1. The eviction of an occupier was followed by a transfer of the flat to the neighbour in '99. The owner, who wrote the complaint about the occupier, was informed by an officer of the eviction although he was unaware of the transfer. He thought the neighbour (husband and wife), whom he had seen a few times before the eviction, owned the flat. 2. About four years later when the owner was feeling the effect of the noise, an insider stopped the neighbour. He came to live in the-flat-across-the-neighbour for a while, greeted the owner once, and a woman gave the owner his full name. Noise stopped after he left. He had inside information since the owner had not made a complaint yet. 3. Another four years later in '07, the neighbour signalled with loud noises for many days that they were restarting work. They probably knew beforehand officers would be on their side. 4. The cover-up started right off as seen from the behaviour of OIC (Officer-in-Charge) and a well-dressed man when they first visited the owner. Also, in his first letter to HBO (Head, Pasir Ris HDB Branch Office), one of the complaints was noise made by a maid while she was there. There were indications the maid was not registered to work in the flat and it was insider who caused the maid to be removed. The owner later wrote to the Ministry of Manpower to verify, but there was no reply. 5. The owner handed a draft of his second letter to the Branch Office when OIC said they did not receive it. Following which the owner insisted on a meeting with HBO. Although HBO said there was a recent transfer of the neighbour's flat, the owner deduced it was the eviction that led to the transfer nine years ago. What was more, an officer wrote later that they had not conducted any eviction at the neighbour's flat. 6. There were indications of a force-entry at the neighbour's flat on the fourth week after the moving-in of the-people-in-the-flat-across-the-neighbour. They moved in four days after the owner's first MPS (Meet-the-People Session). It would seem there was an understanding between officers after the force-entry, and the-people-in-the-flat-across- the-neighbour stayed to protect the neighbour. An old friend, who the owner had not been in contact for many years, met the owner in the evening on the same day of the force-entry. The friend was an intermediary, though he did not say so, who had since met the owner five times. The last time was after the owner emailed the President a month after the presidential election. In this instance there was considerably noise reduction the next day. The email is President (26). 7. The owner suspected a break-in at his flat in which he called the police a few months following the force-entry. The door lock to his flat was jammed. The circumstances leading to it were examined in Report (1) under Findings. He never had any problem with door lock before having lived in three other HDB flats and the present one since '93. But it happened in Jun 08, when events came to a head. 8. The officers have the resources, and the break-in is a strong possibility. Beside the instances noted in his blog indicating collaboration between officers and the neighbour, the owner was shown times and again the extensive influence the officers had over ordinary citizen like himself as he went about his business. There is motive and they would find ways to stop him, including the use of noise to force him into selling his flat. 9. The-people-in-the-flat-across- the-neighbour could communicate with the neighbour and watch the owner by sight from their flat. Their purpose is to monitor the workers, ensures the noise is not obvious outside the neighbour's flat and keeps insiders out. Noise through the day, including late at night and early in the morning, indicates workers take shifts around the clock. In fact they once showed the owner what they could do with noise through the night to the next morning. Together with a network of contacts that extends across government departments, the officers are able to keep everything under control. Immediate examples of such contacts are police officers at Neighbourhood Police Centre, branch members and community centre members at MPS and the-people-in-the-flat-across- the-neighbour. At HDB, no attempt to address the complaint against its officers is out of character. 10. At a MPS the owner asked the MP, who is also the Minister-in-Charge of Civil Service, to bypass HBO. The Minister then wrote to Town Council and they replied to the owner he would hear from HDB soon. This letter and the letter from the Minister were copied to HBO with a note stating it was for his information only. After the Town Council's letter, the Minister enquired of the owner whether anyone visited him. There was no visit from HDB. Subsequently all letters to HDB from MPs, including one from the Minister, were answered by HBO as usual. During the owner's final MPS, the area's MP said he would go and meet HBO the next day. Does it not showed HBO has the power to influence others? 11. The owner could not be mistaken. The signs: Noises were real, it forced him to leave his flat; he noted the behaviour of the officers and their contacts, and the many details that would check out; insiders who supported; MPs who gone out of their way to assist; and the official silence. 12. Events stretching over more than a decade indicate officers are familiar with the neighbour. Investigation would have consequences on the officers and admission of mistakes by the authorities. Without an investigation there is an injustice, and the next owner could be a start of a new one. 13. Three factors led to the lessening of noise when the owner emailed the President just after the presidential election. First, general support for the owner although no one referred to the case directly; second, the complaint was to the President who ensures integrity of the civil service; and third, the owner continued to blog relevant details of the case. The three factors at the right time. 14. Previous to this there was also support for the owner as he blogged about the same issue for two years and he wrote his first letter to the President one and a half years ago, but there was no change. Even now, because the problem has not been identified technically, the officers and neighbour could go back to their old way. 15. It is important that the President know. The posts President (26), Ombudsman (29) and Dissent (30) let him in on the situation. Nevertheless, the Minister-in-Charge of Civil Service does. He is aware of the bcc between HBO and the Chairman (Residents' Committee) that was sent to the owner. It indicated they met in the-flat-across-the-neighbour. Some time later the Minister met the owner at a MPS that was supposed to be scheduled for the area's MP but, before the meeting, a Community Centre member (CC member) introduced the owner to another CC member who lived in the same block of flat as the owner to discuss the noise. As in this first and on two more occasions, the owner showed this other CC member has been in contact with the-people-in-the-flat-across- the-neighbour. They in turn ensure things do not get out of hands. 16. The owner explained the purpose of the-people-in-the-flat-across- the-neighbour in separate correspondence to the President and the Singapore Police Force. Both correspondences were acknowledged by Bedok Police Division and Neighbourhood Police Centre (NPC). Bedok Police Division noted the concern raised and referred it to NPC. NPC wrote they were unable to find evidence of alleged noise or criminal offence, yet nowhere in the letter was the-people-in-the-flat-across- the-neighbour mentioned. When the owner wrote again to the President after the presidential election and the matter was referred again to Bedok Police Division, they did not reply. Bedok Police Division already knew of the situation. In News (31) the Minister-in-Charge of Civil Service and Head, Civil Service, spoke of issue not falling within neat domain and of issue not falling neatly into any one agency's work respectively. The owner thinks the speeches fit his case. 17. A government that is too centralised and forms relationships too tightly could be an explanation of the problem. It could also be about accountability. 18. A key democratic idea is adequate accountability. Observation Noise started up for two days on the fourth day after the posting of News (31) and Citizen (32). On and off there were many more days where noise was obvious. By the eighth week noise was adjusted down but the difference came with more noise in length of time heard, at least for a few days. Now into the sixteenth week their works are still continuing. Some noises are muffled, others are heard clearly. Noises are continual, mostly in the morning and afternoon. At times noises are frequent and annoying. Some things remain the same. Message from the administration to the officers who collaborate with the neighbour causes the neighbour to reduce noise. No action taken to the officers, who are still in their places including the-people-in-the-flat-across- the-neighbour, serves the neighbour. The officers guide the neighbour on what to do. Compare that to the insider who was able to stop the neighbour for about four years in Item 2 above.
