Lecture 7: The Extent and Limits of Political Power

Sunday, 1 November 2020 5:58 PM

• What is the limits of Political power?

• We built it, we established the political community, what would be the limits of the power of that
community?

The extent and limits of Political Power

• To what extent can the state meddle in my life?
• Up to what extent can I influence the state? We can also interact with the state

Key Questions
• What is the best means to achieve the best ends of politics?
○ Question of means to achieve a given end
• How do we define sovereignty?
○ What is it, its an important contract in the context of states
• What is the role of law in the maintenance of social order?
○ Law, important element in a political community
• Is democracy the best means to achieve the greatest end of the political community?
○ The quintessential question of democracy, we have to ask ourselves is democracy the best
means to achieve the greatest end of the political community
• How does justice contribute to the maintenance of social order?
○ Justice important element
• What is the relationship between the state and the market? Between politics and the economy?
○ Eventually what is the relationship, as citizens we are not just footers but also consumers,
not just participants but producers and seculators of wealth
○ These questions all pertains to the limits and extent of which political power can be
embodied and exercised in a given political community
○ When you answer , then it delimits the types of activities that are desired, freedom,
sovereignty, autonomy, authority, is a vital element of a political community
○ Law, were all subjected to law and important instrument of power, democracy, standard in
participating in political process
○ Justice, we always appeal whenever we are oppressed, we should be treated justly and fair -
this defines certain standards on how the state should relate to its citizens
○ Our nature, our ability, and right to private property, produce wealth and consume wealth
and material wealth, how will this unfold and how can I embody and manifest this in my life
as a citizen, how much tax should I be paying etc

What is the best means to achieve the best ends of politics?

• Aristotle (“Politics”)
○ The best regime depends on its citizens and institutions
○ The best regime is the one that promotes the good life for its citizens

• Machiavelli (“The Prince”)

○ The best regime depends on its rulers
○ The attributes of an effective ruler is based not on affection, but on ability to exact
compliance (pagpapasunod) = morals, ability to love, affection

• The end of politics is order but Aristotle would like to put that in the form of a good life while
Machiavelli would really stick to order and stability and the means to achieve the good life, are
rulers that focuses on its citizens and institutions

Aristotle
ARISTOTLE’S IDEAS ABOUT POLITICS
• The city is a political partnership that comes into being for purposes of self-sufficiency but exists
primarily for the sake of living well
• City-state or polis, living well is the end but the instrument in achieving that is self-sufficiency
• Man is by nature a political animal, because he has the ability to communicate and to dialogue
about justice and the good
○ Because we have the capability to reason, communicate, discuss, argue, and dialogue about
justice and what is the good = this makes us political animals
• The city is prior to the individual
○ City takes precedence over the individual
• Mastery is rule over slaves, but political rule is rule over free and equal persons
○ Masters exist because they are slaves but political rule is rule over people who are free and
equal
○ Politics is not about masters or slaves, its about political rulers and about free and equal
citizens
• Holding property in common will not reduce factional conflict, but may actually increase because
of a sense of injustice.
• Does not believe in common property
• Common property = some people might enjoy the fruits of the other people = feeling of injustice
• Owners get more and the benefits even tho they don’t do much compared to the labor of others
who are doing a lot more
• Common property wont promote peace and harmony = no private communal na lahat, so kahit
tamad ka may share ka, edi magkakagulo yan

Citizenship
Citizenship
• A citizen in the strict sense is one who shares in making decisions and holding office
• You cannot run for office, vote, if you are not a citizen.
• Citizenship is therefore essentially democratic, but the notion of citizenship in practice must differ
according to the nature of the regime
• There are different ways of interpreting citizenship and it differs according to the nature of the
government or the regime
• Commonly speaking, however, a citizen is usually considered to be anyone whose parents are
citizens
• Aristotle adapted the husang gini, that if your parents are citizens then you are a citizen.

