A Presidential Dilemma in Ukraine

One form of a dilemma is this:

If you elect X, you will suffer.
If you elect Y, you will suffer.
You have to elect X or Y.
Therefore, you will suffer.

This is a valid argument — the conclusion follows from the premises. But, is the argument sound? That requires that the premises be true.

The dilemma is the result of the Ukrainian constitution, which requires the office of a President. And right now there are two candidates scheduled for a run-off election on April 21, 2019. One is the incumbent oligarch President, Petro Poroshenko; the other, a celebrity comedian, who stars in the role of a Ukrainian President in the television series “Servant of the People.” His name is Volodymyr Zelensky. Both are unwanted for legitimate reasons.

The dilemma can be resolve by getting rid of the office of a President. So, the question is: Is the office of a President necessary or even desirable?

In countries which elect their leader by the people, he is called a President — as in the United States. In countries in which the parliament elects the leader, he is called Prime Minister — as in the United Kingdom.

And is some countries — as in Ukraine, there is both a President and a Prime Minister.

Countries which elect a President always face the task of selecting the lesser of two evils. Why? Because it takes money to run a national campaign, and the candidates with the most money tend to be the leading candidates. And once in office, they tend to work both for their own interest and the interest of their backers.

As evidence of this, just study the history of the US in both its domestic and foreign affairs.

Although the office of a Prime Minister is more responsible, it too has its dangers. Witness the phenomenon of Mussolini and Hitler — both were elected as Prime Ministers.

The lesson should be clear. There should be no leader. A leader is neither necessary not desirable.

What is the alternative? Switzerland!

Instead of a President or a Prime Minister, Switzerland has a seven-member Federal Council. These are nominated by their majoritarian political parties, and confirmed by their bi-cameral parliament.

Ukraine would do well to introduce an amendment to its constitution to nominate and confirm an n-member Federal Council — thus getting rid of its Presidential Dilemma.

Origins of the State, Land and Population

In order to determine the origins of a State, one must have some conception of the nature of a State. Let us start with the Wikipedia entry for “State (polity).”

“A state is a compulsory political organization with a centralized government that maintains a monopoly on the legitimate use of force within a certain geographical territory.”

For my purposes, this definition will do. However, from my individual perspective, what is important to me and to everyone else, is the fact that we cannot occupy a piece of subsistence land for free, but must submit to the dictates of a centralized government.

How is the “State” different from a tribe, which also may prevent me from occupying a piece of land? Let us express the difference in the following way. If I am a member of a tribe, then I will be allowed to occupy a piece of land for free. But, if I am a member of a State, I will not be allowed to occupy a piece of land for free.

From this perspective, the question is: how is this transition from tribal free occupancy to a State non-free occupancy possible? This is the problem which has been labeled the problem of “primitive accumulation.”

One approach is to point out the difference in human natures. Some are gifted (i.e., intelligent, diligent, thrifty, etc.); others are not. OK, so the gifted will do better with their land holding than the less-gifted. Still, the less gifted will not work for the gifted unless their reward is equal or better than what they can accomplish on their own piece of land.

But the situation in a State is that many would be better off if they had access to free subsistence land; but they do not.

Despite the different theories of “State formation,”, only one is, for me, convincing. This is the conquest theory, which has been best formulated by Franz Oppenheimer in his book The State.

I urge the reader to read the book himself. The author is clear, brief, reasonable, and convincing. I will only focus on what to me is the convincing, deductive argument.

He starts with the following assumption:

“No one will work for another if he can do as well or better by living off subsistence land. All teachers of natural law, etc., have unanimously declared that the differentiation into income-receiving classes and propertyless classes can only take place when all fertile lands have been occupied. For so long as man has ample opportunity to take up unoccupied land, “no one,” says Turgot, “would think of entering the service of another”; we may add, “at least for wages, which are not apt to be higher than the earnings of an independent peasant working an unmortgaged and sufficiently large property”; while mortgaging is not possible as long as land is yet free for the working or taking, as free as air and water. Matter that is obtainable for the taking has no value that enables it to be pledged, since no one loans on things that can be had for nothing.”

