Bernard Crick in his seminal essay, In Defence of Politics (1962) wrote: “Politics are, as it were, the market place and the price mechanism of all social demands – though there is no guarantee that a just price will be struck; and there is nothing spontaneous about politics – it depends on deliberate and continuous individual activity.”

The elections are upon us, and an unprecedented number of parties are contesting the political space – the good, the bad and the ugly. Some are defined by a modus operandi that is predicated on graft, others pay lip service to the political process, some are utterly peripheral, while a few preserve tribal interests.

But politics, as Crick says, needs to be defended even against democracy. Certainly in the sense that any clear and practical idea needs defending against something vague and imprecise. Democracy as a social movement must exist in nearly all modern forms of political rule, yet, if taken alone and as a matter of principle, it is the destruction of politics.

He asks, how often has one heard: well, at least the Communists claim to be democratic’? But the real trouble is, of course, that they do not pretend to be democratic. They are democratic. They are democratic in the sound historical sense of a majority actively willing to be ruled in some other way – lambs to the slaughter, as evidenced by the totalitarian societies entrenched by the likes of Hitler and Mussolini, and in the people’s democracies of Lenin’s Russia or Mao’s China. The ANC’s National Democratic Revolution or the EFF’s relentless march to statism follow this trajectory.

There is a clear need, as de Tocqueville stated, for diversifying institutions to mitigate the tyranny of power. Politics, according to Crick, “may be a messy, mundane, inconclusive, tangled business, far removed from the passion for certainty and the fascination for world-shaking quests which afflict the totalitarian intellectual, does, at least, even in the worst of political circumstances, give a man some choice in what role to play, some variety of corporate experience, and some ability to call his soul his own”.

Ideologists and ideologues, on the other hand, may make use of politics for a while, only to destroy it. The inscription on the base of a statue of President Nkrumah in Accra, “Seek ye first the political kingdom and all other things shall be added unto it”, is a clear enunciation of this debasement of politics as a mere tool to achieve other ends, and is a timely historical warning for societies – in spite of its intention – of the need instead for politics to be lively, adaptive, flexible, and conciliatory. The lesson is that politics is the way in which free societies are governed.

Endemic corruption, and inherently corrupt – especially when they become large, wealthy, and powerful – ideologies combine ideals with hierarchy and legacy to provide them with privileges that give them entitlement over others. This needs to countered.

In this regard, it would be wise to guard against the elevation of capitalism to an ideology. It is simply an economic system; the first modern economic system. Adam Smith in 1791, published The Wealth of Nations, which established the study of economics; how people distribute and produce goods. In response to Smith, many mistakenly conflate his views with the virtue of selfishness, as espoused by Ayn Rand. Smith wrote about the place of work is in our society; about work adding value to others. Smith’s work was not about greed; it was simply a discourse on the causes of wealth and poverty, and a prescription to alleviate suffering, written between the lines. Adam Smith was looking for a positive enlightened solution to help nations develop and lessen suffering among people.

And so, capitalism, contrary to the belief of some new parties on our political landscape, is not a goal in itself. We strive to foster happiness and freedom in society, and the creation of wealth to this end serves to satisfy needs attendant to this; it is predicated on the free market system. It is, however, necessary to recognise the limits of the market, and the need to solve many problems outside the market such as healthcare, education, policing, fire departments, social security and the like.

This needs to balanced with choice, but it is important to note that Smith spoke out against rent seekers, high profits, low wages and championed wealth redistribution through higher taxes on the rich: “The rate of profit does not, like rent and wages, rise with the prosperity, and fall with the declension of the society. On the contrary, it is naturally low in rich, and high in poor countries.”

Likewise, socialism or communism is simply the negation of the current mode of production, of capitalism. What constitutes that actual negation, or what is merely a change in form of the current mode of production is up for debate. That which does not negate capitalism is still capitalism, merely capitalism reformed or, if you prefer, deformed. When the negation tends to totalitarianism though, it’s time to be concerned.

We need to be aware, as Crick maintains, that it is only in totalitarian regimes that a continuous state of emergency is maintained, a sense of permanent revolution, a belief that there is a continual desperate struggle against traitors within and aggressors without, which is often maintained quite artificially, though seemingly as a device of government essential to such regimes.

The coming elections provide us with an opportunity to understand the logical continuum embedded in the endeavour of some. It also serves as an opportunity to resurrect the primacy of politics – the activity by which government is made possible when differing interests in an area to be governed grow powerful enough to need to be conciliated.

Of course, conciliation is not the only option. Other paths are always open. As Crick says, politics is simply when they are conciliated – that solution to the problem of order which chooses conciliation rather than violence and coercion, and chooses it as an effective way by which varying interests can discover that level of compromise best suited to their common interest in survival.

Graft, coercion, and ideologies that tend to totalitarianism, tribal affiliation and more, mitigate against the forces of compromise that are necessary to aggregate the many members of society. Politics requires the simultaneous existence of different groups, different interests and different traditions, within a territorial unit under a common rule. Crick observes, that: “It does not matter how it came to be – by custom, conquest, or geographical circumstance. What does matter is that its social structure, unlike some primitive societies, is sufficiently complex and divided to make politics a plausible response to the problem of governing it, the problem of maintaining order at all… it represents the tolerance of different truths, some recognition that government is possible, indeed best conducted, amid the open canvassing of rival interests. Politics are the public actions of free men, freedom is the privacy of men from public actions.”

I fear we are, as a country, still short of this mark, that was the essence of Aristotelean debate some 300 years BC. DM