Types of Regimes
Aristotle - known to be father of political science for trying to provide different types of governments or
regimes
According to him:
• Correct regimes are those which look to the common advantage; deviant regimes are those which
look to the advantage of the rulers, and they involve mastery rather than political rule
○ Deviant regimes = mastery exists, there are slaves rather than political rule (correct
regimes)
• The correct regimes are kingship, aristocracy and polity; the incorrect regimes are deviations from
those and are tyranny, oligarchy and democracy respectively
○ If the rule of one is for the purpose of serving the interest of the ruler then it becomes
tyranny, aristocracy is the ideal form of government if it is ruled by a group that operates for
the interest of the common good, if that group now rules only for interest then that
becomes oligarchy which is deviant regime
○ If the regime is ruled by many, for the interest of everyone then it is called a polity
○ However, if there is rule of many but it is only for the interest of many and not for everyone
including the minority then it is not a polity it is democracy
○ Accdg to Aristotle, democracy is not an ideal regime it is a deviant regime it is the rule of the
many only for the interest of the many
• Kingship is rule by one person, aristocracy is rule by a few based on merit, and polity is a mixture
of democracy and oligarchy
○ Democracy is a corrupted form of rule by the many, oligarchy is a corrupted form of the few,
but when joined it becomes positive - polity = the explanation is by checks and balances,
temperance and moderation that democracy when you have many they temper the few but
the few could also correct the rationality of the many
○ Polity is a balancing act between a group that may possess reason and the many that
possess the power of numbers, rationality of the majority can be corrected by the minority
○ Democracy and oligarchy come together it becomes a polity, one checks the other
• Tyranny is monarchic rule of a master, oligarchy is rule by the wealthy, and democracy is rule by
the multitude that is irrational

The problem with democracy

• The problem with democracies is that they define freedom badly, which leads to slavery
• you exercise it by numbers, slavery = slave to ur own desires
• The defining principle of democracy is to claim justice as equality based on numbers rather than
merit
• That we are equal based on numbers and not whether or not we deserve
• Citizens in democracies rule and are ruled in turn
• They require some control

• Democracies tend to be unmindful towards other concerns because the majority asserts, whether
it is right or wrong

Who should rule?

• Justice is equality for equals and inequality for unequals
• Justice is pareho tayo edi pareho tayo, pero kung hindi tayo pareho, it is unjust na pag parehohin
tayo
• Because the city exists for the sake of living well, virtue must be a care for every city.
• Gusto niya mangyari is the regime for the good of everyone, for the sake of living well therefore
this must be enabled for a kind of virtue
• The multitude may collectively be better judges of certain things, so it is proper for them to share
in deliberating and judging, but they should not share in the highest offices
• That even if, the entire people, they can have a share in deliberating decisions but they should not
share in the highest offices = masa can be granted to political decisions and elections but there are
certain positions that are reserved for those who deserve
• May inequality, hindi lahat pantay pantay

Rule of Law
• It is in this context that what will preserve order is the care that is driven by virtue but in order for
these to be assured there must be law
• Laws need to be made in accordance with the regime; the just one's regime is, the more just the
laws will be
• The more just the regime is, the more just the laws are = the more unjust the regime edi unjust
laws din
• The good of politics is justice
• In the end, good of politics is justice bc it is what enables a good well, treating equals equally and
inequals inequally
• The best claim to rule is education and virtue, but there is also a claim to rule based on wealth and
on numbers
• Mayaman ako so ako dapat ruler = but no = the best rulers are those who claim to rule education
and virtues and are supported by majority
 • In the Ph, kung sino popular at mayaman sila ruler, di na importante education at virtue
• In the end, that kind of regime will suffer consequence
• A regime must be based on the rule of law.
• This law should be based on justice
• Polity is the best attainable regime and is formed by the mixture of oligarchy and democracy
• Two undesirable regimes
• A well-mixed polity should reinforce the good parts of each regime while minimizing their
shortcomings
• checks and balance

Good Man Vis-A-Vis good citizen

• The virtue of a good man and an excellent citizen may be different
○ Pwede kang maging mabuting tao pero di mabuting citizen
• The virtue of a citizen is determined with a view to the preservation of the regime
○ Mabuti kang citizen kapag ginagawa mo ay para sa regime or government
• To the extent the actual regime approximates the best regime, the virtue of a good man and an
excellent citizen will coincide
○ Kapag regime ay best regime, then it becomes possible that if you are a good citizen
necessarily you are a good man
○ Regime ay just, and u are good citizen, then good man ka den bc u pursue and protect the
interest of a just government but if the government is unjust and tyranny, u being a good
citizen may be not necessarily be as same as being a good person, u being a good person
means that u are enabling a regime that is unjust
○ Good citizen ka eh pero good personn hindi dahil regime na sinusundan mo ay unjust