22.8.12
34. Standpoint
33. By-Election
1. News items between Nomination Day, 16 May 12, and one day after Polling Day, 26 May 12: a) The Workers' Party candidate for Hougang, Png Eng Huat, said the composition in Singapore Parliament is "too lopsided". He said democracy is about political and social equality and it is something he doesn't see in Parliament as the majority of MPs are from the People's Action Party. Mr Png made this point in response to comments by his PAP opponent, Desmond Choo. Mr Choo had urged voters not to "mix up" the democratic process with the need for alternative voices in Parliament. b) Workers' Party's Png Eng Huat won the Hougang by-election with 13,447 votes against PAP's Desmond Choo's 8210 votes. Mr Png won the single-seat constituency with 62.09% of the vote against Mr Choo 37.91%. The by-election was held to fill the seat vacated by former Member of Parliament Yaw Shin Leong, who was expelled from the Workers' Party following reports of his personal indiscretions. Mr Yaw had won the seat in May 2011 General Election with 64.8% of the vote, against Mr Choo's 35.2%. c) Hougang's grassroots advisor Desmond Choo said he would do his best to support projects that are sound and in the best interests of residents in the single member constituency. Mr Choo was speaking to reporters on Sunday morning before he went around Hougang to thank residents. He was asked if he would support projects, such as the Home Improvement Programme, in Hougang. Mr Choo, who was the candidate for the People Action Party, lost Hougang by-election after he secured only about 38% of the vote. d) Uphold integrity & excellence, DPM Teo tells civil servants Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean said greater citizen interest and engagement in how the government carries out its business should be welcomed, and public officers must adapt to a closer partnership in those they serve. In the message to some 130,000 public officers to celebrate Public Service Week, Mr Teo, who is also Minister in charge of the Civil Service, urged public officers to continue to earn the trust of the public. e) The Public Service is adding three service principles to better guide the relationship between the Public Service and Singaporeans. Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean, who is also the Minister in charge of the Civil Service, said these are people-centricity, mutual courtesy and respect, and shared responsibility for public good. Mr Teo was speaking to public officers at the annual Excellence in Public Service Awards Ceremony on Friday. f) HDB is stepping up efforts to build stronger community ties by recreating the kampong spirit in housing estates. National Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan described the HDB's effort as a campaign to simply "love thy neighbour". g) Former Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew has said that as a small country, Singapore needs a strong armed forces to ensure its continued survival. Speaking at the Temasek Society 30th Anniversary dialogue session, Mr Lee said without a strong Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) "there is no economic future" and "there is no security". Mr Lee said the SAF has done better than he had hoped. 2. The owner had hoped his case could be mentioned during the by-election. But earlier, the potential office of ombudsman was raised in parliament and the CUTS filed in the Prime Minister Office. The CUTS is at www.wp.sg of the Workers' Party dated 7 Mar 12. 3. Ombudsman: official empowered to investigate individual complaints of bureaucratic injustice.
10.5.12
32. Citizen 2
Treat people as citizens
How a generation of political thinkers has underestimated the abilities of ordinary people and undermined democracy
Nicholas Tampio is associate professor of political science at Fordham University in New York. He is the author of Kantian Courage (2012) and Deleuze’s Political Vision (2015). His latest book is Common Core: National Education Standards and the Threat to Democracy (2018).
In early 2017, Scientific American published a symposium on the threat that ‘big nudging’ poses to democracy. Big Data is the phenomena whereby governments and corporations collect and analyse information provided by measuring sensors and internet searches. Nudging is the view that governments should build choice architectures that make it easier for people to pick, say, the more fuel-efficient car or the more sensible retirement plan. Big nudging is the combination of the two that enables public or private engineers to subtly influence the choices that people make, say, by autofilling internet searches in desirable ways. Big nudging is a ‘digital sceptre that allows one to govern the masses efficiently, without having to involve citizens in democratic processes’. The symposium’s authors take for granted that democracy – the political regime in which the people collectively determine its common way of life – is better than epistocracy, or rule by experts.
Remarkably, many social scientists today do not share the belief that democracy is better than epistocracy. On the contrary. In recent years, numerous political theorists and philosophers have argued that experts ought to be in charge of public policy and should manipulate, or contain, the policy preferences of the ignorant masses. This view has its roots Plato’s Republic, where philosophers who see the sun of truth should govern the masses who dwell in a cave of ignorance, and in Walter Lippmann’s Public Opinion (1922), where expert social scientists rule behind the scenes and control the population with propaganda. While there are differences between the views of Christopher H Achen and Larry Bartels in Democracy for Realists (2016), Jason Brennan in Against Democracy (2017), Alexander Guerrero here in Aeon, and Tom Nichols in The Death of Expertise (2017), these social scientists share in common an elitist antipathy towards participatory democratic politics.
In Democracy for Realists, for instance, the authors criticise what they call the ‘folk theory’ of democracy. This maintains that elected representatives should translate their constituents’ preferences into public policy. The problem, according to these political scientists, is that most voters lack the time, energy or ability to immerse themselves in the technicalities of public policy. Instead, people tend to vote based on group identification, or an impulse to align with one political faction rather than another.
In a memorable chapter of their book, Achen and Bartels show that politicians often suffer electoral defeat for events beyond their control. In the summer of 1916, for example, New Jersey’s beachgoers experienced a series of shark attacks. In that November’s election, the beach towns gave President Woodrow Wilson fewer votes than New Jersey’s non-beach towns. The voters, it seems, were punishing Wilson for the shark attacks. According to Achen and Bartels, voters’ ability ‘to make sensible judgments regarding credit and blame is highly circumscribed’. This is a polite way of saying that most voters are not smart enough to realise that presidents are not responsible for shark attacks.
Achen and Bartels ostensibly defend a conception of democracy. But the force of their argument, and spirit of their book, heaps ridicule on the ‘Romantic’ or ‘quixotic’ notion that the people should rule. They compare ‘the ideal of popular sovereignty’ – a cornerstone of modern democratic political theory – to the medieval notion of a ‘divine right of kings’. A more realistic view is that ‘policymaking is a job for specialists’.
Many political actors around the world, similarly, think that epistocrats should rule and try to gain the emotional support of the population. Consider the slogan of the Democratic Party in the 2016 US election: ‘I’m with her.’ The Democrats were telling their own version of Plato’s salutary myth, or simple story meant to induce people to identify with a political cause.
Democracy, instead, requires treating people as citizens – that is, as adults capable of thoughtful decisions and moral actions, rather than as children who need to be manipulated. One way to treat people as citizens is to entrust them with meaningful opportunities to participate in the political process, rather than just as beings who might show up to vote for leaders every few years.
Democrats acknowledge that some people know more than others. However, democrats believe that people, entrusted with meaningful decision-making power, can handle power responsibly. Furthermore, people feel satisfaction when they have a hand in charting a common future. Democrats from Thomas Jefferson and Alexis de Tocqueville to the political theorist Carole Pateman at the University of California in Los Angeles advocate dispersing power as widely as possible among the people. The democratic faith is that participating in politics educates and ennobles people. For democrats, the pressing task today is to protect and expand possibilities for political action, not to limit them or shut them down in the name of expert rule.
Every day, people demonstrate that they are capable of learning. People master new languages, earn degrees, move to new cities, train for jobs, and navigate the complexities of modern life. It is true that people tend to be ignorant of things that do not touch their lives. Think of how well you know the geography of where you live and work; now, think about how much you know about the geography of a place on the other side of the globe that you’ve never visited. People study things that they care about and where knowledge helps them to accomplish things.
People also show every day that they can take an interest in other people’s lives. Last summer, I served on a grand jury in Westchester County in New York State. The county randomly called upon 23 eligible adults to hear evidence to determine whether the district attorney could move forward with criminal indictments. Everyone in the jury took their responsibilities seriously, following the district attorney’s directions, asking questions of witnesses, participating in the deliberations, and voting. Before grand jury service, many of us had little knowledge of criminal law or standards of legal evidence; afterwards, most of us did. We learned by doing.
The ‘best and the brightest’ led the US into the Iraq War: the track record of epistocracy is, at best, mixed
Pateman gives other examples of ways to involve more people in the policymaking process, including citizens’ assemblies to review the electoral system in Canadian provinces, or participatory budgeting in the city of Porto Alegre in Brazil. In these instances, citizens assembled in mini-publics and, given time for discussion and research, became knowledgeable about public matters. Just as importantly, ‘the empirical evidence from mini-publics shows that citizens both welcome and enjoy the opportunity to take part and to deliberate, and that they take their duties seriously’.
It is misleading to say that most people are too ignorant or apathetic to participate in political affairs. In the right circumstances, many people perform civic functions well. Citizens must consult with experts and are liable to cognitive biases, but this holds true for whoever holds a leadership position in the modern world. Realists criticise most people’s understanding of political affairs, but the democratic response is that people who have no real power lack a reason to study public policy.
In The Death of Expertise, Nichols contends that it is ‘ignorant narcissism for laypeople to believe that they can maintain a large and advanced nation without listening to the voices of those more educated and experienced than themselves’. Of course, the ‘best and the brightest’ led the US into the Iraq War, the subprime mortgage crisis, and a raft of bad education policies; the track record of epistocracy in recent years is, at best, mixed. Furthermore, the elitist stance clashes with the fact that many people demand a say in how we lead our personal and collective lives. Many people today value autonomy, or self-governance, and suffer when it is denied.
