If you haven’t read the introduction to Critical Government Theory, read it here
INTRODUCTION
The discussions under this topic will be in relation to systems of governance and political parties and how they affect your life today and in the future. Later on, we’ll see how this applies to economic systems.
The systems of governance we’ll discuss are:
Monarchy
Democracy
Fake Republics
True Republics
Section 1
Monarchies and Democracies
The discussion surrounding Monarchies will be limited to Canada, Jamaica, the United Kingdom and Barbados. We all know that all these nations were once ruled by an absolute monarchy, the Crown of England and today, are thought of as independent. But, are they really independent?
Jamaica is said to have gained independence on August 6, 1962, but independence from what? Jamaica gained independence from the United Kingdom and from the Queen of England, but that’s because the Jamaican constitution does not recognize a Queen/King of England, it recognizes a Queen/King of Jamaica. It just so happens that the Queen/King of England and Jamaica are the same person.
The Queen/King of Jamaica, referred to as Her/His Majesty in the Jamaican constitution holds the country’s executive power. The Governor General is the Monarch’s proxy and using that same executive power, can dissolve parliament, and fire and appoint new Prime Ministers and leaders of the opposition (of course, according to the limits of the constitution). Since Jamaica became independent in 1962, it moved from being an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary democracy.
The process is exactly the same for countries like Canada and Barbados (pre-fake republic). Constitutional monarchies have Prime Ministers, while both fake and real Republics tend to have Presidents (only) and in some cases, a President and a Prime Minister. Constitutional Monarchies manage their system of governance through parliamentary democracies where independents and members of political parties are elected by citizens to a House of Commons or a House of Parliament.
In constitutional monarchies, citizens do not elect a Prime Minister, rather, they elect representatives to the House of Commons (or Parliament). The representative that holds the confidence of a majority of the House is appointed by the Governor General to become the Prime Minister and the representative that holds the confidence of the largest minority in the House is appointed by the Governor General to become the official leader of the Opposition to the Government.
The person appointed to the role of Prime Minister then forms a Government with Ministers (usually appointed from his/her party) to manage the affairs of the country. In Canada, the Federal politicians sit in a House of Commons while in Jamaica, it's called the House of Parliament. Both the House of Commons and House of Parliament are often referred to as the lower house, while the Senate, consisting of citizens usually appointed by the Governor General at the advice of the Prime Minister and Leader of the Official Opposition, is referred to as the Upper House.
The purpose of the House is to table and debate bills/laws on behalf of the electors, as well as to hold the Government to account.
Bills cannot be passed and become an act of parliament unless
both Houses vote to approve them,
And the Governor General gives it Royal Assent, enshrining the bill into law.
What is a Democracy? Google says it is a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives. That definition is correct, but it’s missing the rabbit hole definition; Democracy, in simple terms, is majority/mob rule. This means that if a majority of the population strongly believes that ice cream should be banned, and votes for it to be banned, it will be banned. But let's go extreme with this; because if a majority of the population believes that individuals who are not vaccinated against COVID-19 should be subject to house arrest until they are vaccinated, and vote for it to happen, it will happen.
“But what about the Constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms?” Constitutions, Charter/Bills of Rights do not stand a chance against Democracy, because it simply requires a majority in society and a majority in Parliament to change the rules. This becomes even more dangerous if the Justice System in your country is not independent or is compromised by Government.
The United Kingdom has an unwritten constitution, while Canada’s constitution is partially written and Jamaica’s constitution, is fully written. In Canada, constitutional conventions form a part of the constitution. But what are constitutional conventions? Here’s what the Centre of Constitutional Convention had to say:
“A ‘convention’ is an uncodified rule of a constitution considered binding on political actors but not enforceable by the courts. The Constitution of Canada is comprised of both written or codified rules enforced by courts, and ‘unwritten’ rules or principles necessary for constitutional government. What separates a convention from constitutional law is that the former is not judicially enforceable. Courts may recognize the existence of a ‘convention’, and even help define its nature and scope, but they do not provide remedies for the breach of conventions.
While Canada’s Constitution is most often associated with its ‘written’ documents – chiefly, the Constitution Act, 1867,[2] and the Constitution Act, 1982[3] – in fact, Canada’s full constitutional framework is unintelligible without reference to a prodigious set of constitutional conventions. Consider two examples. Nowhere in Canada’s constitutional documents is it written that the government of the day must resign when it loses the confidence of the legislative assembly. Yet, this central tenet of responsible government is at the core of Canadian constitutionalism, and a political crisis would ensue were its principles ignored by political actors.[4] Similarly, while in a strictly legal sense the Governor-General may refuse his or her assent to a bill duly passed by both houses of Parliament, a constitutional convention has developed whereby the withholding of assent would be unconstitutional (see reservation and disallowance).