The best regime

• The best regime corresponds to the best way of life for a human being
• Since the best way of life is living nobly and according to virtue, the best regime is the one which
promotes this life
• You may be a good citizen but you are not a good person because you are enabling an unjust
regime
• The best city needs to be a partnership of similar persons, and rule needs to be based on
education and virtue.
• However, the city needs farmers and laborers to provide sustenance and the material necessities
of life
• Farmers and laborers do not have the leisure to be well educated and live nobly
• They don’t learn at schools
• Rulers need to come from the leisured classes
• Farmers can never be rulers bc rulers need to come from the leisured class, they need to be
educated and live nobly
• Aristotle's society is hierarchical it is exclusionary
• The citizens will be exclusively the ruling class (those who can be educated and live nobly), which
will rule and be ruled in turn such that the young will be soldiers and the old will rule
• Citizenship is confined only to the leisure class because they are the ones eligible to be ruled and
be ruled in return
• Not in favor of kids and young ones bc wala pa silang karanasan
• All the laboring classes will be slaves
• He believed in slavery

Regime Preservation
• To preserve regimes, it is necessary to enforce the laws well, and to arrange offices so that one
cannot profit from them
○ Control and prevent corruption, arrange offices
• Regimes should take care not to alienate any one portion of the population
○ There should be an effort to be inclusive and not alienate people including the slaves, and
those who are not citizens
• The middling element (middle class) is very important because they tend to mitigate factional
conflict
• The greatest method of preserving a regime is education relative to the regime, which means
education to appreciate the claims of justice that the non-ruling element has.
○ Those who do not rule always claim for justice, so one of the task of education is to have an
understanding of these claims to those who do not rule
○ Wag ka magalit if nag rereklamo mga tao, tugunan mo yan
○ Aristotle who believed in hieararchies, inequality and unequals, slavery and education and
virtue, he described a pragmatic type of politics, empirical positivist theorist = he is
describing and not moralizing he is saying virtue should be in politics but also saying that
justice is not for everyone = pragmatic way of doing politics
○ Plato = idealist normativist

Machiavelli
• The bad boy of political theory
• Negative connotation = ruthless kind of view that the end will justify the means even if the means
is bad, if the end is good the means will be good

MACHIAVELLI: THE END JUSTIFIES THE MEANS

• Machiavelli wrote about the characteristics of the prince of the rulers, one major theme from him
• He did not have a theory on the society as a whole but the ruler or the leader because he thinks
that the leader will lead to a good society it is the leader that is instrumental to the development
of the society a kind of leader will be good bc it promotes stability
• He is critical to those who rose to power through crime in fact he condemns them as wicked but at
the same time he is fond of their cleverness
 • He is not a moral philosopher
• He is a pragmatic theorist
• When possible, a prince/ruler should strive to rise to power on his own merits and with his own
arms
• Ruler should not asa sa iba dapat maging leader ka on your own and force, if you rely to others,
you will have a difficult time
• Relying on friends, good luck, or other people’s arms may make the rise easier, but holding onto
his newfound power will prove a difficult task
• Princes who rise to the throne through crime are another matter altogether: Machiavelli
condemns them as wicked, and yet his words betray his admiration for their cleverness
• Cruelty, when well-used, can be justified.
• You can be cruel if there is reason

THE RULER AND THE ART OF WAR

• In a sense of being able to wage war not only with enemies but also making sure the problems in
the state are treated as enemy that wage war against
• Reliance on mercenaries (paid armies) and auxiliaries for troops is a grave mistake
○ You cannot rely on people you pay, you cannot extract loyalty from them
• A prince must lay strong foundations – good laws and good arms – and if the latter is lacking, the
former is rendered irrelevant
○ Kung may batas ka pero walang army to impose the rule, wag kang umasa na tatagal ka
• A state needs both to survive
○ Good law and good army
• Mercenaries are disloyal and divided; foreign auxiliaries come already united under another
master, and so are in a way even more dangerous
○ You have to rely on your own force
• The prince himself should be a student of war and an avid reader of military history.

BETTER TO BE FEARED THAN TO BE LOVED

• Reputation is another important element to consider
• Choose fear, but in order to be feared reputation is ^
• The fro nt princes put on to appeal to the populace is often a lie
• Reputaion will build that kind of front that is often a lie or pretending, optics
• Machiavelli notes; the better the liar, the better the prince
• Giving out money when it is fiscally irresponsible, just to appear generous, is a mistake; displaying
excessive mercy in order to garner affection can prove fatal
• It’s a stupid move
• Better safe than sorry; better to be feared than to be loved.
• Machiavelli believes in the functional role of conflict and descent in the society, a civic republican,
he believes in some kind of democratic theory where he doesn’t put a lot of weight on morality
and values and virtue but what he is into is more of putting a lot of focus on conflict contestations
as a driving force to protect the rights of the people that in the end what protects people is the
ability to fight power

HOW DO WE DEFINE SOVEREIGNTY?