  1. Person x will not work for person y, if x can do as well or better on his own.
  2. x can do as well or better on his own, if he has free access to subsistence land
  3. There are z acres of available fertile land in the world.
  4. There are m number of people in the world
  5. z/m = g,
  6. In order to subsist, x must have access to h acres of land
  7. g > h
  8. Therefore, there is enough subsistence land for each person

Oppenheimer gives us the statistics for available land in Germany as well as in the world, at the time when he wrote (1914); concluding that there is ample land for everyone. But despite this, we are prevented from taking free occupancy by States.

The rest of the book is a narrative of conquests of one group of people by another. I need no further convincing, since the history of man is a history of war and conquest.

I want to conclude with the observation that since Oppenheimer wrote, we have a massive increase in populations and a decrease in available subsistence land. When Oppenheimer wrote, he gave 1.8 billion people in the world, and estimated 181 billion acres of available land, which would give each person roughly 100 acres. We have now 8 billion people, which, if that same amount of land were available, would give each person 22 acres, which is still sufficient for subsistence.

But this amount of land is not available. How much is available? Is there enough for subsistence for each person? If not, then this is my criterion for determining that we have an overpopulation problem. [That the problem can be solved by, let us say, vertical farming, is another matter.]

A necessary condition for Capitalism and a sufficient condition for Socialism

In the following presentation, Cohen presents an analogy between Al Capp’s creature, the Shmoo, and subsistence land. The Shmoo provides everything a person needs to survive, as does subsistence land.

Using Cohen’s analogy, socialism is the system which provides free access to the Shmoo, or, literally, free access to subsistence land. And capitalism is the system which does not. I understand that capitalism is a market economy — but that cannot be a sufficient condition for capitalism because barter or a free exchange of goods has always existed — under slavery and under feudalism. What unites slavery, feudalism, and capitalism is the denial of free access to subsistence land.

A necessary — though not a sufficient — condition for Capitalism is the prohibition of free access to subsistence land.

By contrast, I propose that the sufficient — though not a necessary –condition for Socialism is the right to a free access to subsistence land, or its equivalent (such as a universal basic income).

Principle of Checks and Balances

I want to talk about governments which are more or less like that of the United States. The basic principle is to divide the powers of government into Federal, State, and Municipal.

The powers of the Federal government are divided into three branches: legislative, executive, and judicial; or, law-maker, policeman, and judge. And a similar division of powers exists on the State and Municipal levels.

Each branch is supposed to get the approval of the others to some degree, with rules for overriding. Congress passes laws, the President has the power of veto, but Congress has the power of overriding the veto. And the Supreme Court has the power to annul a law as unconstitutional (when tested).

As things stand, the President too has a law-making power in formulating a budget, issuing Presidential orders, having a private surveillance apparatus, and a private army, power of martial law, declaring a disaster area, power of federal pardon, and the command of the military; as well as all the legislative powers of the various cabinet posts. He nominates the cabinet posts; the Senate confers.

This is a great amount of power to give to one individual. And single individuals will want to play Napoleon in world chess — sacrificing pawns all over the place. Pawns are soldiers and civilians, which is to say — almost everyone.

This power is even greater in an “integral” country like Ukraine, which does not have a federated structure. In Ukraine, the president appoints all the governors; and the cabinet posts have national powers. Only on the municipal level is there a locally elected mayor and city-council, but the police and the judicial system are controlled by national cabinet posts.

Do I have to tell you what is wrong with giving power to a single individual on the national scale? The answer is. You get Stalin, Putin, Hitler, Mussolini, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, and all the other crazies of history. You also court getting other types of lunatics into power — like Trump.

I propose that the power of the Executive should be divided between at least two individuals, as was done in ancient Sparta, with two kings; and ancient republican Rome, with two consuls.

The only significant current country to have done this is Switzerland. It has a seven-member Federal Council. It avoids the power of money and demagoguery in electing the executive by letting their four leading political parties nominate the candidates (as contrasted with self-nomination with the backing of money). The Swiss joint bicameral parliament confers the candidates. These seven are also the cabinet posts of Switzerland.

They meet in secret to deliberate and decide issues. And once a decision is made by majority vote, it is upheld by all of them. And unlike the voting of the Supreme Court in the United States, how each member of the Swiss Federal Council votes is not made public.

