising the most brutal force humanity has known. I will exercise that force for a goal:
modernization, hence I call it benevolent dictatorship.

We are not talking about dictatorship for the sake of the individual's personal ego, his sense of
grandeur but for the sake of all Africans.

You cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs. You cannot modernize Africans without
breaking people's minds and backs. If a few million Africans are killed for the sake of
modernizing Africans, that, to me, is a small price to pay for the goal sought. If millions of
Africans are sent to prisons that, to me, is a minor price for the goal we seek: modernizing
Africa.

A complicating factor is Africans experience of slavery. For over a thousand years, beginning
with Arab slavery which began around 900 AD and continuing with European slavery, which
began around 1500 AD, Africans sold themselves into slavery until about 1900AD.

This one thousand year culture of selling themselves into slavery means that Africans lost respect
for themselves. The African has zero self esteem and certainly does not esteem other Africans
(you do to others as you first did to you; if you do not love and respect you, you cannot love and
respect other people).

From his position of no self love and self respect and no love and respect for his fellow Africans,
the individual African engages in self serving behaviors. In politics all he wants to do is optimize
his self interests and does not care for other Africans interests.

As the Nigerian musician, Fela Anakulape Kuti used to sing, contemporary African politicians
are nothing but slave sellers; they are still selling their brothers into slavery and obtaining
warped sense of prestige from so doing. They want to seem very important persons, VIPs, adorn
their bloated bodies with shapeless robes, robes that they acquired from Arabs (who have
discarded them).

Africans are callous beyond belief. They do not see it as their function to help their own people.
They see political office as from which they enrich themselves, not from which they do things to
improve their peoples welfare. They seek political office by all means and do not mind killing
each other just so that they are the chief thieves of their countries.

Nigeria is about to conduct an election (April 2007). Going by her past history, the election will,
of course, be rigged. (Only a naïve fool would believe that the election would be fair.) The most
efficient group at rigging will be pronounced as the winners of the election.

As expected, the new thieves in town would proceed to plunder the national treasury. These
thugs masquerading as politicians would cart their country's wealth to Europe and North
America while their suffering country men would pray to non-existent gods for help.

And there seem nothing men of good will can do about this obnoxious situation, until, perhaps,
the Niger Delta oil money runs out and Nigeria joins the other failed African states; and given
her stupendously large population produces the most starving mass of humanity that the world
has seen.

We can do something about the absurd situation. Given the decidedly egoistic mental status of
the African, he needs to be re-socialized, to be made to internalize a social serving ethic. The
African needs to be approached from the perspective of transforming his warped character
structure.

When I see an African, I see a selfish person; I see a slave seller and deal with him without
mercy. I have no misguided sentimentality about what Africans are capable of doing. Since he is
selfish, I deal with him as you would deal with predatory animals.

I believe that we must use the law to make Africans to work for public good and if they step
outside the law punish them in the most drastic manner. If he kills a person (he has no regard for
his fellow Africans and kills them like they are flies) kill him, immediately. There must be
capital punishment. Every weekend line convicted criminals up and use them as military
shooting targets.

If the African steals, arrest and sentence him to long term prison, to no less than ten years in
prison, hard labor, in the proposed Sahara Penal Colony. He must work to feed himself, he
should never be fed by the tax payers.

We cannot afford to be emotional with Africans; we must treat them as unsympathetic and
dispassionate as is humanly possible. Harden your heart to all feelings of love and sympathy and
treat the African criminal as punitively as is possible. He does not understand love; he
understands only hate and crime so objectify him and treat him mercilessly.

I would like to use Africans to accomplish social goals; I would work them until they dropped
dead (pretty much as Nazis worked their prisoners until they died). I would love to use their
labor to build roads from one end of Africa to another and to build modern cities (as the Pharos
used slave labor to build the pyramids).

