The social organisation of individuals under the jurisdiction of, and as participants in government can be defined by three broad categories. These are; the intrinsic, the emergent and the dispossesive. These can be used to inform the extent of government, and derive its responsibilities.

Intrinsic

The intrinsic categories are the conditions that need to be met for and individual to agree to government, and for the government to be legitimate. One of the intrinsic values of an individual is a natural defiance of tyranny. Whether by action, or social organization, individuals seek to remove tyranny from their interactions. Tyranny is being under the arbitrary will of another, especially in the respect of an individual's person or property.

Australian Republicanism is devoted to defeating tyranny in government, not matter what its form, and ensuring that all individuals under the jurisdiction of a government, are, without exception, secure in their political rights. These begin with the freedom from government tyranny. As soon as a government practices tyranny against an individual, or minority, then it is no longer legitimate.

Without the protection of an individuals political rights, there is no reason for an individual to agree to be under the government. If the oppression is so strong, then an individual would be better off in nature without government. This assumes of course that a government would allow the individual to do so. In most cases, particularly nation-state, immigration is tightly controlled, and new members of the population have little choice.

The intrinsic component of social organisation raises the democrat as the dominating political philosophy. One where government is permanently responsible to the people, if not directly populated by the people. Representative government was developed in a time where property was held by a small number of people, where education was a privilege and while communications came no faster than a horse or sailing ship.

Today we live in a society where a significant minority are as well educated as the leaders of Executive government. Where communications have been transformed into a global decentralised network, of such low cost, that everyone can be a publisher. There is also more equality in wealth and property, due to the rise of the middle class in the twentieth century. It is in this environment that the democrat must discern new political technologies and methods to guarantee our political rights, and the responsiveness of government to the people.

Social, cultural and economic prosperity is impossible without maximum liberty.

Emergent

Complex systems interact in a way that makes their output greater than the sum of their inputs. These can be termed the emergent properties. This would include society, culture and economy. Quality engineers often spend a great deal of time mapping and charting their complex system through statistical modelling, and then intrude upon them by what is known as "selective tampering". Unless every input and output is known, this selective tampering often makes the system vary more in quality, rather than hone it. As a consequence Quality Engineers use reductionism to try and make the inputs and outputs known.

In very large complex system, the inputs and outputs are largely unknown - simply due to the sheer size of the system, and the near infinite number of possible interactions. In these systems, interference, or selective tampering in nearly all cases results in an inferior outcome. This is because interference adds a cost to interaction between actors in the system. Hampering the natural outcome.

Government does have a role as not only an actor in the system, but often simply because of its economic size and its ability to legislate through its monopoly on violence, as a dominantly influential actor. It is a yellow point. Currently the government consumes about 35% of Australia's GDP in taxation. This makes it by far the largest economic actor in Australia.

This is not necessarily a good thing. Government is by structure, and design, a centralised system which collapses political, coercive and economic power into a few individuals. This skews, and often obliterates the emergent properties of a society, culture and economy. Since World War II, and in particular the 1980s, Australians have been sensitive to government involvement in the economy, believing that it produces inferior outcomes in relation to the creation of wealth, and the economy's ability to meet a market.

However, we have also seen in the last fifty years a willingness for government to interfere in societal and cultural issues. More recently we have seen the self-professed "culture wars", which is government and conservative commenteriat backed. Society and culture are complex emergent systems which work more efficiently without government intervention. They are no different to the economy in this aspect.

Dispossessive

The existence of the state carries its own burden. These are commonly externalised in the form of taxes. A common phrase is that taxes buy civilisation. In reality, taxes buy a judicial system which can hold-off tyranny and ensure that interactions between individuals have an equitable basis.

The establishment of social programs such as unemployment benefits and pensions have helped remove the troughs and stings in poverty. Empirical evidence shows the social value of such programs. It would be silly to deny their use, and that government has no role in these areas. By the same token, any of these programs should be predicated by the emergent properties defining them. For instance, it is perfectly acceptable for a society to decide that there is a level of poverty no-one should fall below. It is also perfectly acceptable for a society to decide there is a level of access to health that no-one should be denied. It is not acceptable for government to decide these things for society.

Government involvement in these areas carries danger, not only from government inertia to change, but because government involvement infringes on liberty and inevitably retards the emergent process of society, culture and economy. For this reason any social program must be founded in empirical studies to ensure they have true benefit, and are not ideological fashion, or populist pandering. This is true for all government action.