The only sane course for any country is to imitate Switzerland.

Why is this not done? Because it is to the advantage of those with money to have a President — in any and every country — who can be bribed and threatened.

Correcting Bad Writing

The following letter was sent to my friend, Vitalij Keis, who was teaching a composition course in English at Rutgers (Newark), and had asked students to write a composition in response to some of my pieces on abortion to the editor of Scranton Times (c. 1980ies). He sent me one of these student essays, and asked for my response. Here is the response which I sent him. [I have no date — but it must have been in the 80ies.]

This essay, written in the form of a response to a student composition, is intended for a general audience — it is not intended to be a private correspondence.

My good friend Vitalij sent me your composition essay requesting that I respond. Your own essay is, I assume, a response to a series of "letters to the editor" which I had written several years ago [about abortions]. My views are no longer exactly the same when I wrote those pieces — but they are close enough to warrant a defense. [See my “Concepts of Persons and Morality” (1992).]

I

Let me start with an observation about attitudes toward polemical writing.

(1) As I see it, in engaging in polemical writing one may have victory as a goal — by whatever means. And the easiest way to achieve such "victory" is by misrepresenting the opponent’s thesis or arguments. This can be done in different ways.

(a) A common way is the straw man tactic — simply attribute to your opponent a thesis or arguments which he does not in fact hold, and then destroy the thesis or arguments.

(b) Another one is the red herring tactic. Pick on some irrelevant side issue, draw out its bad consequences, and then claim that you have discredited the main thesis.

(2) A different attitude, the one I prefer, is to try to understand your opponent’s position — even improve it — and then try to find faults with it or agree with it. This attitude expresses an interest in a dialectical search for truth — rather than some kind of "victory" over the opponent.

Writing with the first attitude is a bad policy for two reasons. The first is that it expresses a narrowness or meanness of character. The second is that it is ineffective, except to those who are prejudiced to the conclusion in the first place. The better policy is to work under the assumption that readers are sophisticated enough to see wool pulled over their eyes. And it is for these sophisticated readers that one should write.

II

Let me try to follow my own advice and try to be critically fair to your essay.

In writing polemically, I assume that whoever is reading my piece is not familiar with my (opponet’s piece; so, my very first task is to quickly tell the reader what was claimed by my opponent and what I think of the claim.

Your thesis, despite what you have written under the heading "thesis," is that most (all?) abortions should be illegal; and the argument that is implicit in your essay can be reconstructed in some such way as follows:

  1. The legal policy on abortions should be guided by morality.
  2. Whatever is immoral should be illegal.
  3. Morality is a matter of following "conscience."
  4. The "conscience" of the Supreme Court has ruled that many abortions are legal.
  5. Some decisions ("conscience") of the Supreme Court have in the past been immoral.
  6. The Supreme Court is, therefore, fallible.
  7. Never follow the dictates of a fallible source.
  8. My conscience is infallible.
  9. My conscience tells me that most (all?) abortions are immoral.
  10. Therefore, most (all?) abortions should be illegal.

I don’t know if you would agree with this reconstruction of a possible argument for your position, but it does contain the kinds of premises which have to be considered if the argument is going to be valid. As it stands, the argument, unfortunately, is not sound because it contains several false premises. I will point out some of these false premises in section IV. (A sound argument is a valid argument containing only true premises.)

III

Your thesis — the point you are arguing for — is not really the claim labeled ‘thesis’, which you formulate as:

Essentially, I don’t believe that America should restrict itself to following the terms of personhood set forth by a potentially fallible court.

This sentence neither clearly expresses your (polished) thought nor does it express your thesis (which is that most (all?) abortions should be illegal). Let me point out some difficulties with your formulation. The word ‘potentially’ is redundant. And the word ‘restrict’ seems to be doing no work in this context. A neater formulation would be:

Essentially, I don’t believe that America should follow the terms of personhood set forth by a fallible court.

The trouble with this formulation is that I am not clear about the word ‘terms’ in the phrase ‘terms of personhood’. What you meant, I take it, is something like ‘judgment about personhood’. Anyway, that is a better formulation. So, an improved version of your thesis is:

Essentially, I don’t believe that America should follow the judgment about personhood set forth by a fallible court.