I would love to make Africans pay a heavy price for selling their people into slavery and pretend
their lack of culpability in this crime against humanity. I would like to wipe out that infantile I
see in their face as they blame others for the slave trade and for their current mismanagement of
their people's resources. I would love to make them pay a severe price for being easily prone to
corruption. I would love to break these people's tendency to cavalierly gravitate to lives of evil. I
would make them learn not to indulge in evil behaviors. I would love to transform them into
human beings, not animals that exploit each other and pretend that that unnatural behavior is
natural.

What Stalin and Hitler did to their people is nothing compared to what I would like to do to
Africans. For a generation I would subject them to nothing but hard work. I would break their
tendency to seeking immediate gratification and a life of fun. Give me these people and I would
remold them into the new African, a productive African.

POLITICAL STRUCTURE FOR AFRICA

I have never been able to understand why Africans are particularly politically dense. Since they
acquired independence from their European colonial masters, it cannot be said that they have
done anything that is politically realistic and remotely related to real problem solving.

European colonial powers used force to lump different African tribes together into polities that
many of them would rather not be in. So what should Africans do about it? They have bitched
and moaned about what the Berlin Conference of 1884 did to them but they have not had the
courage to do what they must eventually do.

Africans must restructure the polities they inherited from their former colonial masters and make
them realistic.

Let each tribe have self government and control its resources (and let its citizens pay taxes to
support a national government.

Consider Nigeria. At present there are thirty six states in the country. Why in the world should
there be thirty six states in a small country like Nigeria?

Nigeria has about nine major tribes: Yoruba, Igbo, Ijaw, Edo, Uhrobo, Efik, Tivi, Hausa, Fulani
and many smaller ones. Divide the country into twelve states with each state comprised of a tribe
(Yoruba state, Igbo state…Igbo state comprising all Igbos, from Port Harcourt to Agbo in
present Delta State). Lump the smaller tribes together into three states, for a total of twelve states
of Nigeria.

Each of these tribe based states would be totally in charge of its own affairs and would control its
economic resources one hundred percent. Of course, the national government would control
foreign affairs and the military. We are talking federation, not confederation or unitary
government.

What is done in Nigeria is replicated in all African countries. There are about four hundred major
African tribes, so we would have four hundred states in Africa. (And lump the smaller tribes into
an additional one hundred states for altogether five hundred states of Africa).

For the present, it may be necessary to retain the colonial set boundaries but soon we must
restructure all of Africa. By the middle of this century, I see all of West Africa as one country, all
of East Africa, as one country, all of South Africa as one country and all of central Africa as one
country (I exclude North Africa for those are Arabs and are not Africans).

Ultimately, there must be one African federation (which must come into being by the end of this
century).

At the central government level we will have the usual structures for governing: legislature,
elected every five years (unicameral, composed of no more than 300 members), a supreme court
of thirteen members, one the chief justice, twenty years term limit for all members; the supreme
court supervises the courts of appeal and district courts; a prime minister who serves five years,
two term limit (selected from the party with the largest member block in the legislature…he
forms a cabinet from outside the legislature, that is, he selects qualified technocrats, as in the
USA).

In addition to this structure is a new position that I call the Guardian. This is the dictator position.
He guides the legislative, executive and the other branches of government and makes sure that
they behave according to the rule of law. He has the ability to over rule any of the three branches
of government. His job is to bring about drastic change in the polity.

At the state level we replicate the national structures: a unicameral legislature that does not
exceed fifty members, a premier (who selects his cabinet from outside the legislature), a state
high court and the courts under it (county courts, town/city courts). The national Guardian
appoints a lieutenant guardian for each state and the later could veto whatever the other branches
of government are doing.

At the local level is a county (district) government composed of a county council (not more than
eleven members), a county administrator selected from the council (who hires his cabinet from
outside the council) and a county court. The Lt Guardian appoints a resident sub-guardian in
each county. He, too, can veto everything the county government does.