BODIN
• theorist
CONTEXT
• Wrote in a period when the centralized nation-state had emerged under powerful monarchs who
were fighting off both feudal and ecclesiastical claims (of the church and land nobility) in their
effort to create unified systems
• Important ang sovereignty because it is about your ability to extract compliance from your
subjects but also the ability to respect that there is an independent entity bc of internal (abilitiy to
extract compliance within) and external sovereignty (to be respected as an individual as an
autonomous independent that has freedom)
• Provided the classic definition of sovereignty

SOVEREIGNTY
• There exist a supreme power to make laws – majestas – which is an abstract concept and not an
attribute of the prince
• Doesn’t reside in the prince, nor the king
• Sovereignty is the absolute and perpetual power of commanding in a state
Absolute—power was given without any condition
Perpetual—it could not be revoked
• Sovereignty is the power of giving orders to all, and receiving orders from none
• You have the ability to giver orders but under no one
• The sovereign is above and could not be bound by his own laws
• His authority to demand obedience resulted from the ends for which society existed
• Absolute, but in the end it may not be that sovereign is a person before sovereign is the king and
prince but with all these absolute powers that it becomes obvious that perhaps there is an
abstract concept that in the end later modern reincarnation of the word sovereignty is so
embodied in the state, the community itself people also become sovereign

LIMITS OF SOVEREIGNTY
• Yet the sovereign did not possess unlimited power
• Not absolute
• He was bound by natural law, the eternal law of God, and by fundamental laws
• He defined the absolute terms
• Not absolute sovereign but bound in sovereignty
• Majestas led to an ability of talking about sovereignty that is possessed by a body politic

WHAT IS THE ROLE OF LAW IN THE MAINTENANCE OF SOCIAL ORDER?

WHAT IS THE ROLE OF LAW IN THE MAINTENANCE OF SOCIAL ORDER?
• Marsiglio of Padua (“Defensor Pacis”)
• Thomas Aquinas (“Summa Theologica”)

Marsiglio of Padua
• Not as popular as othe theorists
• He is a very ordinary but his contribution is interesting
• He started with the argument for

THE NEED TO CONTROL

• The individuality and aggressiveness of man necessitated the need to maintain peace and order in
the community
• People are individualistic and nature aggressive, we need some control and this control is
important
• Civil society is dependent on all carrying out their function, and contributing to the common good
• Control is in the form of laws, society is dependent on all of us doing our actions
• Secular rule is different from religion; these are separate functions
• One of the first people who talked about the separation of the state, he wrote it at the time where
the Church was very powerful
• Talked about secularism, that secular is different from religion
• Man’s religion, or the inner life, is private, while external acts are subject to control
• These external acts are subjected to control and law
• Because laws are secular and we need to control people as citizens

POWER AND LAW …

• Marsiglio of Padua was interested on the “ruling section,” the executive, directing organ of the
“human legislator” (the whole political community)
• But he stressed the need for law to obtain community approval by the people of “its weightier
part” = the desire to put things into order and serve the common good
• Secularity
• It is this community approval that made law valid and gave it effective coercive power
• Consent of the citizens are important for making laws, the authority of the law emanates from
community approval
• Two main principles on how we understand politics today came from this Italian writer and
scholar: that the church is separated from the state and that the law emanates by the community
approval
• The prince was controlled by the legislative power of which he was servant
• Prince is not a ruler, just an implementor the executive ruling section, executes the law and
implements it, prince is serving the community = servant of the people
• People is the source of law
• The ruler is only its agent
• All power, ecclesiastical or temporal, is vested in the community
• The state is omnipotent in temporal matters
• Omnipotent powers that governs temporal but not ecclessiastal masters leave it to the church
• The people being the source of law. The ruler is only an agent that is the state in omnipotent in
temporal matters

Thomas Aquinas
• Focused on the
• Complete opposite of Padua
RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE
• Future life is more significant than earthly existence; the Church as the organization concerned
with future life is superior to, and the directing guide of, secular power, as the body is subject to
the soul
• He reverts back to the argument that the church is higher than the state
• Secular power is subordinated to the ecclesiastal power of the church
• Yet, the state is also important
• Not only does it preserve order, but also performs a positive, educational function
• State is in charge of education
• The state is autonomous; its end is the good life and common good for all
• Subordinated to the church but autonomous, superior ang church state hindi, directing guide but
autonomous
• The end of the state is good life and common life for all
• Becomes an instrumentality for attaining the good, which the church are directing us to make

