JAMES Madison, one of the key architects of the US Constitution, once said: “Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an ailment without which it instantly expires.” Local constitutional reform is an issue to which I have been close for a few months and will address on a few occasions in these columns, culminating in my upcoming book which addresses the question (amongst others), in a detailed way, entitled The Behemoth. This title mirrors that of political writer Thomas Hobbes’s work, but today I want to focus on his most notorious book, sister text The Leviathan.
I think understanding elements of the true spirit of democratic intent, as articulated by Madison and framed in The Leviathan, will help make clear the difference between constitutional reform that plays politics and constitutional reform that is about sustainable governance. Former speaker Ralph Ramkarran often urges reform in his column and RISE is a civil society group dedicated to advocating on behalf of reform, but advocates don’t often acknowledge that mixing politics with the reform process seriously hampers it.
Further, politicisation obscures the true motivation for reform, instead, fuelling the perception that the process is an implicit indictment of whatever administration is in office. As a result, it seems only to be when a party is in the opposition (and this serves their political purposes) that reform is advocated. No wonder we have had review after review, idea after idea, and hardly observed any changes at all.
But it is also in the interest of whatever party is in power to have the constitution run smoothly, and this is what is just not coming out of the reform debate. And so this is not to condemn current reform narratives, because there is certainly something noble in standing up for the best possible system — rather, we must recognise that carrots are just as useful as sticks.
Constitutional reform should neither be a lightning rod for ethical governance grievances, nor a forum for shared-governance talks. Both solutions misunderstand that the constitution’s purpose is not to make those holding the reigns of power good, caring, sensible, sharing people. The constitution assumes that politicians are ambitious, even greedy, and so it attempts to harness that greed toward the public good. This is one of the core elements of democratic thinking we are completely missing.
I’ll draw on a somewhat unlikely hero for democratic reform to clarify this critical political science ideal, Octavian, Julius Caesar’s heir. After Caesar’s death, the conditions he faced were much the same as those described in The Leviathan — chaos. Hobbes labels the absence of any standing government authority to enforce law and order “the war of all against all,” and with Caesar’s death, no one really knew who held authority in Rome.
Rival factions began to develop, each group vying for both survival and maximum authority. Hobbes would say this is to be expected, as is conflict between these groups. But what Octavian seems to recognise right away is that this system is extremely unstable. It requires a Leviathan, or overwhelming power, to unify authority again so that there can be peace.
As a result, he helps destroy the most anarchic group — the Senators — who murdered Caesar, and forms an alliance with two of Rome’s generals, Mark Antony and Lepidus. But this too is unstable because there are really no rules facilitating peaceful competition and each man is of course ambitious; so Octavian over time defeats each, consolidates power and finally ends the violence.
This is the first half of the puzzle — that ultimate authority must be vested in the state, so no citizen or faction is in fear of tyrannical chaos. The second element, however, comes from Madison, who (and again this is the key) assumes politicians are always ambitious.
In the Federalist Papers he relates that even if there are many factions led by politicians desperately vying for power, once those factions compete with each other through peaceful means, they will eventually be forced to compromise on a reasonable solution to whatever issue, benefitting all groups. This does one better than Octavian because not only does it serve the collective good, it allows for compromise and merit-based governance, rather than relying solely on absolute authority.
And so the question we should really be asking ourselves about our constitution is not how it can produce good politicians, but what about its current structure slows down or inhibits the natural, useful process of competition amongst ambitious politicians. This misunderstanding has clouded the central argument that at the end of the day, constitutional reform will make our nation’s politicians not weaker but stronger, not less authoritative but more authoritative and not less effective but more effective. It is thus not an antagonistic issue, but one that can be framed to harness the very factor Madison embraces — local leaders’ own ambition.
The subtle, key lesson from Octavian’s gradual take over of Rome is this — at least for a moment, his natural hunger for power was exactly in line with what the Roman political situation required. As a result of this complementarity, sustainable peace was established, and the Roman Empire flourished. Octavian is said to have related that he met Rome a city of brick and left it a city of marble. Achieving that level of complementarity in our democratic institutions is the true goal of constitutional reform.
In my following articles, I will elaborate on reform ideas that have been somewhat obscured thus far, but which this fresh approach to looking at reform illustrates are of the greatest value. The first will be a brilliant suggestion made by a leader of RISE that seems to have been unfortunately subsumed due to this lack of clarity. It accomplishes by itself what multiple national constitutional review processes might miss, that is, it facilitates both air and fire.