One reason why is because of a certain progression in the history of ideas. In The Invention of Autonomy (1997), Jerome B Schneewind shows how the idea of autonomy developed from an intimation in Paul’s Letter to the Romans, to Jean Jacques Rousseau’s conception of freedom as following a law that one gives oneself as a member of the general will, to Immanuel Kant’s practical philosophy that makes freedom its keystone. Other historians have continued this work up to the present, showing how the ideal of autonomy informs modern thinking about economics, race, gender and so forth. Many people share the sentiment of the international disability movement: ‘Nothing about us without us.’
Technological developments have also accustomed people to having some control over their individual and collective lives. Cars, for instance, make it possible for individuals to choose where they want to go; cars cultivate the sense of individual autonomy. At the same time, there is no natural order of cars, and human beings can decide together such questions as whether to create high occupancy vehicle lanes on highways or make it illegal to text on one’s phone while driving. In the medieval world, people might have felt like they were locked into a certain place in their society, but in the modern world they demand a say in the ordering of things. That is why liberalism – a political doctrine that extols individual freedom – and democracy – a political doctrine that valorises collective freedom – are so often intertwined in modern political thought.
Modern people hate to be told: ‘Do it because I say so.’ Alienation from the political process often leads people to identify with strong leaders who claim to represent the silent majority. Across the world, we see political battles between technocrats and populists, experts who claim authority because of their knowledge versus leaders who fight against elites on behalf of the ‘real people’. A third option is democracy, or the notion that flesh-and-blood people can and ought to exercise meaningful power in the governing of common affairs.
Some scholars take a kind of Machiavellian glee in debunking democratic idealism; others extol the ‘wisdom of the crowd’. But the wisdom-of-the-crowd advocates often do not actually call for allotting more political power to most citizens, as in Guerrero’s proposal for lottocracy.
Democracy means people exerting power, not choosing from a menu made by elites and their agents
Guerrero, a philosopher at the University of Pennsylvania, thinks that direct democracy cannot work because most people lack the time and ability to understand the complexities of modern public policy. Democrats have responded to this situation by creating a system of representative democracy where people vote for politicians who act as our agents in the halls of power. The problem is that most people cannot pay sufficient attention to hold their representatives accountable. Citizens are ‘ignorant about what our representatives are doing, ignorant about the details of complex political issues, and ignorant about whether what our representative is doing is good for us or for the world’. To make matters worse, powerful economic interests have the knowledge and resources to capture representatives and make them serve the rich.
The time for electoral representative democracy has passed, argues Guerrero. Rather than waste people’s votes in elections, political systems should create a lottocracy that randomly selects adults who can perform modified versions of the jobs that elected politicians presently do. Right now, US congresspersons are predominantly white, male, millionaires; a lottocracy could instantly raise the number of women, minorities and lower-income people in the legislature, and take advantage of each group’s epistemic contributions to policy debates.
Guerrero envisions single-issue legislatures whose members are chosen by lottery and serve three-year staggered terms. At the beginning of the legislative session, experts set the agenda and bring the legislators up to speed on the topic, then the legislators draft, revise and vote on legislation. Guerrero dismisses the possibility that experts ‘would convince us to buy the same corporate-sponsored policy we’re currently getting’.
On the contrary, the wealthy and powerful could easily manipulate a lottocracy. Think tanks and lobbyists, funded by economic elites, would welcome the opportunity to educate lottery-chosen legislators. Those who set the agenda make the most important decisions. This is the democratic critique of plans that tightly regulate the ways that people may participate in politics. Democracy means people exerting power, not choosing from a menu made by elites and their agents.
The remedy for our democracy deficit is to devolve as much power as possible to the local level. Many problems can be addressed only on the state, federal and international level, but the idea is that participating in local politics teaches citizens how to speak in public, negotiate with others, research policy issues, and learn about their community and the larger circles in which it is embedded. Like any other skill, the way to become a better citizen is to practise citizenship.
Jefferson articulated the democratic faith in a remarkable series of letters in the early 19th century. He first denounces the idea, shared by fellow American Founding Father Alexander Hamilton and the French philosophies, that elites should govern from the capital. Concentrating power in this way enervates citizens, and opens the door to aristocracy or autocracy. Jefferson envisions a system of ward republics that empower people to handle local affairs, including care of the poor, roads, police, elections, courts, schools and militia. Jefferson sees a role for counties, states and the federal government, but he wants substantial political power to be dispersed to every corner of the country. When people participate ‘in the government of affairs, not merely at an election one day in the year, but every day’, Jefferson explains, they will protect their rights and fight the accession of a Caesar or a Bonaparte.
A few decades later, the French political scientist Tocqueville argued in Democracy in America (1835-40) that Americans have shown what democracy in the modern world might look like. In France, when people want something done, they petition the centralised government. In the US, by contrast, people form democratic associations to accomplish their shared goals:
Americans of all ages, all conditions, and all dispositions constantly form associations … The Americans make associations to give entertainments, to found seminaries, to build inns, to construct churches, to diffuse books, to send missionaries to the antipodes; in this manner they found hospitals, prisons, and schools.
The brilliance of US democracy, for Tocqueville, is that it resides in civil society as well as formal governmental structures.
A few years ago, I saw an example of democracy in action when my local school district had a heated debate about the salary of the superintendent. A group of people in the district sent out an email protesting the school board’s approval of a raise for the superintendent who was already one of the most highly paid officials in the state. At the next school board meeting, the district meeting space was filled to capacity and people were sitting on the floor, in the doorways and outside the room. When it was time to discuss the issue, one person stood up and said why she thought that the superintendent was overcompensated, and that resources could be better spent elsewhere. Then, a school board member explained that if the district was going to remain successful, it needed to compensate its leader on a par with other successful executives. The debate was about one person’s salary, but it was also a conversation about what kind of education we envisioned for our children. Many people shared their thoughts and learned what others had to say.
In an epistocracy, a few make all the crucial decisions; everyone else might as well stay at home and watch TV
The discussion about the superintendent’s salary grew heated. People raised their voices, insulted others, and threatened litigation. Tocqueville counsels his readers to see the value of democratic participation that spills outside of the bounds of calm discourse: ‘Such evils are doubtless great, but they are transient; whereas the benefits which attend them remain.’ Because our voices mattered, many parents attended the meeting, voiced their concerns, and heard from others. In a large, centralised school system, each parent has a negligible share of power; but in a small school district, each parent is able to experience the exhilarating feeling of speaking on one’s feet in public about a matter of common concern. Neighbours meet one another, and reaffirm their commitment to making their collective life better.
In an epistocracy, a few people make all the crucial decisions, and everyone else might as well stay at home and watch television. In a participatory democracy, people exercise their civic muscles and become more thoughtful, involved in community affairs, and passionate about making the world a better place. In Against Democracy, Brennan argues that democracy is the site of ‘hobbits’, ‘hooligans’ and ‘vulcans’: this scheme misrepresents the citizens I have met at the grand jury, the school-board meeting, or political demonstrations acting together to solve a common problem.
In modern democracies, expert rule has returned in the form of ‘big nudging’. Maybe not all epistocrats favour this particular technology, but they open the door to it with their critique of the intellectual capabilities of the masses and their advocacy of elite rule.
Scientific American notes that big nudging can lead to a new form of dictatorship based on ‘technocratic behavioural and social control’. Most of the recommendations to combat this threat, however, rely on modifying computer use, including enabling user-controlled information filters, improving interoperability of computer systems, and promoting digital literacy. These measures all miss the essential point: democracy requires empowering people to participate in the political process. There is no algorithm that can replace entrusting people to do the hard work of running community affairs.
The way to learn how to walk is to walk; the way to become a citizen is to exert some kind of power in the government or civil society. There is no technological quick fix to make our society more democratic. To learn what Tocqueville called ‘the art of being free’, people must have a hand in the governance of common affairs.
Observation
Treat people as citizens
How a generation of political thinkers has underestimated the abilities of ordinary people and undermined democracy
Nicholas Tampio is associate professor of political science at Fordham University in New York. He is the author of Kantian Courage (2012) and Deleuze’s Political Vision (2015). His latest book is Common Core: National Education Standards and the Threat to Democracy (2018).