TYPES OF LAWS
• Categorical laws
• Eternal law governed the entire universe, including animate and inanimate objects, including man
• Natural law enabled those possessing reason to understand and conform to eternal law
• Human law entailed the making of concrete, detailed variable rules in accordance with natural
law
• Must be consistent with natural law
• Divine law was the ultimate will of God

LAW AND THE LIMITS TO POLITICAL POWER

• Law is rational and binding
• Based on reason and should bind people
• There is an implicit restriction on the extent of political power: political authority is binding only if
it was in conformity with natural law, divine law and the common good of the whole community
• If it did not conform, governmental power is tyrannical and can be resisted
 • If the laws do not conform with divine and natural law and not pursuing the common good then
the power that law promulgates is now tyrannical reason for us to resist that power
• If the tyranny is excessive, disobedience, when organized by public authority, is permissible
• Somebody leads it, leader politician that leads the resistance

IS DEMOCRACY THE BEST MEANS TO ACHIEVE THE GREATEST END OF THE POLITICAL COMMUNITY?

JOSEPH SCHUMPETER
• Iconic people that talk about democracy

DEMOCRACY RE-DEFINED
• Challenged the reality of the classic theory of democracy
• Redefined democracy to mean not the formulation by the people of opinions on political issues,
but the production of a government responsible for making decisions
• Democracy is defined as people having the right to say something, freedom of speech, it is seen to
be in the participation of people in decision making
• When we express opinions, we manifest and embody decisions
• He inverted these, he is not concerned whether or not people express their opninions, he is just
concerned about people participating in the production of the government who is now
responsible for making decisions = indirect democracy, representative
• Democracy is joining the forum, going to the greeks forum and participating in the discussion but
it is no longer possible what we do is we elect people who will be part of the decision apparatus =
democracy now - direct participation in elections

PROBLEMS WITH DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTICIPATION…

• At the core of direct democracy is the fact that there are certain inherent problems about democracy
and political participation
• There is no such thing as a uniquely determined common good that all people could agree on or
be made to agree on by the force of rational arguments
• Ano common good, that’s what we look for, we cannot articulate the common good
• Even if the common good can be defined, it would not necessarily follow that the political
decisions produced would represent anything that could be called the will of the people
• Common good and will of the people is hard to define
• Citizens are typically misinformed or uninterested in political issues except for those that affect
them directly or economically
• Citizens are easily influenced by political advertising, which can shape their views
• You cannot assume that people can directly express their opinion, sa pagboto na lang ang
magagawa niya -

THE CLASSICAL THEORY

• Argues that power resides in the people
• The state is composed of legislators, chosen by the people to represent their interests—the
general will
• Selection of representatives is made secondary to the primary purpose of vesting power in the
electorate

SCHUMPETER’S ALTERNATIVE
• Schumpeter reverses these roles
• He makes the deciding of issues by the electorate secondary to the election of representatives
who are to do the deciding.
• Hindi importante ang siyang mga taong nagdedecide, ang mga representatives sila ang mag
decide
• “The role of the people is to produce a government, or else an intermediate body which in turn
will produce a national executive or government. And we define: the democratic method is that
institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions in which individuals acquire the power
to decide by means of a competitive struggle for the people’s vote” (Schumpeter, 1942: 269)
• Politics is now in the political parties that offer themselves, politics is now carried by officials who
run election, and the sole job of people is to vote - then come back sa election and reward those
who did well and vote out who did not do well

SALIENT POINTS
• The state gains autonomy—it is the decider of issues, of legislation, of the course of economic and
social development
• The electorate (citizens) is left with the power to decide which set of leaders (politicians) is wishes
to have carry out the decision-making process
• Voters do not decide on issues—it is politicians who decide these, and present themselves to the
voters
• Elections nagiging core ng democratic process

CONDITIONS FOR SUCCESS

• The human material of politics must be of sufficiently high quality
• Aware ang mga tao
• The effective range of political decisions must not be extended too far—that is, many decisions should
be made by competent experts outside the legislature
• Kailangan may technical expertise ka pa rin outside of the legistlative
• Democratic government must command a dedicated bureaucracy that must be a power in its own right
• May consultants yan, it must be supported by a committed bureaucracy
• Electorates and legislatures must be morally resistant to corruption and must exhibit self-control in their
criticism of government
• Hindi nagbebenta at nagpapabili ng boto, don’t be too critical and disruptive
• Competition for leadership requires a large measure of tolerance for difference of opinion
• Large tolerance of difference of opinion
• Constructive critics
• Are we in a situation that is enabling a kind of democracy that Schumpeter has theorized?