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In a previous article titled, Social Organization , the three broad categories of social organisation in relation to government were explored. Equality, rather than being a universal concept, is adaptive, and follows the demands of the categories of intrinsic, emergent and dispossesive. It is in the intrinsic category that liberty and justice combine to ensure the uniform equity of every individual under the government's jurisdiction through universal political rights.

Intrinsic Equity

The intrinsic component of the government system is where equity must be absolute. Political rights must be uniform for all who are under the jurisdiction of the government. Liberty must be equal for all individuals. The justice system must be replicable, uniform, non-discriminative and accessible to all. The intrinsic component is the most primal essence of political equality.

The intrinsic component of social organization is derived from humanity's natural resistance to tyranny. The Constitution speaks to the intrinsic nature of organisation and is not complete unless it eradicates tyranny and provides safeguards for any tyranny which may leak through.

Maximum liberty and uniform justice are the paths to equality in the intrinsic component.

Emergent Equity

Modern economists often argue for economic liberty which limits the interference of government on the allocation of capital, and manufacturing quotas. This was largely in response to socialism in the early part of the twentieth century. The decentralised nature, and innovation of capitalism and economic liberty out-competed the Soviet Union's economy over a period of approximately thirty years, leaving the Soviet Union on the brink of economic collapse.

Society and culture are similarly complex systems who respond with great vigour to liberty and unrestrained growth. Government interference in society and culture is as damaging as Government interference in the allocation of capital and manufacturing quotas. At its most extreme this is totalitarianism. But all nation-state governments practice a form of nationalism, in one way or another. This is to create a false legitimacy in the government beyond ensuring equity of liberty and justice. Nationalism is an intrusion on society and culture.

The emergent component is the public realm of complex interaction. Like all complex systems they are at their most invigorated and innovative when the interactions occur without interference. Political rationalism became a by-word in Australian economic theory in the 1980s, Cultural and Societal rationalism need to become as common in political debate as economic rationalism has become.

Dispossessive Equity

The dispossesive is the burden of maintaining government. This includes ensuring that political rights are not infringed, that justice and access to the judicial system is universal, and that liberty is protected. The dispossesive can also encapsulate emergent programs that the electorate requires to be taken on. In the last century that has included programs such as universal education, welfare to protect against poverty and retirement. This raises issue as to how the funds necessary to support these programs can be raised.

The goal of any social organisation is to foment prosperity. This can be taken as the starting point for an equitable system of taxation. Those that have prospered from economic liberty have a moral responsibility to not only maintain the present system of maximum liberty, but also to ensure those that have not prospered by it, are given every opportunity to achieve in this environment. It can be derived from this principle, that taxation should not begin until after the point of prosperity.

There are two ways to determine the point of prosperity, either as those who are above the average salary, or corporate taxable income. Or those that earn the top half of all income, either private or corporate taxable income. For instance, in 2002/2003 total private income was $352,499,306,474 which was shared amongst 8,634,249 taxpayers. For corporate tax total taxable income was 156,777,560,537 shared amongst 664,146 businesses.

Using the average income as the point of prosperity;

• Personal income tax would not begin until $40,800.00
• Corporate income tax would not start until $236,052.00
• Combined income tax, both personal and corporate, would not begin until $54,770.00

Using half of total taxable income as the point of prosperity;

• Personal income tax would not begin until $60,000.00
• Corporate income tax would not start until > $1,000,000.00 (tax tables have no data about the number of businesses with over $1 million of taxable income)

I find using those that have half of the taxable income is a more equitable system of taxation. This would have the added advantage of removing the highly regressive nature of the current Australian taxation brackets. Those that have prospered carry an equal burden in ensuring not only maximum liberty remains, but also that those who have not prospered in such a system, get every opportunity to do so. This equal burden should be carried through to the taxation system. I recommend that;

• A personal tax rate of 30% for those who earn income that is in the top half of all income. This would be adjusted every year. Currently this point is ~ $60,000
• A corporate tax rate of 30% for all companies who have taxable income in the top half of all corporate taxable income. This would be adjusted every year. Currently this is ~ $1,000,000

The danger in this system is that government would skew the equitable nature of it by giving all manner of tax breaks and resulting in the 11,000 page mess of a tax code we have now. But we have that mess now. Adopting this equitable and prosperous model of dispossession, we would have a simpler, fair, and more just system of taxation than the current one.