In early 2017, Scientific American published a symposium on the threat that ‘big nudging’ poses to democracy. Big Data is the phenomena whereby governments and corporations collect and analyse information provided by measuring sensors and internet searches. Nudging is the view that governments should build choice architectures that make it easier for people to pick, say, the more fuel-efficient car or the more sensible retirement plan. Big nudging is the combination of the two that enables public or private engineers to subtly influence the choices that people make, say, by autofilling internet searches in desirable ways. Big nudging is a ‘digital sceptre that allows one to govern the masses efficiently, without having to involve citizens in democratic processes’. The symposium’s authors take for granted that democracy – the political regime in which the people collectively determine its common way of life – is better than epistocracy, or rule by experts.
Democrats acknowledge that some people know more than others. However, democrats believe that people, entrusted with meaningful decision-making power, can handle power responsibly. Furthermore, people feel satisfaction when they have a hand in charting a common future. Democrats from Thomas Jefferson and Alexis de Tocqueville to the political theorist Carole Pateman at the University of California in Los Angeles advocate dispersing power as widely as possible among the people. The democratic faith is that participating in politics educates and ennobles people. For democrats, the pressing task today is to protect and expand possibilities for political action, not to limit them or shut them down in the name of expert rule.
Pateman gives other examples of ways to involve more people in the policymaking process, including citizens’ assemblies to review the electoral system in Canadian provinces, or participatory budgeting in the city of Porto Alegre in Brazil. In these instances, citizens assembled in mini-publics and, given time for discussion and research, became knowledgeable about public matters. Just as importantly, ‘the empirical evidence from mini-publics shows that citizens both welcome and enjoy the opportunity to take part and to deliberate, and that they take their duties seriously’.
In The Death of Expertise, Nichols contends that it is ‘ignorant narcissism for laypeople to believe that they can maintain a large and advanced nation without listening to the voices of those more educated and experienced than themselves’. Of course, the ‘best and the brightest’ led the US into the Iraq War, the subprime mortgage crisis, and a raft of bad education policies; the track record of epistocracy in recent years is, at best, mixed. Furthermore, the elitist stance clashes with the fact that many people demand a say in how we lead our personal and collective lives. Many people today value autonomy, or self-governance, and suffer when it is denied.
One reason why is because of a certain progression in the history of ideas. In The Invention of Autonomy (1997), Jerome B Schneewind shows how the idea of autonomy developed from an intimation in Paul’s Letter to the Romans, to Jean Jacques Rousseau’s conception of freedom as following a law that one gives oneself as a member of the general will, to Immanuel Kant’s practical philosophy that makes freedom its keystone. Other historians have continued this work up to the present, showing how the ideal of autonomy informs modern thinking about economics, race, gender and so forth. Many people share the sentiment of the international disability movement: ‘Nothing about us without us.’
Guerrero, a philosopher at the University of Pennsylvania, thinks that direct democracy cannot work because most people lack the time and ability to understand the complexities of modern public policy. Democrats have responded to this situation by creating a system of representative democracy where people vote for politicians who act as our agents in the halls of power. The problem is that most people cannot pay sufficient attention to hold their representatives accountable. Citizens are ‘ignorant about what our representatives are doing, ignorant about the details of complex political issues, and ignorant about whether what our representative is doing is good for us or for the world’. To make matters worse, powerful economic interests have the knowledge and resources to capture representatives and make them serve the rich.
The time for electoral representative democracy has passed, argues Guerrero. Rather than waste people’s votes in elections, political systems should create a lottocracy that randomly selects adults who can perform modified versions of the jobs that elected politicians presently do. Right now, US congresspersons are predominantly white, male, millionaires; a lottocracy could instantly raise the number of women, minorities and lower-income people in the legislature, and take advantage of each group’s epistemic contributions to policy debates.
Guerrero envisions single-issue legislatures whose members are chosen by lottery and serve three-year staggered terms. At the beginning of the legislative session, experts set the agenda and bring the legislators up to speed on the topic, then the legislators draft, revise and vote on legislation. Guerrero dismisses the possibility that experts ‘would convince us to buy the same corporate-sponsored policy we’re currently getting’.
On the contrary, the wealthy and powerful could easily manipulate a lottocracy. Think tanks and lobbyists, funded by economic elites, would welcome the opportunity to educate lottery-chosen legislators. Those who set the agenda make the most important decisions. This is the democratic critique of plans that tightly regulate the ways that people may participate in politics. Democracy means people exerting power, not choosing from a menu made by elites and their agents.
The remedy for our democracy deficit is to devolve as much power as possible to the local level. Many problems can be addressed only on the state, federal and international level, but the idea is that participating in local politics teaches citizens how to speak in public, negotiate with others, research policy issues, and learn about their community and the larger circles in which it is embedded. Like any other skill, the way to become a better citizen is to practise citizenship.
Jefferson articulated the democratic faith in a remarkable series of letters in the early 19th century. He first denounces the idea, shared by fellow American Founding Father Alexander Hamilton and the French philosophies, that elites should govern from the capital. Concentrating power in this way enervates citizens, and opens the door to aristocracy or autocracy. Jefferson envisions a system of ward republics that empower people to handle local affairs, including care of the poor, roads, police, elections, courts, schools and militia. Jefferson sees a role for counties, states and the federal government, but he wants substantial political power to be dispersed to every corner of the country. When people participate ‘in the government of affairs, not merely at an election one day in the year, but every day’, Jefferson explains, they will protect their rights and fight the accession of a Caesar or a Bonaparte.
The way to learn how to walk is to walk; the way to become a citizen is to exert some kind of power in the government or civil society. There is no technological quick fix to make our society more democratic. To learn what Tocqueville called ‘the art of being free’, people must have a hand in the governance of common affairs.
How a generation of political thinkers has underestimated the abilities of ordinary people and undermined democracy
Nicholas Tampio is associate professor of political science at Fordham University in New York. He is the author of Kantian Courage (2012) and Deleuze’s Political Vision (2015). His latest book is Common Core: National Education Standards and the Threat to Democracy (2018).
In early 2017, Scientific American published a symposium on the threat that ‘big nudging’ poses to democracy. Big Data is the phenomena whereby governments and corporations collect and analyse information provided by measuring sensors and internet searches. Nudging is the view that governments should build choice architectures that make it easier for people to pick, say, the more fuel-efficient car or the more sensible retirement plan. Big nudging is the combination of the two that enables public or private engineers to subtly influence the choices that people make, say, by autofilling internet searches in desirable ways. Big nudging is a ‘digital sceptre that allows one to govern the masses efficiently, without having to involve citizens in democratic processes’. The symposium’s authors take for granted that democracy – the political regime in which the people collectively determine its common way of life – is better than epistocracy, or rule by experts.
Remarkably, many social scientists today do not share the belief that democracy is better than epistocracy. On the contrary. In recent years, numerous political theorists and philosophers have argued that experts ought to be in charge of public policy and should manipulate, or contain, the policy preferences of the ignorant masses. This view has its roots Plato’s Republic, where philosophers who see the sun of truth should govern the masses who dwell in a cave of ignorance, and in Walter Lippmann’s Public Opinion (1922), where expert social scientists rule behind the scenes and control the population with propaganda. While there are differences between the views of Christopher H Achen and Larry Bartels in Democracy for Realists (2016), Jason Brennan in Against Democracy (2017), Alexander Guerrero here in Aeon, and Tom Nichols in The Death of Expertise (2017), these social scientists share in common an elitist antipathy towards participatory democratic politics.
In Democracy for Realists, for instance, the authors criticise what they call the ‘folk theory’ of democracy. This maintains that elected representatives should translate their constituents’ preferences into public policy. The problem, according to these political scientists, is that most voters lack the time, energy or ability to immerse themselves in the technicalities of public policy. Instead, people tend to vote based on group identification, or an impulse to align with one political faction rather than another.
In a memorable chapter of their book, Achen and Bartels show that politicians often suffer electoral defeat for events beyond their control. In the summer of 1916, for example, New Jersey’s beachgoers experienced a series of shark attacks. In that November’s election, the beach towns gave President Woodrow Wilson fewer votes than New Jersey’s non-beach towns. The voters, it seems, were punishing Wilson for the shark attacks. According to Achen and Bartels, voters’ ability ‘to make sensible judgments regarding credit and blame is highly circumscribed’. This is a polite way of saying that most voters are not smart enough to realise that presidents are not responsible for shark attacks.
