Talk:Government

Hi Steve. "It is a moral evil to make decisions for people or to take decisions from them" this comes from the Catholic Catechism. It has an exact reference. We should look it up. --Kev-The-Hasty 23:25, 7 January 2008 (CET)

Wow, if you are right then we are on to something important here. There is some connection between Catholic thought on subsidiarity and taking decisions from people -- Jeff Fountain talked about it some time ago. steve-the-not-so-hasty 00:01, 9 January 2008 (CET)


 * I looked it up in the Cathechism and it is there. Forgot the number. I will see Jeff tomorrow. I will ask! --Kev-The-Hasty 00:19, 9 January 2008 (CET)

And it crops up in things like this from "Possible Approaches and Strategies for Church" NGOS ://www.sedos.org/english/seigel.html

1 Basic Principles

I will present this in very summary form. I think that the most basic principles are 1) that all human beings have a right to sufficient access to the world's resources to maintain their well-being, 2) that human dignity requires a certain autonomy, 3) that human dignity also requires solidarity, and 4) that sin and evil are realities that we must keep in mind in our social analysis and action planning.

....

2. Autonomy, Inclusion and Participation

When Pope Pius XI defined the principle of subsidiarity in 1931, the biggest and most obvious threats to this principle were totalitarian governments: Fascism in Italy, Nazism in Germany, Stalinism in Russia, military government in Japan, etc. Today, it is economic rather than political institutions that absorb individuals, local communities and whole countries, deprive them of their autonomy, and make them subservient to distant and anonymous masters. The Bretton Woods institutions and the World Trade Organization have, for example, come to have more clout than the United Nations. The way in which trade negotiation and other economic agreements (such as the Multilateral Agreement on Investments) are negotiated by governments, often in complete secrecy from those who will be most affected by the decisions, also demonstrates the way in which economic institutions and processes are absorbing power. Even within countries with strongly democratic traditions, economic decisions are prone to be exempt from the democratic process. It seems that economic matters are so sacrosanct that common people ought not have a voice, and so there is usually not even the slightest attempt at consultation. The increasing power of transnational corporations is also a clear example of economic rather than political institutions absorbing the autonomy of individuals, local communities and whole countries.

A question of supreme importance with regard to autonomy is the question of ownership. As I have already noted, for a person to maintain real autonomy, they must be in control of their own access to the earth's resources. When they own their own land, or when ownership resides in a local community where they participate communally and equitably, their autonomy and their dignity are respected. The more ownership is removed from them, the more it is concentrated in the hands of distant and anonymous owners, the more people become excluded from the decision making that most affects their lives. Not only do they lose their autonomy, but they are placed at risk of deprivation by the decisions of distant owners whose priorities do not include the welfare of people displaced or absorbed by their holdings.

Another form of control that excludes some from participation and autonomy is the control of knowledge which may come about as a result of inequalities in access to information, biases in media presentation, or from patenting of knowledge and processes that gives the possessors of those patents, and those licensed to use it, enormous power.(6)

What is needed? There needs to be transparency and accountability in all economic institutions, including the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization. There also needs to be a substantial degree of transparency in the activities of TNCs. Their operations should be open to scrutiny by either governmental bodies or by the general public. There needs to be consultation with the general public and civic organizations on economic issues. There needs to be a clearer definition of what kinds of treaties governments can enter into without consulting with the people, and there needs to be more opportunity for civic society to participate in discussion and decision making with regard to what kind of technologies are to be permitted and what kinds of knowledge can be patented. There needs to be some control over the patenting and use of biotechnological processes, and some opportunity for democratic processes to be applied. Additionally, we probably need a whole new definition of ownership, one which favors local control, even if partnership style investments are encouraged, and one which can deal with the complexity of the patenting of life forms, biotechnological processes, indigenous knowledge, etc., in a manner that is, first and foremost, protective of the well-being of people and of nature.

steve-the-not-so-hasty 12:07, 9 January 2008 (CET)