Freedom and Equality in the Comparison of Political Systems Essay examp

Freedom and Equality in the Comparison of semi governmental SystemsABSTRACT The notions of freedom and equating in a group argon precisely defined in terms of individual exertions of influence or top executive. Freedom is discussed in the version freedom from influence rather than in the version freedom to do what one wants. It is shown that at the ideal abstract level complete freedom implies equality. Given the plausibility of the definitions this shows that political kinship group rhetorics in which freedom and equality often ar put in opposition are misled and misleading. Quantitative notions of more freedom and more equality are introduced and shown to be independent of each other. The bearing of these conceptual exercises on the comparison of political systems is discussed. During the last 5000 years the competition and contest of large, kind communities or political systems, of which modern states are the pressing example, often was determined by a simple, evolutionary mechanism war and force. However, the increasing destructive power of artifacts which are developed with the help of scientific knowledge seems to diminish the richness of this deviceat least among communities with a somewhat rational leadership. For the upright use of modern techniques increases the risk of self-destruction even for that party which other would be said to have won the contest. In this situation it would be desirable to have other, less violent criteria to check whether some political system is better than another one. If we could compare the quality of political systems in a purely conceptual way the practical competition among systems could be reduced to attempts at enlightening the citizens of the respective other system.Recent views... ...y pillow unchanged. In particular this shows that freedom and equalityeven if both are defined in terms of poweryield different criteria for the be of political systems. The fact that both these notions can be defined in terms of power does not imply that the comparison of political systems in these two dimensions can be reduced to one, more basic criterion conjecture in terms of exertions of power.ReferencesW.Balzer, 1990 A Basic Model of Social Institutions, journal of Mathematical Sociology 16, 1-29.W.Balzer, 1993 Soziale Institutionen, Berlin de Gruyter.W.Balzer, 1994 Exchange versus Influence A Case of idealization, in B.Hamminga (ed.), Idealization VI Idealization in Economics, Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities Vol 38, capital of The Netherlands Rodopi, 189-203.S.Lukes, 1974 Power A Radical View, London.