Achen and Bartels ostensibly defend a conception of democracy. But the force of their argument, and spirit of their book, heaps ridicule on the ‘Romantic’ or ‘quixotic’ notion that the people should rule. They compare ‘the ideal of popular sovereignty’ – a cornerstone of modern democratic political theory – to the medieval notion of a ‘divine right of kings’. A more realistic view is that ‘policymaking is a job for specialists’.
Many political actors around the world, similarly, think that epistocrats should rule and try to gain the emotional support of the population. Consider the slogan of the Democratic Party in the 2016 US election: ‘I’m with her.’ The Democrats were telling their own version of Plato’s salutary myth, or simple story meant to induce people to identify with a political cause.
Democracy, instead, requires treating people as citizens – that is, as adults capable of thoughtful decisions and moral actions, rather than as children who need to be manipulated. One way to treat people as citizens is to entrust them with meaningful opportunities to participate in the political process, rather than just as beings who might show up to vote for leaders every few years.
Democrats acknowledge that some people know more than others. However, democrats believe that people, entrusted with meaningful decision-making power, can handle power responsibly. Furthermore, people feel satisfaction when they have a hand in charting a common future. Democrats from Thomas Jefferson and Alexis de Tocqueville to the political theorist Carole Pateman at the University of California in Los Angeles advocate dispersing power as widely as possible among the people. The democratic faith is that participating in politics educates and ennobles people. For democrats, the pressing task today is to protect and expand possibilities for political action, not to limit them or shut them down in the name of expert rule.
Every day, people demonstrate that they are capable of learning. People master new languages, earn degrees, move to new cities, train for jobs, and navigate the complexities of modern life. It is true that people tend to be ignorant of things that do not touch their lives. Think of how well you know the geography of where you live and work; now, think about how much you know about the geography of a place on the other side of the globe that you’ve never visited. People study things that they care about and where knowledge helps them to accomplish things.
People also show every day that they can take an interest in other people’s lives. Last summer, I served on a grand jury in Westchester County in New York State. The county randomly called upon 23 eligible adults to hear evidence to determine whether the district attorney could move forward with criminal indictments. Everyone in the jury took their responsibilities seriously, following the district attorney’s directions, asking questions of witnesses, participating in the deliberations, and voting. Before grand jury service, many of us had little knowledge of criminal law or standards of legal evidence; afterwards, most of us did. We learned by doing.
The ‘best and the brightest’ led the US into the Iraq War: the track record of epistocracy is, at best, mixed
Pateman gives other examples of ways to involve more people in the policymaking process, including citizens’ assemblies to review the electoral system in Canadian provinces, or participatory budgeting in the city of Porto Alegre in Brazil. In these instances, citizens assembled in mini-publics and, given time for discussion and research, became knowledgeable about public matters. Just as importantly, ‘the empirical evidence from mini-publics shows that citizens both welcome and enjoy the opportunity to take part and to deliberate, and that they take their duties seriously’.
It is misleading to say that most people are too ignorant or apathetic to participate in political affairs. In the right circumstances, many people perform civic functions well. Citizens must consult with experts and are liable to cognitive biases, but this holds true for whoever holds a leadership position in the modern world. Realists criticise most people’s understanding of political affairs, but the democratic response is that people who have no real power lack a reason to study public policy.
In The Death of Expertise, Nichols contends that it is ‘ignorant narcissism for laypeople to believe that they can maintain a large and advanced nation without listening to the voices of those more educated and experienced than themselves’. Of course, the ‘best and the brightest’ led the US into the Iraq War, the subprime mortgage crisis, and a raft of bad education policies; the track record of epistocracy in recent years is, at best, mixed. Furthermore, the elitist stance clashes with the fact that many people demand a say in how we lead our personal and collective lives. Many people today value autonomy, or self-governance, and suffer when it is denied.
One reason why is because of a certain progression in the history of ideas. In The Invention of Autonomy (1997), Jerome B Schneewind shows how the idea of autonomy developed from an intimation in Paul’s Letter to the Romans, to Jean Jacques Rousseau’s conception of freedom as following a law that one gives oneself as a member of the general will, to Immanuel Kant’s practical philosophy that makes freedom its keystone. Other historians have continued this work up to the present, showing how the ideal of autonomy informs modern thinking about economics, race, gender and so forth. Many people share the sentiment of the international disability movement: ‘Nothing about us without us.’
Technological developments have also accustomed people to having some control over their individual and collective lives. Cars, for instance, make it possible for individuals to choose where they want to go; cars cultivate the sense of individual autonomy. At the same time, there is no natural order of cars, and human beings can decide together such questions as whether to create high occupancy vehicle lanes on highways or make it illegal to text on one’s phone while driving. In the medieval world, people might have felt like they were locked into a certain place in their society, but in the modern world they demand a say in the ordering of things. That is why liberalism – a political doctrine that extols individual freedom – and democracy – a political doctrine that valorises collective freedom – are so often intertwined in modern political thought.
Modern people hate to be told: ‘Do it because I say so.’ Alienation from the political process often leads people to identify with strong leaders who claim to represent the silent majority. Across the world, we see political battles between technocrats and populists, experts who claim authority because of their knowledge versus leaders who fight against elites on behalf of the ‘real people’. A third option is democracy, or the notion that flesh-and-blood people can and ought to exercise meaningful power in the governing of common affairs.
Some scholars take a kind of Machiavellian glee in debunking democratic idealism; others extol the ‘wisdom of the crowd’. But the wisdom-of-the-crowd advocates often do not actually call for allotting more political power to most citizens, as in Guerrero’s proposal for lottocracy.
Democracy means people exerting power, not choosing from a menu made by elites and their agents
Guerrero, a philosopher at the University of Pennsylvania, thinks that direct democracy cannot work because most people lack the time and ability to understand the complexities of modern public policy. Democrats have responded to this situation by creating a system of representative democracy where people vote for politicians who act as our agents in the halls of power. The problem is that most people cannot pay sufficient attention to hold their representatives accountable. Citizens are ‘ignorant about what our representatives are doing, ignorant about the details of complex political issues, and ignorant about whether what our representative is doing is good for us or for the world’. To make matters worse, powerful economic interests have the knowledge and resources to capture representatives and make them serve the rich.
The time for electoral representative democracy has passed, argues Guerrero. Rather than waste people’s votes in elections, political systems should create a lottocracy that randomly selects adults who can perform modified versions of the jobs that elected politicians presently do. Right now, US congresspersons are predominantly white, male, millionaires; a lottocracy could instantly raise the number of women, minorities and lower-income people in the legislature, and take advantage of each group’s epistemic contributions to policy debates.
Guerrero envisions single-issue legislatures whose members are chosen by lottery and serve three-year staggered terms. At the beginning of the legislative session, experts set the agenda and bring the legislators up to speed on the topic, then the legislators draft, revise and vote on legislation. Guerrero dismisses the possibility that experts ‘would convince us to buy the same corporate-sponsored policy we’re currently getting’.
On the contrary, the wealthy and powerful could easily manipulate a lottocracy. Think tanks and lobbyists, funded by economic elites, would welcome the opportunity to educate lottery-chosen legislators. Those who set the agenda make the most important decisions. This is the democratic critique of plans that tightly regulate the ways that people may participate in politics. Democracy means people exerting power, not choosing from a menu made by elites and their agents.
The remedy for our democracy deficit is to devolve as much power as possible to the local level. Many problems can be addressed only on the state, federal and international level, but the idea is that participating in local politics teaches citizens how to speak in public, negotiate with others, research policy issues, and learn about their community and the larger circles in which it is embedded. Like any other skill, the way to become a better citizen is to practise citizenship.
Jefferson articulated the democratic faith in a remarkable series of letters in the early 19th century. He first denounces the idea, shared by fellow American Founding Father Alexander Hamilton and the French philosophies, that elites should govern from the capital. Concentrating power in this way enervates citizens, and opens the door to aristocracy or autocracy. Jefferson envisions a system of ward republics that empower people to handle local affairs, including care of the poor, roads, police, elections, courts, schools and militia. Jefferson sees a role for counties, states and the federal government, but he wants substantial political power to be dispersed to every corner of the country. When people participate ‘in the government of affairs, not merely at an election one day in the year, but every day’, Jefferson explains, they will protect their rights and fight the accession of a Caesar or a Bonaparte.
