Introduction
Human beings are social animals and they are in contract with one another through a social arrangement, the contemporary social arrangement is always subject to the consciousness of society.
Through the social arrangement and social institutions, free cooperation and free competition are promoted and the modality of this is shaped by governance.
What is Governance?
According to United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific--Governance is the process of decision-making and the process by which decisions are implemented.
Freedom of speech, free cooperation, free competition, etc for an individual is paramount, however, to maintain a just society it should be qualified by the equal freedom of others.
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The freedom of an individual can not be made to trespass similar freedom of others, that is why one's freedom must respect another's equal/similar freedom.
As pointed out by philosopher Thomas Hobbes(1588-1679), the state of Nature of Humans is raw, characterized by the law of jungle where the weak surrenders to the strongest.
Human capacity translates to the corporate capacity of community/corporates through social contract, participatory democracy, and reconciliation of differences.
Before Law is enacted it needs a foundation of justice to make the law just for the society and not fanciful.
Justice implies what is right and reasonable. Justice synthesizes liberty, equality, and fraternity.
Individual freedom or liberty will not become a principle of justice unless it is qualified by equality-- which implies one must respect the equal and similar liberty of others, in other words, absolute freedom does not exist in a just society. If someone's freedom becomes a threat or trespasses the equal freedom of another, it can not become a principle of justice.
Similarly, equality can not become a principle of justice unless it is qualified by fraternity.
Fraternity
The feeling of friendship and support between people in the same group
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A community can not sustain itself without free cooperation, reconciliation of divergent interests, and equitable allocation of advantages accrued from the existing social arrangement.
Mahatma Gandhi invoked the concept of Sarvoodaya for the society-- the concept of common good for all. That reinforces fraternity.
In the economic sphere, if equality is not qualified by fraternity it may not be able to produce a new middle class, and it may not comply with the equitable allocation of advantages, therefore equality must be qualified by fraternity to become a universal principle of justice.
Law
Law is what is just, right, and warranted by the faculty of reason. It is a by-product of right procedure, a prescribed procedure in the context of jurisprudence. In other words, Law can not be called valid when it does not follow the correct procedure or does not conform to the spirit of justice, morality, etc.
But the question is Does Law make humans moral? Perhaps No. Because Lw only controls the outer periphery does not control the Human's conscience, whereas morality springs from conscience.
One may have negative emotions towards another being, but unless it takes the shape of an overt action, the Law can not be enforced.
Negative emotions, hypocrisy, disgracefulness, etc may be morally unjust but they are not legally sanctioned unless they translate into overt actions.
That is why morality, ethics, etc need a different setup altogether to create a conducive environment in society to maintain law and order.
Society/Community
To govern a society/community both law and moral standards are needed, to make it decentralized the participation of the community in the decision-making process (including formulation and implementation) is paramount.
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I live in my village. The local governance system here is participatory. 73rd Constitutional Amendment in 1992 granted constitutional status to local governance, and since then Panchayati Raj system in India has risen to prominence.
However, I will not talk about what is the legal & constitutional framework, but rather the real process here in my village, whether it is participatory or not.
In my village, Gram Sabha plays an important role. Before any decision is made, all the people of the Village are invited to the sabha.
A sabha is generally composed of all the eligible voters of the village. Any decision is generally vetted through consensus. However, it is more of a kind of abstract thing.
In reality, party politics prevail in the village as well, which is not good. The grassroots level of governance should be free from party politics and should be fully decentralized and shaped by the will of the people to make it more decentralized.
So what I feel in my village is that the Gram Sabha, consent-based decisions/implementations are mere customary and not shaped by reason and free will because people at large have a strong affiliation to the respective parties, and they do not hesitate to push their agenda as and when they get an opportunity to do so. That is why rising consciousness and knowledge economy should be promoted to sustain the true spirit of democracy.
Conclusion
While orderliness in the society/community is ensured by law, moral standards, etc, the sovereign power should be vested in the people. This should be the modality whether it is a small village, a community, a society, or an urban area. To create a congenial environment, free will, faculty of reason, knowledge economy, etc should be given precedence to truly manifest decentralized governance.
This is my participation for the Initiative: April Monthly Prompt
Check out the above post if you are keen to participate in a particular topic of the day.
Thank you.
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