Politics is the Means

What Politics is About

The 3 axioms about governing established that all societies need governmental institutions to protect and strengthen both society as a whole and its members.

Now for the final 2 axioms:

Axiom #4:  Governmental functions require power and wealth.

To perform its duties, a government requires:

  • Coercive powers to ensure that certain things either happen or do not happen; &
  • Wealth to cover the costs of exerting power and discharging duties.

Axiom #5: Individuals are the sole sources of social goods, via their will, thought and action.

Government does not exist apart from society, and society does not exist apart from its members.

  • All power and wealth must come from individual members of society.
  • Government must operate via specific «individuals in offices of power».

Before proceeding, answer these two questions:

Organized groups are the sources of social power. The nature and relations of organized groups define the power structure of society.

Almost all groups unleash self-serving drives for more power and wealth for their members. So any government finds itself forced to recognize and respect the various goals, values and influence of diverse groups.

Unless citizens, through their memberships, feel good to be part of society and feel they receive a fair share of social goods, they will be discontented and prone to protest.

The primary challenge of any government is to integrate groups of all sorts by ensuring their members support, or at least tolerate, a society’s political institutions and political modus operandi.

This is the essence of «pluralism».

Enterprising individuals and hard-working people generate the wealth of a society.

Even natural resources (e.g. oil, forests) do not become social goods without the intelligence and effort of individuals.

All governments should recognize and respect the wealth-creating abilities of individuals.

The primary challenge of any government is how to get hold of a portion of the wealth of hard-working productive individuals without meeting excessive resistance, removing incentives for self-reliance and generally impoverishing the society.

As Jean Baptiste Colbert, a 17th century French Finance minister, observed: "The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing".

Suddenly it all becomes very clear…

From a taxonomic perspective, there is an easily recognized psychosocial phenomenon:

  • individuals seeking and obtaining access to the wealth and power of a society;

and there is a clear function/purpose:

  • managing society’s wealth and power authoritatively for the good of each and all via government.

Together this deserves the name «politics». So politics is different to government, while government unavoidably entails politics. Compare this definition with other definitions.

Everyone strives for a modicum of power and wealth. Those particular individuals who willingly strive to obtain access to the power and wealth of society as a whole—and who are expected to use power and wealth for the good of all—are commonly called «politicians».

The «political classes» also include necessary bureaucrats, advisors and others closely involved with government.

Generalizing to Any Social Group: Closed Every non-kinship social group has its goods and needs some sort of governance, which may well be informal. All members seek to benefit from membership and have a responsibility for group choices. Some members will seek to become leaders and so access and use the group's power and wealth. Motivations will vary but some may well do this to dominate group choices so as to serve their own interests. So politics applies to all groups.

Next Steps

  • Politics is about what is right and good for society. That suggests a relationship to ethics, an area that has already been investigated in detail. The basics need to be understood to grasp politics: review them here.

  • Politics is not about regimes or ideologies or elites forming a ruling class, because these are about how government operates. Politics is more fundamental: it determines the regime and ideology and enables a ruling class. More in the review.

  • Now consider how politics and ethics are related.

Originally posted: July 2009; Last updated: 25-Feb-2014