A few decades later, the French political scientist Tocqueville argued in Democracy in America (1835-40) that Americans have shown what democracy in the modern world might look like. In France, when people want something done, they petition the centralised government. In the US, by contrast, people form democratic associations to accomplish their shared goals:
Americans of all ages, all conditions, and all dispositions constantly form associations … The Americans make associations to give entertainments, to found seminaries, to build inns, to construct churches, to diffuse books, to send missionaries to the antipodes; in this manner they found hospitals, prisons, and schools.
The brilliance of US democracy, for Tocqueville, is that it resides in civil society as well as formal governmental structures.
A few years ago, I saw an example of democracy in action when my local school district had a heated debate about the salary of the superintendent. A group of people in the district sent out an email protesting the school board’s approval of a raise for the superintendent who was already one of the most highly paid officials in the state. At the next school board meeting, the district meeting space was filled to capacity and people were sitting on the floor, in the doorways and outside the room. When it was time to discuss the issue, one person stood up and said why she thought that the superintendent was overcompensated, and that resources could be better spent elsewhere. Then, a school board member explained that if the district was going to remain successful, it needed to compensate its leader on a par with other successful executives. The debate was about one person’s salary, but it was also a conversation about what kind of education we envisioned for our children. Many people shared their thoughts and learned what others had to say.
In an epistocracy, a few make all the crucial decisions; everyone else might as well stay at home and watch TV
The discussion about the superintendent’s salary grew heated. People raised their voices, insulted others, and threatened litigation. Tocqueville counsels his readers to see the value of democratic participation that spills outside of the bounds of calm discourse: ‘Such evils are doubtless great, but they are transient; whereas the benefits which attend them remain.’ Because our voices mattered, many parents attended the meeting, voiced their concerns, and heard from others. In a large, centralised school system, each parent has a negligible share of power; but in a small school district, each parent is able to experience the exhilarating feeling of speaking on one’s feet in public about a matter of common concern. Neighbours meet one another, and reaffirm their commitment to making their collective life better.
In an epistocracy, a few people make all the crucial decisions, and everyone else might as well stay at home and watch television. In a participatory democracy, people exercise their civic muscles and become more thoughtful, involved in community affairs, and passionate about making the world a better place. In Against Democracy, Brennan argues that democracy is the site of ‘hobbits’, ‘hooligans’ and ‘vulcans’: this scheme misrepresents the citizens I have met at the grand jury, the school-board meeting, or political demonstrations acting together to solve a common problem.
In modern democracies, expert rule has returned in the form of ‘big nudging’. Maybe not all epistocrats favour this particular technology, but they open the door to it with their critique of the intellectual capabilities of the masses and their advocacy of elite rule.
Scientific American notes that big nudging can lead to a new form of dictatorship based on ‘technocratic behavioural and social control’. Most of the recommendations to combat this threat, however, rely on modifying computer use, including enabling user-controlled information filters, improving interoperability of computer systems, and promoting digital literacy. These measures all miss the essential point: democracy requires empowering people to participate in the political process. There is no algorithm that can replace entrusting people to do the hard work of running community affairs.
The way to learn how to walk is to walk; the way to become a citizen is to exert some kind of power in the government or civil society. There is no technological quick fix to make our society more democratic. To learn what Tocqueville called ‘the art of being free’, people must have a hand in the governance of common affairs.
Observation
Treat people as citizens
How a generation of political thinkers has underestimated the abilities of ordinary people and undermined democracy
Nicholas Tampio is associate professor of political science at Fordham University in New York. He is the author of Kantian Courage (2012) and Deleuze’s Political Vision (2015). His latest book is Common Core: National Education Standards and the Threat to Democracy (2018).
In early 2017, Scientific American published a symposium on the threat that ‘big nudging’ poses to democracy. Big Data is the phenomena whereby governments and corporations collect and analyse information provided by measuring sensors and internet searches. Nudging is the view that governments should build choice architectures that make it easier for people to pick, say, the more fuel-efficient car or the more sensible retirement plan. Big nudging is the combination of the two that enables public or private engineers to subtly influence the choices that people make, say, by autofilling internet searches in desirable ways. Big nudging is a ‘digital sceptre that allows one to govern the masses efficiently, without having to involve citizens in democratic processes’. The symposium’s authors take for granted that democracy – the political regime in which the people collectively determine its common way of life – is better than epistocracy, or rule by experts.
Democrats acknowledge that some people know more than others. However, democrats believe that people, entrusted with meaningful decision-making power, can handle power responsibly. Furthermore, people feel satisfaction when they have a hand in charting a common future. Democrats from Thomas Jefferson and Alexis de Tocqueville to the political theorist Carole Pateman at the University of California in Los Angeles advocate dispersing power as widely as possible among the people. The democratic faith is that participating in politics educates and ennobles people. For democrats, the pressing task today is to protect and expand possibilities for political action, not to limit them or shut them down in the name of expert rule.
Pateman gives other examples of ways to involve more people in the policymaking process, including citizens’ assemblies to review the electoral system in Canadian provinces, or participatory budgeting in the city of Porto Alegre in Brazil. In these instances, citizens assembled in mini-publics and, given time for discussion and research, became knowledgeable about public matters. Just as importantly, ‘the empirical evidence from mini-publics shows that citizens both welcome and enjoy the opportunity to take part and to deliberate, and that they take their duties seriously’.
In The Death of Expertise, Nichols contends that it is ‘ignorant narcissism for laypeople to believe that they can maintain a large and advanced nation without listening to the voices of those more educated and experienced than themselves’. Of course, the ‘best and the brightest’ led the US into the Iraq War, the subprime mortgage crisis, and a raft of bad education policies; the track record of epistocracy in recent years is, at best, mixed. Furthermore, the elitist stance clashes with the fact that many people demand a say in how we lead our personal and collective lives. Many people today value autonomy, or self-governance, and suffer when it is denied.
One reason why is because of a certain progression in the history of ideas. In The Invention of Autonomy (1997), Jerome B Schneewind shows how the idea of autonomy developed from an intimation in Paul’s Letter to the Romans, to Jean Jacques Rousseau’s conception of freedom as following a law that one gives oneself as a member of the general will, to Immanuel Kant’s practical philosophy that makes freedom its keystone. Other historians have continued this work up to the present, showing how the ideal of autonomy informs modern thinking about economics, race, gender and so forth. Many people share the sentiment of the international disability movement: ‘Nothing about us without us.’
Guerrero, a philosopher at the University of Pennsylvania, thinks that direct democracy cannot work because most people lack the time and ability to understand the complexities of modern public policy. Democrats have responded to this situation by creating a system of representative democracy where people vote for politicians who act as our agents in the halls of power. The problem is that most people cannot pay sufficient attention to hold their representatives accountable. Citizens are ‘ignorant about what our representatives are doing, ignorant about the details of complex political issues, and ignorant about whether what our representative is doing is good for us or for the world’. To make matters worse, powerful economic interests have the knowledge and resources to capture representatives and make them serve the rich.
The time for electoral representative democracy has passed, argues Guerrero. Rather than waste people’s votes in elections, political systems should create a lottocracy that randomly selects adults who can perform modified versions of the jobs that elected politicians presently do. Right now, US congresspersons are predominantly white, male, millionaires; a lottocracy could instantly raise the number of women, minorities and lower-income people in the legislature, and take advantage of each group’s epistemic contributions to policy debates.
Guerrero envisions single-issue legislatures whose members are chosen by lottery and serve three-year staggered terms. At the beginning of the legislative session, experts set the agenda and bring the legislators up to speed on the topic, then the legislators draft, revise and vote on legislation. Guerrero dismisses the possibility that experts ‘would convince us to buy the same corporate-sponsored policy we’re currently getting’.
On the contrary, the wealthy and powerful could easily manipulate a lottocracy. Think tanks and lobbyists, funded by economic elites, would welcome the opportunity to educate lottery-chosen legislators. Those who set the agenda make the most important decisions. This is the democratic critique of plans that tightly regulate the ways that people may participate in politics. Democracy means people exerting power, not choosing from a menu made by elites and their agents.
The remedy for our democracy deficit is to devolve as much power as possible to the local level. Many problems can be addressed only on the state, federal and international level, but the idea is that participating in local politics teaches citizens how to speak in public, negotiate with others, research policy issues, and learn about their community and the larger circles in which it is embedded. Like any other skill, the way to become a better citizen is to practise citizenship.