At the city or town level the same structure is replicated; a city or town council of no more than
seven members, one selected as the mayor (who appoints a cabinet of technocrats from outside
the council) and a town court. The county resident appoints a town guardian who can veto what
the three branches of town government does.

We all know that the free enterprise economy is by far the most productive form of economy; if
in doubt go ask the Russians under their monolithic communist government. We do not have to
reinvent the wheel, so we should have a capitalist economy.

However, there are certain functions that men of goodwill everywhere agree must be performed
by the government if the people are to be adequately provided for. It is the role of state
governments to provide all their citizens with education, free, at all levels: six years of
elementary education, six years of secondary education and four years of undergraduate
university education for the top 33 percent of secondary school graduates.

Free technical education: two years in-class instruction and two years on the job training, along
the German system, for the two thirds of secondary school graduates who could not go to
universities.

Two years of masters level education for the top ten percent of graduating undergraduates, and
additional two years of doctoral education for the top five percent of masters' graduates.

Education must be paid for, at all levels, by the state (that is, the people). Additionally, each state
must provide its people with one hundred percent medical health insurance.

Apart from these two critical services, each state decides what other functions to perform for her
people.

THE GUARDIANS

The role of government in society is very simple: provide security for the people via law and
order.
What the legislature, executive and judiciary do is well known. The only additional component
added to the known governmental structure is the Guardians. I add these people for I think that
we need them to supervise the other branches of government and make sure that they do what
they are supposed to do, and failing to do them remove them from office.

The guardians at all four levels of governance, central, state, county and city, must have the
power to behave like dictators and remove elected and other officials from office. If an official is
alleged not to do his work well or is corrupt, the guardian investigates and if he is satisfied that
the allegation is correct, remove the official from office. He possesses dictatorial powers.

I submit that we need such persons and their extraordinary powers if we are to reshape Africans
and get them to live in accordance with the law.

The question that necessarily arises is how do we select such persons and how do we make sure
that they are not egomaniacs and are corrupt? This is a good question.

In the nature of things such persons would select themselves and impose their iron will on the
people. Please study how Hitler (his Mein Kampf, Table Talks etc) or Stalin came to power.
How these European dictators came to power might give us some insight into how such iron
fisted persons could come to power in Africa.

An alternative mode of coming to power is for there to be a military take over and the head of the
military coupe become the Guardian at the center and appoints his lieutenants at the state, county
and city levels, and establish the political structure visualized here. Once he establishes the
structure he supervises its working and removes those who do not operate according to its rules.

As noted, the advocated form of government is a temporary mechanism for bringing some law
and order into the chaotic environment that is Africa. One does not expect the situation to last
forever. One generation of draconian rule is enough time to break the wild minds of Africans and
force them to obey the laws of the land.

DISCUSSION

And how do we prevent the Guardians from becoming megalomaniacs who use their
unprecedented powers to abuse the people and enrich themselves? I wish that I had the answer to
that question. I do not know but I still think that benevolent dictatorship is the only solution to
the chaos that is contemporary Africa.

I do not have the illusion or delusion that democracy is the answer for Africa's problems.
Democracy is good but it requires people who have internalized the rule of law to make it work.
The Africans that I know of do not like to operate under the law. If you establish the law they
would seek ways to circumvent it. Indeed, if you are law abiding they would consider you a fool,
a mugu.

Consider the Internet. Folks all over the world are using the Internet to do good things for their
people, but Nigerians primarily use it to figure out ways to cheat, to steal and to engage in other
criminal activities (such as look into each others backgrounds, steal their identities etc).

Long ago I gave up on the possibility that Nigerians, by themselves, can do the right thing. I am
now of the opinion that since they are like undisciplined children that we need the iron fist to
beat them into doing the right thing.

Nor do I believe that it is possible to develop a new breed of African leaders that can improve
Africa. Leaders are selected from the people and reflect the people they govern. If the people are
crooked the leaders must be crooked. I expect Nigerian leaders to be thieves and have no
illusions about their behavior.