Conventions arise when there are precedents for a particular principle or practice; when political actors consider themselves or ought to consider themselves bound to follow the principle or practice; and when there are good reasons for the existence of the principle or practice.[5] While the core meaning of a ‘convention’ may be clear, questions of application frequently arise, and political actors may heatedly dispute what precedents apply and what reasons are legitimate. While political actors, for example, are agreed on the confidence convention, what sort of measure exactly constitutes a withdrawal of confidence may be controversial.[6]”
So, in rabbit hole terms, it's when politicians make things up and they become a standard precedent.
The following are constitutional principles in Canada as a result of the Constitutional Convention:
Federalism
Democracy
Rule of Law
Separation of Powers
Independence of the Judiciary
Sovereignty of Parliament
So you see, it may not take much for Canadian politicians to change Canada’s constitutional principles with the support of a majority of the electorate. So how dangerous can democracy be? Very. In Jamaica, it is very different, because the whole constitution is written, but it has a problem that most first-world countries do not have, the lack of economic capability of citizens to challenge their government in court. If you cannot afford to challenge your Government for breaches of the constitution, your constitution is useless because the Courts will not act on their own initiative.
Even more concerning, it is the Government that funds the courts and appoints the judges, and by underfunding the Justice System, it makes it even more difficult to launch a Constitutional Challenge against the Government; it may take 10 years for your case to be concluded, by then the Government would have already set out the goal it wanted to achieve via abusing your rights. But we talk more about rights and freedoms in another chapter. Let’s move on to Republics.
Action Summary:
If you live in a Constitutional Monarchy, ensure your constitution is fully written and that your Charter/Bill of Rights is clear and has no loopholes that the Government can abuse
Work with independents and political parties in your country to draft bills that will make it easier, faster and more affordable to launch a constitutional challenge against the Government
Review your Justice System and work with independents and political parties to ensure that the Justice System is properly funded and staffed
Section 2
Democracy vs Republics vs Fake Republics
I do not support Monarchies, because it is a system that does not recognize the sovereignty of the individual over their life, liberty and property. Now that you are reading my book, however, you also know that Democracy, in some instances, is bad. But what’s the alternative? A Republic, but not a fake one. Switching from a constitutional monarchy to a fake Republic is one of the most dangerous things that a country can do, and this is what Barbados did.
What is the Fake Republic in the context of a transition from a Constitution Monarchy? It is a system of governance that retains its Parliamentary Democracy and replaces the Monarch with a ceremonial President and /or a system of governance in which the citizens of the nation are not sovereign. Nothing has changed in Barbados other than it replacing the Queen with a President; even worse, it kept the colonial constitution. At least countries like Trinidad and Tobago, Nigeria, and other post-Colonial nations wrote their own constitutions.
Some of these countries, like Nigeria and Ghana, have abolished the Prime Minister’s Office and become full Presidential Republics (still fake), while places like Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados have both a President and a Prime Minister. Stands to reason that both Nigeria and Ghana are more of a Republic than those nations that retained the Prime Minister’s office.
What is a Republic? Google says it is a state in which supreme power is held by the people or their elected representatives, and which has an elected or nominated president rather than a monarch. Google is right, yet again, but it’s missing the most important component of Republics, which is the rabbit hole component. A nation cannot be a true Republic unless every individual citizen is treated as Sovereign by the Government and the Government is only limited to protecting the Sovereignty of each individual citizen.
Let’s go deeper into what a Republic really is. Every human being has inalienable, God-given or Natural rights; these are:
Right to Life; you cannot be killed without consequences to the killer. You have a right to defend your life by any means necessary, so long as the only person impacted by those means is your attempted killer.
Right to Liberty; means you cannot be enslaved. It also means that you have a right to; for example, voluntary legal economic activity. i.e, Government cannot force a private entity to ban you from using their services.
Right to Property; you own your own body. You also own the things that you purchase with income generated from your liberty to engage in legal economic activity.