Jefferson articulated the democratic faith in a remarkable series of letters in the early 19th century. He first denounces the idea, shared by fellow American Founding Father Alexander Hamilton and the French philosophies, that elites should govern from the capital. Concentrating power in this way enervates citizens, and opens the door to aristocracy or autocracy. Jefferson envisions a system of ward republics that empower people to handle local affairs, including care of the poor, roads, police, elections, courts, schools and militia. Jefferson sees a role for counties, states and the federal government, but he wants substantial political power to be dispersed to every corner of the country. When people participate ‘in the government of affairs, not merely at an election one day in the year, but every day’, Jefferson explains, they will protect their rights and fight the accession of a Caesar or a Bonaparte.
The way to learn how to walk is to walk; the way to become a citizen is to exert some kind of power in the government or civil society. There is no technological quick fix to make our society more democratic. To learn what Tocqueville called ‘the art of being free’, people must have a hand in the governance of common affairs.
9.5.12
32. Citizen
1. Who is to say the noise from the neighbour would not cause the owner to have a nervous breakdown? Especially when he is targeted. 2. Nature of the noise at times are loud, sharp and heavy; types of noise are rumble, knock, thump and others; and, in connection with their work, a noisy drainpipe. Noise is through the day including early in the morning and late at night. Workers are seen, and there is collaboration with officers. 3. It has been going on for years despite complaints to the authorities. In fact the complaints is cause for the officers to force the owner out of his flat. They could not be disciplined because of their connection, and the stationing of the-people-in-the-flat-across-the-neighbour is part of their strategy. 4. Noise may be reduced for a time after the owner had seen a MP or when he posted in his blog, but there has been no let up in their work. Noise was reduced considerably after he emailed the President in Sep 11, a month after the presidential election. The email is President (26). 5. To a casual observer the noise may have seemed acceptable for two weeks after the Administrative Service dinner referred in News (31), but the noise had increased. Over the next four weeks some days were better and other worse. Better, because noise was muffled and less frequent. Worse, where rumble, knock, thump, drag and drain were heard clearly and frequently. Previously rest days and public holidays were usually worse but, of the five public holidays last week, the two at Labour Day were worse and the three at Vesak were better. They would maintain a level, start up, reduce for a time being when asked, but not stop, having persisted in this way for five years now. The administration in the government may have caused the neighbour to reduce noise for a time but the main problem has been, as always, the officers behind them. 6. It is unconscionable to allow the neighbour to carry on. For a long time noise was undisguised, which forced the owner to consider alternative before selling his flat. He went to see the MPs about ten times then wrote a blog. In it he lined up facts, including actions by insiders, to show officers and the neighbour collaborated. These were listed and explained under various contexts, but the problem continued to be left unattended. The neighbour continues with their work because HBO (Head, Pasir Ris HDB Branch Office) is in a position to use his influence and the-people-in-the-flat-across- the-neighbour watches out for them. 7. Thump and rumble could only be from machine-tools, and noise for many hours each day could only be from a trade. It was not that they were not found out, rather the owner was blocked from bringing the case forward. Why the authorities have not taken action has been shown in a letter and two emails to the President. The two emails are at President (26) and Dissent (30). 8. The owner also wrote to the Singapore Police Force (SPF), Public Service Commission (PSC), Ministry of National Development (MND) and Housing Development Board (HDB); and he informed through his blog the media, companies, people he found in the government directory and, where he could find their email addresses, citizens in general. He did it after seeing the MPs many times over a year. 9. It may seem the administration in government is overly legalistic by being silent, but it implies more. The connections between the officers, the-people-in-the-flat-across- the-neighbour and the neighbour are telling. If there were nothing, the authorities would have said so and put a stop to an issue the owner had brought up many times to support his case. Silence means not disclosing, which muddles the issue, shields the officers and allows the neighbour to go on. 10. When rules make no allowance for how it is to be used, there is no justice and equality. It is not neutrality either. In the case HBO answered all letters MPs wrote to HDB even after it was made clear to him it was intended for HDB, and HDB gave no direction nor conducted investigation. 11. In any case the government should respond. Impartial conduct, standard procedure and authority of the state are values that would apply. Until the owner wrote to the President after the presidential election, he was like a hostage having to cope with the noise as best as he could. 12. Democracy is supposed to create the conditions where ordinary citizens could find their voice. There is no freedom when its citizens would not speak up against wrongdoing because they have reservation about speaking up. 13. Citizenship Richard Bellamy, A Very Short Introduction series Now any reasonably stable and efficient political framework, even one presided by a ruthless tyrant, will provide us some of these benefits. For example, think of the increased uncertainty and insecurity suffered by many Iraqi citizens as a result of the lack of an effective political order following the toppling of Saddam Hussein. However, those possessing no great wealth, power, or influence - the vast majority of people in other words - will not be satisfied with just any framework. They will want one that applies to all - including the government - and treats everyone impartially and as equals, no matter how rich or important they may be. In particular, they will want its provisions to provide a just basis for all to enjoy the freedom to pursue their lives as they choose on equal terms with everyone else, and in so far as is compatible with their having a reasonable amount of personal security through the maintenance of an appropriate degree of social and political stability. And a necessary, if not always a sufficient, condition for ensuring the laws and policies of a political community possess these characteristics is that the country is a working electoral democracy and that citizens participate in making it so. Apart from anything else, political involvement helps citizens shape what this framework should look like. People are likely to disagree about what equality, freedom, and security involve and the best policies to support them in given circumstances. Democracy offers the potential for citizens to debate these issues on roughly equal terms and to come to some appreciation of each other's views and interests. It also promotes government that is responsible to their evolving concerns and changing conditions by giving politicians an incentive to rule in ways that reflect and advance not their own interests but those of most citizens. Above all, the appeal of a society of civic equals who share in fashioning their collective life remains a powerful one. Citizenship informs and gives effect to central features of our social morality. It underlies our whole sense of self-worth, affecting in the process the ways one treat others and are treated by them. It stands behind the commitment to rights and the appreciation of cultural diversity that are among the central moral achievements of the late 20th and 21th centuries. It has become fashionable to try and detach these effects of citizenship from any involvement in politics or democracy. What I hope to have shown in this book is that that is not possible. Citizenship and democratic politics stand and fall together. To seek to divorce the two undermines not just the possibility of political citizenship, but the values associated with the very idea of citizenship itself. The reinvigoration of citizenship, therefore, depends on revitalizing rather than diminishing political participation and with it the sense of belonging and the commitment to rights that are its prime benefits.
31. News
1. In the Straits Times of 28 Mar 12: Govt must not shy away from hard decisions: DPM Engagement is part of policy process but there are trade-offs, he says Mr Teo, who is also the Minister in charge of the Civil Service, Coordinating Minister for National Security, and Home Affairs Minister, was speaking at the Administrative Service dinner during which 74 Administrative Service officers received their promotion certificates. Rather than grapple with whether to do more or less, Government should "focus on doing the right things, and doing these things right", he said. But the greater challenge as Mr Teo saw it was in performing these roles in the right way. This called for civil servants to take a long-term perspective, and ensure whole-of-Government coherence when complex issues no longer fell within neat domains. Public service standing 'hurt by recent events' Individual failings must not lead to systemic lapses: Civil service head The Head of the Civil Service said at the annual Administrative Service dinner, "It makes some wonder if the public service and the values we esponse are being eroded. There are officers who have felt let down by these episodes. I share the same disappointment." Mr Peter Ong, who is also Permanent Secretary for Finance and for Special Duties in the Prime Minister's Office, said of recent cases of cheating by officers and others being investigated for alleged misconduct. He was probably referring to an on-going investigation into alleged misconduct by the former Chiefs of Singapore Civil Defence Force and Central Narcotics Bureau, and the jailing of two Singapore Land Authority senior executives for cheating government agencies of more than $12 million. Mr Ong also spoke of changes in public expectations, observing that from 2007 to last year, feedback to government feedback unit Reach and to the Land Transport Authority increased by 200 per cent. When feedback relates to issues that do not fall neatly into any one agency's work, officers must "deal with the public's immediate needs first and then sort out inter-agency issues backend." 2. As usual, the owner reads between the lines whether the speeches fit his case. 3. There were evasions. After trying to call up the Branch Office, the owner called OIC (Officer-in-Charge) who said the office did not receive his second letter. The owner then went to the office with a draft of the handwritten letter, asked for an acknowledgment and insisted on a meeting with HBO (Head, Pasir Ris HDB Branch Office). The acknowledgment was a signed photocopy of the letter but two lines were missing from the photocopy. The lines pointed to OIC having an arrangement with the neighbour. During the meeting with HBO and OIC, HBO asked the owner whether he knew of a recent transfer of the neighbour's flat to throw him off. The owner was able to determine that the transfer was not a recent event but happened nine years ago in '99 after an eviction. 4. At the first MPS (Meet-the-People Session), the owner handed over a letter to the interviewer who pointed to HBO in the letter when asked what he would do since no MP was around, and he gave his name as that of his brother when asked. His brother, who lived in the same block of flat as the owner, was later shown to be in contact with the-people-in-the-flat-across-the-neighbour. 5. The owner wrote to the MP, whom HBO had referred in his first letter to the owner, and met the MP at the second MPS. The MP said he would attach the owner's letters to HDB. HBO's next reply was not to refer to the issues raised, but to state the owner may engage his solicitors. 6. The owner went to see MPs about ten times that involved HBO himself, other officers, community centre members, residents' committee members and the-people-in-the-flat-across- the-neighbour, but each time HBO replied for the owner to seek assistance elsewhere. Later the owner blogged and wrote directly to higher authorities including the police and President. 7. The collaboration between the officers and neighbour will continue since no overt action is taken.