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A while ago I wrote about intrinsic and emergent properties in social organisation . The several recent discussions on the individual being the dominant discrete political entity in a system suggest hostility to nationalism and national culture, which is not true. These are emergent properties of the social organisation that appear as a result of individuals acting in maximum liberty; socially and culturally.

Nationalism and culturalism are valid forms that have significant effects on social cohesion, however they should not define the system and become synonymous with the state, as their negative forms, including ethnic-nationalism and mono-culturalism, are inherently discriminative.

As emergent properties they are positive, as intrinsic entrenchments they are vehicles for political inequality.

Australian Republican organisations tend to have tiny half-lifes. They split as soon as they are formed. One of the reasons for this is the high level of individualism in the Australian Republican doctrine: another reason is that the Australian variant of republicanism has largely repudiated the 'political' as an intrinsic component of human progress.

Frederick Vosper, the firebrand Australian Republican from the late 19thC wrote one of the strongest stamps of individualism in Australian politics:

Sworn to no party, and of no sect am I.

In that simple sentence Vosper is repudiating partisanship and religion as valid political organisational forms. To Vosper the 'political' becomes the individual - guided by reason and conscience.

I have argued in the past that liberalism is the political philosophy that seeks to maximise individual freedom, while republicanism is the political science which seeks to minimise tyranny. To the point that tyranny is eradicated.

Under republicanism tyranny is an expansive word, beyond absolute power in one individual, as is the Roman understanding of it, but also tyranny's insidious forms. These include arbitrary governance, corruption and governance by exception. One of the purposes of republican political technologies, such as constitutionalism, separation of powers, bill of rights, etc; is that tyranny becomes very easy to spot. When a government steps outside of their constitutional boundaries, or when a branch of government steps outside of the constitution - it is tyranny.

By this definition Australian republicanism becomes a highly rigorous, empirical and replicable system that seeks to limit government such that individual liberty is maximised and freedom from tyranny is codified.

This goes back to Vosper being sworn to no party; Charles Harpur's for the faith that is in them; or Deniehy's comment on the European politics and institutions:

They have been weighed in the balance and found wanting. They contain within themselves the elements of self-destruction and must inevitably yield, at an early day, to that moral revolution which has laid in the dust the proudest monument of human folly when erected on violated justice or perverted reason. Man, the great Reformer, is abroad;

There is an inbuilt wariness and distrust of the 'political'. For Australian Republicans the import of the European and aristocratical political into Australia sullied the new hope for the country as a 'New World" free of the avarice, vice and immorality of political Europe.

For republicans like Deniehy the political was the dominant form of tyranny, and through that a restriction on the individual's moral capability and growth (governor and governed). From the Southern Cross:

Corruption is a part of politics. History shows it, and the man who is governed, knows it.

It is only people like [Henry] Parkes, who simply understand the newspaper part of politics, who doubt it. But there is - the real politician knows , the same thing in government as the Roman church dogmatically, and society by tacit consent, practically hold - that besides the absolute sin itself, there is another distinct and damning sin - the sin of scandal.

Not what you do, but how you do it. The prime necessity in administration is the 'keeping it dark' as that picturesque portion of society which laid the foundations of Australian Empire, used to say 'Keeping it dark' is the science of politics.

But a scientific man should not go out in a 'huff', and leave that sort of over-honest crabbed DIOGENESES men called FORSTERS, to go in, with their little lanterns, and find despatches perdu.

That may seem like cynicism, which, despite the 19thC language, would not be out of place today. However he is repudiating the political is inherently corrupt, while claiming Parkes enjoyed it as part of the marketing and public relations of the party politic. Which is entirely true of the democratic 'political' which must balance the republican restrictions of constitutionalism with the popular temporal will and opinions of their electorate. Which is why we get grey situations such as Killfile recently discussed with the death in custody of Mulrunji Doomadgee.

It is interesting to read that in relation to how Allan Gyngell and Michael Wesley discuss the interaction between the Ministers and Civil Service in foreign policy:

... where Cabinet and ministers are responsible and accountable to the House of Representatives, which in turn is accountable to the electorate - formally establishes a clear demarcation of responsibilities between elected politician and appointed policy officials. ... The ministers derive policy from political values that, in theory, they clearly articulate and distinguish from those of their political competitors. ... Appointed officials are apolitical servants of the state ...