HOW DOES JUSTICE CONTRIBUTE TO THE MAINTENANCE OF SOCIAL ORDER?

JOHN RAWLS

BASIS FOR THEORY ON JUSTICE

• Argued against the position in which justice is the outcome of utility as well as against a purely intuitive
view of ethics by which people have some source of knowledge or intuition that explain our moral
judgments and the right way
• That there is this morally upright kind of belief system that we can appeal to
• Based justice on a social contract where people choose the principles without knowing their own natural
abilities or positions in the social order
• We agree on things, socially constructed something that is not determined as if its there, it is something
that emanates from our relationship with others, history, it is contextual

THEORY OF JUSTICE
• Justice is the first requirement of a society that is acceptable to its members
• Anything that is just must be accepted
• The core of justice is fairness
• A theory of justice should provide an acceptable standard for a just distribution of social primary goods
such as liberty, income, wealth and opportunity
• Fair distribution that is also just
• Inequality is permissible only if it improved the position of the worst-off social group
• Dapat may preferential treatment ang mahirap
• Liberty can only be restricted for the sake of greater liberty
• These are things that are fairly acceptable to everyone hindi siya napaka idealistic, morally ascendant of
what justice should be and it is seen in peoples lives easily operational

WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE STATE AND THE MARKET? BETWEEN POLITICS AND THE
ECONOMY?

UTILITARIANISM
• Fundamental principle: men, acting in their own self-interest, sought pleasure and avoid pain; pleasure
is regarded as good and pain as evil
• Political economic theory
• Fundamental principle: human beings are rationale, selfish, we look at our own selves
• The utility, or value, of anything depended on its contribution to pleasure and its avoidance of pain
• We value utility that is dependent on whether that things helps us achieve pleasure, if it advances us
and enables us to contribute to pleasure

ROLE OF GOVERNMENT
• Government, acting according to the principle of utility, should seek to increase pleasure and decrease
pain to attain the greatest happiness for the greatest number
• Operate in such a way that would be working for the furtherance of pleasure and decrease pain should
be done in such a way that we attain greatest good and happinness for the longest time possible
• Its business was to promote the happiness of society by punishing actions that bring pain and rewarding
actions which promote pleasure
• Main role ^
• Two premises
• Since men always acted according to self-interest, one could deduce how they would act
• The equal pleasures of individuals are equally good

ADAM SMITH
• The individual, acting in self-interest, unconsciously promotes the good of the whole society
• Our selfishness in the end would promote the good for everyone
• The function of the state in economic matters should be reduced to a minimum, since individuals ought
to be able to act without undue restriction in conditions of free trade and competition
• Encourage people to selfish and allow the free market to operate, economic relation of people should
be based on selfishness that the function of the state ^^

JEREMY BENTHAM AND JAMES MILL

• The community is a body composed of self-interested individuals
• Yet, the function of a legislator is to lead men to perform actions that result in the pleasure of others as
well as their own and that would make their private interest coincide with the general interest;
selfishness can somehow take the form of benevolence
• Make the private interest coincide with the general interest that in the end selfishness can
somehow become a form of benevolence
• What adam smith said
• The state has to nurture the free-market system and protect citizens from corrupt and rapacious
government itself
• Protect free market = control corruption
• To enable this, there is a need for elections and a free press media

JOHN STUART MILL

• Saw the democratic process as contributing to human development
 Saw the democratic process as contributing to human development
• Capitalism is gradually reducing inequality of income, wealth and power which the unjust feudal system
has created
• But was also skeptical of the capability of workers to use political power wisely (labor power)

LIBERAL VISION OF A BOURGEOIS STATE

• A representative democracy, with power residing in a small group of the citizenry
• The ideal state: one in which political power is expanded to a larger group, letting the free market taking
care of the distribution of wealth and income.
• Inequality in property is increasingly becoming acceptable as a necessary price to pay for increasing
production, with equality now expressed more in political terms
• That the rich has the same political right as the poor, we may be unequal in terms of wealth but same
number of votes to one person