10.2.12
30. Dissent
11 Feb 2012 President Republic of Singapore Orchard Road Singapore 238823 Dear Sir, Officers Colluded With Neighbour 1. I wrote to the President on 1 Feb 10 and 15 Sep 11, and each time the President's Office referred me to SPF (Singapore Police Force). Despite stating that the-people-in-the-flat-across-the-neighbour watched out for the neighbour, Neighbourhood Police Centre still posed the problem as only between the neighbour and myself. I also wrote to Public Service Commission and HDB because they are directly responsible for the officers who are in contact with the-people-in-the-flat-across- the-neighbour. There was no reply. 2. The case has features of whistleblowing. I would not have noticed the-people-in-the-flat-across- the-neighbour if someone in the same flat had not stopped the neighbour many years earlier, and someone sent me a bcc from HBO (Head, Pasir Ris HDB Branch Office) to the Chairman (Residents' Committee) that indicated they met in the flat. At a Meet-the-People Session, a CC member (Community Centre member) introduced me to another CC member who lived at my block of flat to talk about the noise and two other meetings with the latter indicated he had contact with the-people-in-the-flat-across- the-neighbour. 3. It would seem a plan was underway when loud noise for a number of days signalled the restart of work in '07. After observing for a month, I wrote to Pasir Ris HDB Branch Office about a maid who was removed at the same time that a poster appeared on the noticeboard at the void deck of my block. The poster showed a maid at a coffeeshop saying she was only allowed to work at the address she was registered. Someone other than the Branch Office took action a number of months after my complaint and indicated by putting up the poster. 4. Because I complained, the officers and neighbour retaliated with noise to force me into selling my flat. In the meantime the officers kept their silence on issues raised in the complaint and waited for me to slip up. They would, however, repeatedly referred me to the Community Mediation Centre where, if they succeeded, would confine and leave me without an audience. 5. King (1999) stipulated that variation in organizational structure would have a direct impact on organizational dissent, particularly whistleblowing. He postulated that in centralized-vertical- bureaucratic organization where dissent is met with retaliation or ignored, fewer channels exist for expressing dissent and employees believe they can exercise little influence. As a result employees tend to express dissent externally. Conversely, in hybrid structure, where decision-making is decentralized among business units while administrative functions remain centralized, communication and exchange of information flows without difficulty between divisions and upper management. King stipulated that in these arrangements, dissent should be expressed internally within organization. Accordingly, we can see that dissent may be ineffectual and risky, fundamental to participation, key to shaping organizational culture, reflective of organizational discourse, or instrumental to identity enactment. Dissent in Organization Jeffery Kassing, Pg 132 and 70. 6. Cabinet Office may have taken a step in the direction when PM announced after the general election that Ministers would have a free hand to think and reshape policies. 7. The neighbour is able to continue over the years because of backing from the officers. It allows the neighbour to carry on as usual even though the motive of the officers and neighbour were known and shown to be early on. Admitting that the-people-in-the-flat-across- the-neighbour protected the neighbour is embarrassing. But where is the justice in allowing them to continue? 8. At the moment light knock, low rumbling and muffled thump are heard, the noise being less than in the period covered by the last post. The general reduction over the last four posts may be seen as a concession by the neighbour. Over the years, even as they use their flat as a workplace rather than as a place to live in, the owner could do nothing to stop them. 9. My complaint comes down to HBO who has powerful connection within the administration such that dissent against his wrongdoing is risky. 10. The President may be unaware. In a reply two weeks after I emailed the President, an officer referred me to the relevant authorities without giving his name. It was followed by a reply from a police officer from SPF Customer Relation Branch who referred me to Bedok Police Division. Another two weeks later another police officer from SPF Customer Relation Branch, instead of Bedok Police Division, replied. He stated "the matter had been adequately addressed before", which would be the investigation by Neighbourhood Police Centre that did not mention the-people-in-the-flat-across- the-neighbour. (It reminded me of another police officer who, in reply to my email to the Commissioner of Police, stated "HDB had investigated thoroughly the matter and there was no unnecessary noise nor misuse of flat" in Sep 09.) Bedok Police Division did not reply because they were aware of the issue the first time I wrote to the President. The officer from the President's Office and the second police officer who replied may have took over the case in that my email never reached the President. 11. I hope the President takes a serious view of my situation of many years since the underlying cause has not been addressed. Yours Sincerely, hh
6.1.12
29. Ombudsman
1. The Straits Times printed "a national ombudsman" under a reply from Mr Tony Tan Keng Yam during the presidential election. He says ombudsman is an established method when citizen is wronged. Mr Tony Tan is now the President. 2. There are two types of ombudsman. The first is an external official who investigates citizens complaints against the government. He is empowered to adjudicate matters as a sort of arbitrator. 3. The second type is one who mediates agreeable settlements between aggrieved parties. It is non-adjudicative. 4. In the owner's case PSC (Public Service Commission) and HDB could investigate. Defining principles such as neutrality and type of resources differ from the first type of ombudsman, but all three takes action to investigate. 5. Community Mediation Centre, which mediates between citizens, is the second type of ombudsman. It is not appropriate in this case because officers are involved. 6. The President could show the way. As Head of State he is impartial and works toward a solution. His moral authority comes from being elected by the people, from appointing government nominees to key posts and from other duties. He could be the voice of the people when wrongdoing is not rectify. 7. The following questions need asking:
a) Who is accountable for the-people-in-the-flat-across-the-neighbour? b) After the SPF (Singapore Police Force) was informed, why did not they investigate? c) PSC and HDB are official channels of complaint, what keeps them from giving a reply? 8. Once again some muffling of noise after the previous post Overview (28). Overall, there is less noise. It is heard in the early morning, morning, afternoon, night and, at times, past midnight. It could be a single or a number of noises in the early morning and late at night to over many hours of noise in the afternoon. The noises are knock, rumble, thump, drag and, in connection with their work, a noisy drainpipe. 9. The neighbour is in a business, they work the whole day everyday. That is where insiders and the-people-in-the-flat-across- the-neighbour come in--insiders knew and stopped the neighbour before and the-people-in-the-flat-across- the-neighbour was stationed to protect the neighbour from insiders. It is through personal connection and evasion of rules that the-people-in-the-flat-across- the-neighbour manages to stay on for over three years and still do. 10. There is no doubt such a situation existed, and why MPs and others have supported. An outline is in Overview (28). 11. In a real manner the owner is forced by constant noise to sell his flat. The continuing noise is stressful and prevented him from working and taking nap. 12. In 22 May 09 Minister-in-Charge of Civil Service said the government was on a lookout for bold and visionary leaders to raise the quality of public service. The statement was made one to two weeks after the owner posted his complaint at civicadvocator.net Later, PM said it was difficult to get leaders from the private sector into the public service due to different culture and mid-career changes. 13. Thus the owner has no alternative but calls on the President to help.
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