Freedom and Equality in the Comparison of Political Systems Essay examp

Freedom and Equality in the Comparison of Political SystemsABSTRACT The notions of exemption and equivalence in a group are precisely defined in terms of individual exertions of influence or advocator. Freedom is discussed in the adjustment granting immunity 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. prone the plausibility of the definitions this shows that political folk rhetorics in which freedom and equality often are 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 competitor of large, human communities or political systems, of which modern states are the pressing example, often was decided by a simple, evolutionary mec hanism war and force. However, the increasing destructive power of artifacts which are developed with the help of scientific knowledge seems to diminish the importance of this deviceat least among communities with a somewhat rational leadership. For the mere implement of modern techniques increases the risk of self-destruction even for that party which otherwise would be said to have a bun in the oven 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 remain unchanged. In particular this shows that freedom and equalityeven if both are defined in terms of poweryield different criteria for the ranking 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 measuring rod formulated 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 glory, in B.Hamminga (ed.), Idealization VI Idealization in Economics, Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities Vol 38, Amsterdam Rodopi, 189-203.S.Lukes, 1974 Power A Radical View, London.