As I see it, what we need to do is carry a big stick and whack Nigerians on the head, whack to
kill, if necessary, to get them to do what they ought to be doing without big brother supervising
them. I believe that we need to do this for at least thirty four years, a generation, before we can
re-socialize Nigerians into doing the right thing.
It would be nice if people did the right things by themselves but since they refuse to do what they
ought to be doing, we must intimidate them into doing them.

Human beings are animals and like all animals are motivated to live; they are afraid of death and
would do anything to live. If you threaten to kill them and actually kill some of them, there is a
tendency for human beings to shape up, quickly.

Fear of death makes people obey the law, so let us instill the fear of death in Africans by killing
many of them so that those who live learn to obey the law. It is in obeying the law that we have
social order, economic growth and individual security.

CONCLUSION

I personally do not like any one to tell me what to do. When it comes to social policies making, I
want all of us to put our heads together and discuss what we are going to do, what is good for us.
I am a democrat.

My preference for democratic policy making process not withstanding, I am acutely aware that if
you want law and order that the other forms of governments are the best means for attaining
them. Monarchy, Aristocracy, fascism and other forms of government are better at attaining law
and order in society.

Whereas democracy and capitalism are, no doubt, the best forms of government, especially if
freedom is our goal, the fact of the matter is that in a continent like Africa where people are
making transition from preliterate to modern society, there are a lot of disruptions in people's
lives. People are lost and do not know what to do. They live in a state of anomie and many are
tempted to believe that they can do whatever they want to do and get away with it.

It is true that one can steal and get away with it. But suppose all people steal then what happens?
Chaos results.

We need the draconian rule of law to bring about order where there is chaos. It is also the case
that economic development can be facilitated where a dedicated group takes it upon itself to
develop their people.

I want to transform Africans into a law abiding people; I want to modernize Africa, to bring her
economically to where Europe is. I want to do so in a generation. I believe that benevolent
dictatorship is the quickest means of attaining my goals.

If you have better ideas please persuade me with them, I am all ears. In fact, I would that you
have persuasive ideas for, clearly, my position shows loss of faith in my fellow Africans. It is not
exactly good for one to lose faith in ones people's ability to do the right thing and come to
believe that they need a dictator to make them do the right thing. This is awful perception of ones
people and one certainly would rather not have such a negative view of ones people. Nor is this
negative view merely ones, many Africans are of the same opinion.

It is not the case that one lost faith in ones self and project what one sees in ones self to other
Africans and come to believe that they are not good enough and are not able to govern
themselves. I would like to believe that Africans are capable of governing themselves.

I want you to show me how Africans can govern themselves, but do not give me excuses as to
why, so far, they have not been able to govern themselves right. I do not want to read all the
rethreaded neocolonial argument; one read those in graduate school but one is now disabused by
actual relationship with Africans in positions of power. One has seen how easily corruptible
Africans are.

One has no need to blame others, particularly white persons, for ones problems; one takes
responsibility for ones problems and just wants to learn how to fix them. If one points two
accusatory fingers at other people three point right back at one. This means that whereas other
people do contribute to ones problems that ones own contribution is greater than others
contribution to it. If you have ideas on how to fix African problems let us hear about them, but
please do not blame others for Africa's problems, that is now an old tale and one is tired of
hearing that same old stanza. It is time that Africans grew up; growing up means taking
responsibility for ones fate.

*This paper is an exercise in political theory, in philosophizing about what type of government
suits a particular people, at a particular point in time. The reader, hopefully, is acquainted with
political philosophy and is able to think the subject through. The writer's thesis is academic and
is meant for intellectual discourse; it should not be taken as a dogmatic assertion of what is good
for Africa and Africans. Perhaps, if we hear from you we shall then be able to collate what is
good for Africa and Africans? Dr Osuji presented this paper to a life audience.