These three rights act as the umbrella for the rights written in your country’s constitution. These rights were first documented in the Magna Carta, known as the Great Charter which was used to reign in the power of King John of England who was intent on violating the laws and customs of England at the time. It is up to us to use this same Charter on which our very own constitutions were built, to reign in the power of our respective governments.
In Republics, it is the role of the Government to provide equal protection of the life, liberty and property of every individual citizen, for when an individual has and maintains all three rights, he/she is Sovereign. The Government must be limited to that role. But of course, with everything in life, there are limits. An individual citizen remains sovereign so long as he/she does not infringe upon the life, liberty and property of another person. Infringement on the rights of others may result in imprisonment, community service or fines, which are justifiable infringements on Liberty, should that be the ruling in an independent Court of Law.
But there is another rabbit hole aspect that is missing. In True Republics, members of the Government or Parliament or Congress are not immune from consequences arising from their breaching the constitutional rights of the citizens they were tasked to defend. The point I am trying to make here is that jail cells must be prepared for politicians who abuse human rights as defined in this document.
The United States of America has come closer than any country in history to becoming the True Republic. But it fell short in many ways and due to Democracy, citizens who do not appreciate the status of a Republic are attempting to use its mob majority to overthrow the American-style Republic. Democracy is important in how politicians get elected, but it's an absolute disaster in making legislation that governs a country. Republics must be designed not for mob rule, but to defend the smallest minority in a country, which is the individual.
Action Summary:
When switching from a Constitutional Monarchy to a Republic, make sure it’s done properly. This is the most vulnerable that your country will be. A constitution must first be written and agreed to by the citizenry, after which, the transition to a Republic is done entirely according to the constitution.
Incremental transitions to a Republic which do not violate your existing Constitution is a good idea. Do not hesitate to support politicians who do this, legally.
Section 3
What’s Next in the Battle of Republics, Democracies and Constitutional Monarchies?
At this point, you are becoming a rabbit hole expert on political systems. I hope it’s obvious to you that the best system of Governance is in fact the True Republic. You may however be asking why I never mentioned Socialism, Fascism and Communism. You are right to ask, because these are systems of governance as well, but also fall under economic and social systems, so it's much more complicated to explain these systems, which I’ll do in the next chapter.
But it’s important for my readers to understand that true Republics cannot survive under Socialism, Fascism or Communism, as these systems effectively replaces a Republic in its entirety. Democracy however could survive under these systems, because mob rule is not immune from voluntarily promoting and implementing totalitarianism or slavery. It, therefore, stands to reason that the only way a True Republic can exist is through individual sovereign citizens interacting with each other via the free market of ideas, goods and services and where the Government’s role is limited to acting as a middle man by protecting each individual’s life, liberty and property, equally.
Ask yourself, what system do you prefer? What is the best system to navigate this increasingly complicated world that Government cannot hope to effectively control centrally?
I have one final question for you before we move to the other chapter. Start this chapter with your answer in mind while keeping an open mind. What do you identify as?
Marxist
Fascist
Communist
Socialist
Capitalist
Anarchist
CHAPTER 3
THE TRUTH ABOUT ECONOMIC SYSTEMS
INTRODUCTION
Fair warning, this is the chapter that violently presses hard on the reader’s cognitive dissonance. It will change your perspective on economic and political systems. Remember what you identified as, keep an open mind, but forget everything you thought you knew; it's about to get rocky.
In this chapter, we discuss:
The Great Reset
Marxism
Socialism
Communism
Crony Capitalism
Corporatism
Fascism
Stakeholder Capitalism
Capitalism (Shareholder Capitalism/Free Market Capitalism)
Section 1
Marxism, Socialism and Communism
Many individuals who identify as Marxists are coming from a good place, others from a place of hate and disdain. It depends on what the person wants to achieve and what they think marxism is.
Google says, “Marxism is a social, political, and economic philosophy named after Karl Marx. It examines the effect of capitalism on labor, productivity, and economic development and argues for a worker revolution to overturn capitalism in favour of communism.” Again, google is right, but missing the rabbit hole definition. Marxism is a philosophy that advocates for class war, between what they term the working class and the capitalist class. Marxists’ doctrine states that the working class must violently take the property of the capitalist class and murder them if necessary.
Who’s the working class according to Karl Marx? (READ CHAPTER 3 HERE)
Chapter three will be released this week. I need your help to complete Critical Government Theory, get a paid subscription today, leave a comment and let me know what you think about every chapter. If I made a mistake or made incorrect statements, I want to hear about it!