Now comes a problem with ambiguity. The Supreme Court can make

(i) judgments about what is true or false,
and it can make
(ii) judgments about which rules (laws) to enact.

And these two types of judgments should be distinguished. Conflating them can cause nothing but confusion — as it did in your essay.

The court is, as everyone is, fallible about judgments of fact. However, as concerns the enactment of rules, it is improper to speak of "fallibility" in the same sense. Perhaps some other valuative term could be used for this purpose — like "bad", "imprudent," "unwise," "infelicitous." For illustration, think of the Supreme Court (or the legislature) enacting a rule to the effect that cars will drive on the right side of the road on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday; and on the left side on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Would you say that the rule is "mistaken", and that the court made a mistake in fact? No, the better comment is to say that the court enacted a bad — even a dangerous — rule. The court made a prudential mistake, an unwise decision — not a mistake as to fact. Let us mark this distinction in kinds of mistakes by talking about ‘fallibility-f and ‘fallibility-r’, respectively for ‘factual fallibility’ and ‘rule fallibility’.

Given this ambiguity in making a "judgment" about personhood, did the court make a judgment of fact or did it enact a rule? This can also be put the following way: In providing a definition are we involved in a judgment of fact or in enacting a rule?

To get a better grip on this question, we need to distinguish a lexical definition from a stipulative definition. A lexical definition is a factual report about linguistic usage, and it is the business of (fallible) dictionary writers to discover them. A stipulative definition is one that is made by decree, as in "I decree that the word ‘glaut’ will mean ‘a person who has political clout in a college’."

My approach and the Supreme Court’s is to provide a stipulative definition of personhood. Citing the Riverside Dictionary’s "lexical" definition of ‘person’ as a ‘human being’ is relevant only to a degree. The lesson of the dictionary is this: if the stipulative definition of ‘person’ is to overlap with usage, some human beings must be considered persons. In one of my letters I pointed out that some people describe God as a person, and that it may also be a good policy to describe rational extra-terrestrials as persons. (Did you forget this? Or was this omission a polemical ploy?) On the ground, then, that some people think of God as a person and would consider rational extra-terrestrials to be persons there is reason to depart from the lexical definition of a person and provide a stipulative one instead.

Stipulative definitions — which are a matter of decision — come in degrees of goodness or badness relative to some goal. And you yourself cite some examples of bad decisions which were made by the Supreme Court in the past. However, relative to the question of abortion, the Supreme Court’s decision to define a ‘person’ as ‘a born human being’ was, from my perspective, a favorable one.

(I am puzzled why you wrote "Would Mr. Chrucky have also agreed with that legalistic definition of personhood [in the Dred Scott decision]?" First, the Dred Scott decision was not a decision about how to define a person or a slave, it was a decision about the conditions under which a slave was to remain a slave, and in which state or territory slavery was permitted. Second, surely you don’t want to saddle me with the belief that all Supreme Court rulings are wise! The Supreme Court decisions must be judged case by case. Some decisions are good; some are bad — even terrible. The Dred Scott decision probably had a bearing on precipitating the Civil War — and in this regard alone it may have been a very bad decision.)

Anyway, in light of these considerations, your thesis is better formulated as:

Essentially, I don’t believe that America should follow the stipulative definition of ‘person’ set forth by a Supreme Court which has made unwise decisions in the past.

But this is not your final thesis. In the course of your composition you obviously are adding implicitly something like:

America should follow the dictates of my conscience which says that most (all?) abortions should be illegal.

IV

With this we are back to the argument as I originally formulated it with modifications added about fallibility.

  1. The legal policy on abortions should be guided by morality.
  2. Whatever is immoral should be illegal.
  3. Morality is a matter of following "conscience."
  4. The "conscience" of the Supreme Court has ruled that many abortions are legal.
  5. Some decisions ("conscience") of the Supreme Court have in the past been immoral.
  6. (a) The Supreme Court is, therefore, fallible-r.
  7. (a) Never follow the dictates of a fallible-r source.
  8. (a) My conscience is infallible-r. .
  9. My conscience tells me that most (all?) abortions are immoral.
  10. Therefore, most (all?) abortions should be illegal.

