Is THE authority, any authority, interested in establishing a clean, straightforward, honest and reliable general environment for running my /your/ their business, any business ?
I have been reading a book (When States Fail: Causes and Consequences, by Robert I. Rotberg – you may read an excerpt here) and, while some truths stated by this book are clearly not applicable to Romania’s current condition, some other situations described therein are known to be in effect and quite applicable to the today’s Romania.
I have found this book quite interesting. It is amazing how badly applied assertion of authority and state power can (and will) make or break the backbone of a nation. We can safely assume that this holds true for the business environment, general welfare of the citizens, economic development, etc, etc, etc. However, when unchallenged, state authority gets cheeky and becomes burdensome, it exceeds its powers given by the people, it becomes a real nuisance to the business environment, and so forth.
I only speak about the latter effect of which the main cause is poor government, feeble and ridiculously low quality of civil service, weak exertion of authority and an excessively bureaucratic machinery. For those not living in Romania, I have just described the Romanian governing policies & principles and it can also be meant as a brief description of the authority conundrum in Romania: weak state with powerful authority? Can that be? I am afraid not, because the power of authority cannot exist where poor governing policies are present. At least not in a democratic environment, that is.
I have learnt one thing, with reason as guide, but you another: you follow a halter, being enthralled by the picture of authority. For what else can authority be called other than a halter?
I am not encouraging anyone to challenge authority (any authority) by means of illegal methods; let us be clear about that. Authority is the most needed tool a nation has at its disposition in order to exert democratic prerogatives on behalf of their own people, for their benefit and for that of the safeguarding and welfare of the said nation. Challenging it without proper reason and beyond democratic methods is obviously something which we’re not discussing or indeed encourage here.
Yes, the government authority needs to be respected, if it serves you well. Put it like this: if the benefits exceed the limitations imposed by the rules, then you are clearly winning.
However, for good reasons, one should, nay, must challenge the state authority. This is more than necessary when the same algorithm above is reversed: too little benefits for the multitude of limitations. And of course, it very much depend of what the society you live in take for benefits and limitations. If those limitations are dictated by a temporary necessity (earthquake-like disasters and similar events), well then…hon. govt is in the clear, so to speak. But if the limitations to my civil liberties and human rights are infringed upon because some schmuck from a minister believes me too stupid to react to injustice, well then…he has another thing coming.
(to be continued)
Article can be found on my LinkedIn publish page here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/state-authority-has-obeyed-however-needs-challenged-julian-tanase?published=u
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