Discussion notes:
• Defining what is appropriate and proper, what is the desirable goal of the community, and how to meet
those goals, anong mabuting paraan para mareach ito
• In the end, one of the things that can delimit the power of the state to the citizens, and delimits the
citizen = when we have a correct understanding of what the state wants, and what is the proper way to
achieve that goal
• Left princess: willing to grant freedom of knowledge of concern
Priestess: manipulates and controls the knowledge about science, seasons, and use it against the people
and did not share it to the people
= what is really the good of the political community? What is being valued? What is important in the
community?
• First philosophy: people are governed, they know knowledge
• Two different kinds of political communities and order, ways in which power is allocated to help govern
the state
• First philosophy: people are empowered, but they can easily rebel against the rulers
• Second: Rulers are the one in control, they remain to be passive objects of power

• There is a paradigm that speaks that the good life is the goal of the community, the only goal of the
political community is for the citizens to live well and so pinakatanggap-tanggap ng layunin ng
community is para mapabuti ito = Aristotle, good life is virtue, that can be achieved in good means
• Best regime = depends on citizens and institutions
• For him, deviant regimes, are where rulers are selfish where they only prioritize their interests
• Correct regimes = work for the people, the state and free citizens
• Aristotle, deviant regimes = isa lang nag rurule, where the interests of the rulers are being served
• Democracy is a deviant regime kase ito ay paghahari ng napakadami pero interest lang ng majority ang
tinitingnan
• Monarchy kapag lahat ng interest tinintingnan
• Aristocracy, a desirable and correct regime
• Rule of the many for the interest of all = polity
• Aristotle talks about virtues and morality, for him polity is a balancing between the excess of democracy
= rules for the interest of the majority lang and oligarchy = deviant regime where the few serves its
interests
• Oligarchs will check for the excesses of the crowds and the oligarchs
• Aristotle's idea = the limits of power is very much the function of a good regime, that there must be a
good regime where people must be served well
• Aristotle he is for the good of everyone, but not all people in the city-state are citizens because for him
the citizens are limited to those whose parents are citizens and ownership of property, jus sanggini,
citizen ka by blood and property = laboring class are excluded, they are not citizens bc they are not
political animals = we are animals bc we have the opportunity to discuss matters of state and be part of
the ruling group and only with property can do that
• Slaves, farmers, = are not bc they don’t have leisure time, they don’t have time to be educated
• Your property you have to protect them
• States must serve the interests of everyone, we should be working, we can live in a monarchy
• They can protect them but they cannot rule
• First philosophy of rule, aristotleian world, citizen are givenn the knowledge to have access for truth
science
• Believes in slavery but you have to protect them pa rin

Machiavelli
• Associated with tyrannts and dictators
• He argues that good life as the virtue is not the end, in fact, virtue as ethics and morals is not the kind of
virtue that he would like to celebrate
• Virtue for him is not sanctitiy, holy, he does not believe in christian values, it does not provide political
stability
• To be a perfect prince, you have to wisdom, even if ruthless basta you prove the collective interest of
the state
• The prince is very instrumental in attainment of the goal
• Classical humanist, believed in a strong republic, republicanism that is less christian but more on
• Conflict and struggle = makes politics stable
• They justified, to clean and drain the swamp and start again but first we need to kill and destroy in order
to save it
• Freedom if the wheel is broken, narrative of violence
• Politics is about power and killing people, eliminating threats
• With all the enemies are dead, she can rebuild a new kingdom destroy all enemies and rulers,
• The end justifies the means
• Concerned more about being feared for compliance rather than love
• He does not admire tyrants and dictators
• He looks at politics as transactional, as not the virute of christian and catholic bc it will not produce
order
• Produces stability
• For him, what matters is the end for it will bring you to what is desirable
• When you assert your rights, magkakaconflict
• Structure functionalist
• Conflict serves as a function
• If we are all quiet, edi tinatanggap na lang lahat
• Paano niyo bubuhaying ang pananaw nga mga patay na ito ay wala na relevance, conflicts and
contestation may be necessary to improve the quality of governance

Discussion post
• Empowering citizens, rights based approach = aristotle
• Or may pagdidikta, machiavellian way

