Many scholars consider modern democratic government "inevitably' as party government. The attitude that democracy is inevitable is somewhat idealistic according to Philip Slater and Warren G. Bennie of the Harvard Business Review [ CITATION Sla90 \l 1033 ]. In an article posted on HBR’s website entitled, “Democracy is Inevitable,” they write that democracy, ”reflects a state of mind (sic) that is by no means peculiar to business people but characterizes all Americans, if not perhaps all citizens of democracies [ CITATION Sla90 \l 1033 ]. The article further states that democracy has been almost universally embraced because of the idealistic notion that everyone involved has faith in the innate goodness and honestly of all those involved.
To substantiate this claim, Slater and Bennis point to the economic stability of nations under democratic rule versus those under authoritative regimes. These regimes suffer disastrous economic collapse under the instability of the communist regime form of governance [ CITATION Sla90 \l 1033 ]. The astute American statesman, Adlai Stevenson, in a New York Times article on November 4, 1962, commented that the goals of communism are completely different than the goals of democracy. He said, “They (the communist regimes) are interested in power and we (people under Democratic rule) in community. With such fundamentally different aims, how is it possible to compare communism and democracy in terms of efficiency?” [ CITATION Adl62 \l 1033 ] However, there are alternatives to democratic party government and those alternatives will be discussed in this paper.
The first example is socialism. The argument for a socialist party form of government is that it levels the economic playing field, so to speak. Redistribution of wealth is a key feature in socialist thought [ CITATION EQU11 \l 1033 ]. The argument against a socialist party form of government is that the redistribution of wealth is unfair to entrepreneurs and businessmen. They view the practice as unfair because they feel that they put more into the system than the other economic classes[ CITATION Moo85 \l 1033 ].
The above graph shows the difficulty average Americans have in economic upward mobility. The economy in Russia has crumbled under the implementation of socialist economic policy of redistribution of wealth.[ CITATION Bus10 \l 1033 ]. The graph is a clear indicator of what would happen if socialist economic principles and the concept of redistribution of wealth were implemented into the capitalist economy of the United States. The proverbial “leveling of the playing field” would bring down the wealth of the top 1% of individuals and as a result they could not provide jobs and economic opportunities for the middle and lower class. This would increase the incidence of poverty and unemployment. Therefore, the socialist concept of wealth redistribution, if implemented in a capitalist society, would have a negative impact on that nation’s economy.
The second and most obvious example of an alternative to a democratic party government is the United Kingdom’s system of monarchism. Monarchism is a system of government where the power is invested in one sovereign power. “In writing the introduction to a work of political philosophy there is a temptation to attribute more importance to the work in question than it can properly claim. With Dante's Monarchy this temptation scarcely arises; for many have dismissed the treatise as a dream, the vision of an idealist out of touch with political realities who was yearning for an Empire that had passed away.” [ CITATION Nic54 \l 1033 ]
The argument for a monarchial form of government party is grounded in the philosophy of Dante. This philosophy may be dated because it speaks of the Holy Roman Empire yet its idealism speaks volumes and hints at a possible future political strategy.[ CITATION Rei11 \l 1033 ]
The argument against a monarchial form of government party is the real possibility of abuse of power resulting in a dictatorship.[ CITATION New111 \l 1033 ]
The following charts show the distribution of wealth under the British monarchial system of government:
Great Britain is an example of a Monarchy. The Queen is the head of state for the United Kingdom. [ CITATION The11 \l 1033 ]. The Monarchial form of government is an amiable form of government. It is very unlikely that the Queen would use the Monarchy as a platform for dictatorship. If Great Britain leaned more heavily on the values of socialism, this might not be the case. However, it is rather absurd to even make such a suggestion. Additionally, although the above charts indicate a huge disparity in the distribution of wealth in the UK, it is unlike the redistribution of wealth under a communist regime. In the UK Monarchial system, the income structure is invariably concentrated wealth within the Monarchy. This is an accepted and historical phenomenon. However, the economic structure of a socialist regime, such as Russia, is built upon the redistribution of wealth. It is built on the backs of the working poor and they are at the economic mercy of an authoritative dictator, one who is neither amicable nor admired by his/her citizens.
In conclusion, although many scholars consider modern democratic government "inevitably' as party government, this paper has detailed two additional types of party government. The pros and cons of the socialist form of party government and the monarchial form of government were compared and contrasted in detail. The hypothesis that the democratic form of government is far superior can be safely made based on the data analysis of the two other party governments, socialist and monarchial. If one were to rank the three party governments in order of most preferable to its citizens, it might be said that in order; democracy, monarchy, and socialism would be the obvious conclusion based upon the facts and data analyzed in this paper. This study promises exciting opportunities for future research.
Works Cited
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