Let me comment on this argument as it stands. I agree with (1), but disagree with (2). For example, some consider masturbation to be an immoral practice. I don’t think it is. But even if it is, I don’t believe it should be an illegal practice. Similarly, although I think that lying to your husband about infidelity is possibly immoral, I don’t think at any case of lying to a spouse about infidelity should be illegal. (2) obviously needs refining:

(2a) Some things which are immoral should also be illegal.

(2b) Some things which are immoral should be legal.

And you seem to favor (2a) when you write: "Morals and laws should combined to protect the human rights of fetuses." Some line should be drawn between what kinds of things should be considered immoral and illegal and what should be considered immoral and legal.

Now I really do not want to saddle you with (8a); but without (8a) your argument becomes very weak. Instead of (8a) — in modesty and humility — you need:

(8b) My conscience is fallible-r.

And combining this with (7a), yields:

(8c) My conscience should not be followed.

But now you are committed to the conclusion that neither your conscience not the Supreme Court’s should be followed. Have you missed some other infallible conscience like the dictates of the Bible, the Koran, the Upanishads, Billy Graham, the CatholicChurch?

What is a conscience anyway? Is it some external voice like Jiminny Cricket for Pinocchio? Or is it an internal voice? Maybe (3) is just false. What is the alternative then? Maybe (7a) should be discarded as well? But now the whole argument seems very insecure. And I’ll leave it at that. (It would be an interesting exercise to patch it up.)

V

Let me finish with some semi-random comments on some claims and sub-arguments of your main argument.

Granted that the Supreme Court is fallible-f and fallible-r. Does it follow from this alone that it made a mistake in the Roe vs Wade decision? No. If there is a mistake it has to be pointed out in this specific case.

You object to the Supreme Court’s stipulated definition of ‘person’. You apparently hold that the specific decree of the Supreme Court that a person be defined as a born human being is a bad decree. Why? Your only objection is in the form of a question: "would it mean that babies removed by Cesarean section are [not] people because they weren’t actually born?" This is a good point. It shows the need for a further stipulated (decreed) definition of "birth." "Birth" could be stipulatively defined as a natural or artificial removal of a viable fetus from the mother. By this stipulated definition a baby removed through Cesarean section would be a born human being.

You add rhetorically: "May mothers exterminate these non-people because they are property under the law?" Answering this is complicated. You are evidently assuming the following:

Non-people have no rights.

This is false. Non-people, such as dogs, are, at least in principle, protected by law from cruel treatment — in this sense they have a right not to be treated cruelly.

You are also wrong about the legal status of fetuses. The Supreme Court decreed that States may have an interest in protecting the life of a fetus after the first trimester. This is to say that States may legislate (decree) rights to the fetus — even though it is a non-person. Here are the words of Roe vs Wade:

With respect to the State’s important and legitimate interest in potential life, the "compelling" point is at viability. This is so because the fetus then presumably has the capability of meaningful life outside the mother’s womb. State regulations protective of fetal life after viability thus has both logical and biological justification. If the State is interested in protecting fetal life after viability, it may go so far as to proscribe abortion during that period except when it is necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother.

Furthermore, I do not think that the law regards fetuses as "property."

You go on to dismiss the problem of definitions, and flatly assert your counter thesis: "Regardless of word meanings, it was wrong then to treat humans as disposable property and it is wrong now."

If you dismiss word meanings from discussion, then you are presupposing them (i.e. assuming them without argument). By this tactic, I take it, you are assuming that:

A. An unborn fetus is a human being,

A2. Some human beings were treated as disposable property.

A3. | Some human beings are treated as disposable property.

A4 lt is wrong to treat any human being as disposable property.

I agree with (A) and (A4). However, (A2) and (A3) are ambiguous through ellipsis:

Some human beings are (were) treated by ______ as disposable property.

If this blank is filled with ‘some other human beings’, then these are no doubt true statements. But if they are filled by ‘treated by the Supreme Court’, then, I believe, you are mistaken. You may be misrepresenting the status of negroes under the law as "disposable property." You are correct that negroes were decreed to be property, and if you mean by "disposable" the fact that they could be sold — you are again correct. But if you think that negroes were legally allowed to be treated cruelly or killed arbitrarily by their masters in the United States c. 1850 (though they were in fact), then you are incorrect.