Underlying the politics-administration divide are widely held beliefs about the separation between two qualitatively different tasks in policy making. As Hawkesworth explains in relation to a a slightly different context, these beliefs rest on a distinction that is often made between the hard, objective facts of a policy issue, and a more subjective realm of values, in which political judgements need to be made in response to these facts.

This is a good description between the airy-fairy and the administrative. As I mentioned earlier, if liberalism is the 'values' then republicanism is the down in the trenches facts, procedures, regulations, administration etc - the hard stuff that makes the freedom is great part of liberalism a reality.

Does Australian Republicanism repudiate the 'political'? its rigorous, replicable, reproducible, empirical, administrative nature means it largely has to. Where republicanism recognises the political is as an emergent property, not an intrinsic one.

This is the same as James Madison's statement on faction in Federalist No.10:

Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be a less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.

Madison, the great political scientist, recognises that liberty [intrinsic] leads to faction [emergent] and rather than ban faction, seeks to create an intrinsic environment using technologies such as constitutionalism, separation of powers, bill of rights, representative democracy etc; such that the negative and violent effects of that emergent property are minimised.

This is exactly the same approach that Australian Republicanism has to tyranny, and its perpetrator - the 'political'. This means an Australian Republican constitution must not recognize political parties, the church, the monarchy, or any other form of emergent property that is not intrinsic to maximising liberty and eradicating tyranny.

Mark Richardson is a bit unique in the Australian blogsophere. One, he is a genuine conservative rather than a partisan conservative; two, he recognizes that left-right is meaningless since the collapse of marxism and that the new rival to liberalism is conservatism; and three, he is one of the few writers that is willing to engage the liberal blogs which includes progressives, liberals, republicans and libertarians, and question the basis of their political philosophy. This makes him much more interesting than the 'red meat' chucking that most blogs seem to do these days.

Mark asked recently:

How do rank and file liberals explain their beliefs? Last month I wrote two articles which eventually drew out some serious comments by Larvatus Prodeo readers.

What most seemed to stir the LPers was my argument that liberals don't want such things as religious, ethnic, gender, national, class or cultural identity to matter.

There are a couple of things I like about that question. One he called LPers liberals rather than lefties or luvvies or whatever the current Australian slur/hip name is.

This is an important distinction in modern politics. The traditional left and right have collapsed. The tension in political philosophy that now informs governance is liberalism and conservatism.

LPers are definitely in the liberal column and should embrace that argument within liberalism by branding themselves as progressives. I have called Polemica's brand of politics, in particular Guy's view of governance and the state as progressivism. I believe I am absolutely correct in this characterisation.

The second reason I like this question is because it is a bloody good one that goes right to the heart of the difference between liberalism and conservatism. This is a core question of political equality and does the state have the authority to discriminate politically and legally. Does identity, ethnicity, religiosity, nationalism and other higher-order collectivisms have any authority on the form and conduct of governance?

For the republican the answer is no. I have made this argument in the past in two forms. One that the liberal republican view of government is that the individual is politically dominant over the state. Whereas conservatism sees the state as being dominant over the individual, enabling the state to act discriminatingly in the name of identity, ethnicity etc.

A republican rejects this as political inequality. This is best expressed in Avocadia's Australian Bill of Rights where he explicitly denies the government these choices.

Does this mean identity, ethnicity, etc don't matter? No. It is fine that people see common cause in this manner, but it is a second order effect - an emergent one - not an intrinsic component; consequently it is denied to government and cannot inform governance. I went into this issue in detail describing social organisation. These are the social and cultural forms of individual self-organisation; not the basis of governance.

A good example in Australian history is ethnic-nationalism informing governance. One of the beliefs of ethnic government was that the Aboriginal race was dying out and that half-caste Aboriginals should be integrated into white society. This was done forcibly, originally in Western Australia, but by the 1930s all states and the federal government had government policies to remove half-caste Aboriginal children from their parents. This is nothing more than tyranny. Under republican governance the government is prohibited from removing children from their parents based on race, ethnicity etc.

Again, there is nothing wrong with ethnic expression, as long as it remains a societal and cultural artefact, an emergent property of individuals interacting, rather than an intrinsic political form that informs governance. In the latter case, once these forms of governance leak in, they inevitably lead to despotic policies and in the worst cases executive emergency governance where the state dominates an individual absolutely .

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