Discussion Nov 25, 2020

• Limitation of Power
• Political Order is about boundaries, hanggang saan ang power ko para pakealaman ang mga tao
• There is limitation in the power of the state
• Aristotle and Machiavelli in the issue of who should rule, what kind of leaders
• There are other issues: sovereignty, who is the sovereign
• Our constitution "we, the sovereign, people"
• John Budin - first person to talk about the concept of sovereign, sovereignty is the state where it is
invested with supreme power to make laws to which no order law is about except natural and divine
law, sovereign is the supreme rule maker that the sovereign is the king/queen
• Classical theory of sovereignty replaced by popular sovereignty where the people are now the sovereign
people
• Sovereignty internal refers to who has the rule making power, the ability to enforce laws
• External Sovereignty naman is freedom and independence of the state
• Bodin = rule making power
• Tayo ay sovereign state, we cannot let others impose their power on us bc we are a sovereign country
• We are a sovereign country, no other country should impose on us = external
• Internal = the logic behind the rule making power that establishes order in the state
• John Bodin - absolute sovereign, the king could even be higher than the law. The sovereign is above the
law, absolute sovereignty
• Popular sovereignty, no one is above the law, the law emanates from the people, pres is not above the
law no longer absolute sovereignty

• Laws must be legitimate, the source of legitimacy argues that it is the people according to Padua, the
people's consent and the rulers are just instruments of the law
• He also argued that power is in the community

• Thomas Aquinas argued that power vested by human law emanates from the divine and the natural,
divine law, and that we are all subordinated from the church
• Legitimacy comes from God, religion
• Tyrannical regimes for Aquinas should be resisted and fought because they do not coordinate with the
divine and natural law
• The order of the law it puts things into order, the people put it that way according to padua
• Thomas Aquinas, its God that provided the legitimacy

Democracy
• We look at democracy as a norm, all people participate
• Schumpeter, focused on representative democracy where people elect their representatives, because
he argues that ordinary people are not equipped to participate in the elections
• Problems in citizen participation: public rule, who should we work for, citizens are gullible to
propaganda, if people are gullible and prone to listen to misinformation then they are not good to
participate in decisions so Schumpeter believe to limit the politics, people choose reps so reps can make
decisions that’s it
• Popular participation, if they do not know how to decide, eh kahit pagpili sa leader palpak pa rin sila, but
there is the possibility that more mature pol institutions will tend to temper or moderate the tendency
of the people to be swayed
• Limited people bc again they are dumb lol
• Schumpeter, and reps, assumption is pol parties bring about the reason, the spectrum of ideals etc,
• Even the theories offered to us by Schumpeter, is something that is not even tenable
• To limit the freedom of some people if it can benefit the majority
• Democracy and Law are deployed to achieve justice in the society, for plato justice happens when u do
what is best for u, in a way it is fair, but what cannot be accepted is wala ng social mobility, di ka na
pwede magbago
• For royce it is fairness, just distribution of opportunity, liberty is important but it can be resritcted if it is
for the greater liberty
• Some people are in jail to promote security for the majority, smoking is restricted in areas for others
people
• Problem is paano yung rights, the right to choose, religion. Can these things be restricted? As long as
these rights are being enjoyed freely,
• LGBTQ, is it justified for the people to be restricted to marry? If we restrict them, ano yung malinaw na
liberty dito for other people?
• Rights of persons to marry, woman to her own reproduction, WHAT GREATER LIBERTY, IS IT JUST AND
FAIR? Omg perioooodddt it does not promote greater liberty!
• If u do not justify that there is greater liberty na prinopromote, hindi yan justice
• And that it is favoring someone who is at life, that is not justice
• Argument is, if u allow same sex marriage, mawawala ang mabubuntis, no future generation of labor
force BUT DUH NOT ALL NAMAN
• HANGGANG SAAN PWEDE MAKIALAM ANG ESTADO SA ATIN???? WHEN WE TALK ABOUT STATE,
JUSTICE, LAWS, DEMOCRACY, WE TALK ABOUT BOUNDARIES.
• Another boundary is the boundary between states and markets, political economists are arguing,
utuliarism - market and states, goods and services and power, what is the role of the government in the
market
• Classical theories is arguing that they should promote the greater good
• Adam Smith, stweart agreed that WE SHOULD HAVE LIMITED OR MINIMAL GOVERNMENT
INTERFERENCE IN THE MARKET
• The government that governs the least, governs the best
• When the markets get distorted
• Utilitarians see market as rationale,\
• Selfish consumers and prodcers, but when they interact the price becomes fair it is a rationale selfish
• If u let the market operate then there is no problem
• Markets are not really that perfect
• Government should increase pending and lowered taxes when markets are failing DI KO GETS POTEK
ANO DAW
• He opposed the rule that governments that rules the least are the best