You quickly dismiss abortions following rape, and focus on voluntary or accidental pregnancies. And you seem to ascribe to me the position that, in the case of voluntary pregnancies, I view the fetus as an "intruding embryo". I do not. I talked about an "intruding embryo" only with the case of rape. In fact all my discussions concerned rape and incest cases, and no others. I was silent about voluntary pregnancies and consequent abortions.

You write: "Morals and laws should be combined to protect the human rights of fetuses." This can be reformulated as an argument: since (i) fetuses are human beings; and (ii) all human beings have rights; therefore,

(iii) fetuses have rights.

This argument is too abstract to serve any useful purpose. The specific rights of specific human beings have to be mentioned. Not all human beings have the same rights. This depends on age, sex, residency, health, position, and such. You are seeking some universal rights such as "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." All these rights are contextually defined. There is after all also talk about the "forfeiture of rights" which again is contextually defined.

In the case of abortion, we have to decide which rights of which parties take or should take precedence. We have to have procedures for deciding cases of conflict of rights. When does a mother’s right to life take precedence over the fetus’s? That there are such rights of these parties was evidently expressed by Roe vs Wade:

… the State does have an important and legitimate interest in preserving and protecting the health of the pregnant woman . . . and that it has still another important and legitimate interest in protecting the potentiality of human life. These interests are separate and distinct. Each grows in substantiality as the woman approaches term and, at a point during pregnancy, each becomes "compelling."

Does a young girl’s (13 years) right to freedom from motherhood take precedence over an accidental pregnancy? What about the rights of the father? Of grandparents? What about the right of the fetus not to be born a chronic sufferer of pain? Obviously we need to specify rights, whose rights, and in what circumstances they take precedence — but that is an issue I did not discuss in my letters except for the case of incest and rape.

I take note of your observations that most pregnancies occur through voluntary sexual activity, and therefore the parties involved are responsible. I agree. But this brings with it the question of degree of responsibility. And it is clear to me that some cases of abortion may very well be immoral. But should it ever be the case that an immoral abortion should also be an illegal abortion?

I will conclude with a passage from Roe vs Wade:

"organized groups that have taken a formal position on the abortion issue have generally regarded abortion as a matter for the conscience of the individual and her family."

Bullshit Propaganda about Venezuela

If President Maduro of Venezuela were a dictator, as the Trump administration and the sycophantic media claim, then there would be no mass demonstrations against Maduro, and Juan Guaido would be in jail for treason or dead. Meanwhile the US is economically strangling Venezuela and pretending to be supplying “humanitarian aid.” Its greed for OIL.

Noam Chomsky on Venezuela:

Real Politics

I am interested — but I judge myself impotent — in changing the course of current politics. Like George Carlin, the stand-up philosophical American comedian, I am pessimistic about the passing show. Given the universal prevalence of liberal (mass, macro-) democracy, with the executive power placed in one person, and the other branches of government in the claws of oligarchs, the game is petrified for the benefit of the international corporate monopolists.

 

The focus of all the media — corporate and independent — is on judging the actions of the leader (be it president, prime-minister, governor, or mayor). The only country which does not seem to bother with the actions of the executive is Switzerland. Why? Because it is composed of a council of seven individuals drawn from four political parties, deliberating in secret, but judging with one voice (unlike the Supreme Court of the United States, which broadcasts the opinions of the individual judges).

 

Name a single member of the Swiss Federal Council. You can’t, because they do not make the news. But you know the leaders of the US, Germany, France, England, Russia — because they are perpetually stirring things up — mostly from a sense of self-interest. And if we glance back at history, you can identify the individuals who caused genocides, wars, and conquests.

 

As I write, Ukrainians are all stirred up about their upcoming Presidential election. And, as usual, the question is who is the least evil. And, as in the United States, some form of evil will be chosen — it is almost guaranteed. And then for the next five years there will be perpetual complaints, with the hope that the next President will not be so evil. Become wiser! All leaders — once in power — are evil (except in Switzerland, of course).