Government

Per the definition, a government is the body, entity, invested with the power to manage a political unit, organization or more often, a State. The word governance comes from the Greek word "kubernaein" and the Latin verb "gubernare" which means "to steer". Therefore, according to this definition, government’s responsibility is to steer, drive, lead, guide, manage, and run. The duty of a government is therefore managing certain tasks related to a specific society.

 

Looking at a government as the head of a state or country, there are different kinds of governments, from dictatorship to elected officials. The most democratic governments are the ones voted by every adult person benefiting from that government. There is no nation in the world today where all citizens who are qualified to vote exercise this right. An authoritarian government that is not voted by its people and runs the society on the military power is defined as a military junta. Today, any government that is formed by the votes of its eligible citizens is called a democracy. A government that is formed by election, such as the United States and the majority of European countries assimilating such characteristics, while military and weapon manufacturing sectors dictate policies of those governments, should not be called democracy, as they resemble a military junta. However, all other forms of governments claim to be representatives of people and elected by votes of their people. This is not even discussing qualifications of a candidate and whether anyone can be a candidate, regardless of his or her position in the society, in addition to educational, social and financial status of that person.

First, we need to look at the statistical numbers to see what percent of the voting eligible in any society exercise their rights. By looking at the internet and googling for voter turnout, we get the following data:

Country	Year	Voter Turnout
Haiti	2016-01-01	18.11%
Afghanistan	2019-01-01	19.00%
Nigeria	2023-01-01	26.71%
Central African Republic	2020-01-01	35.25%
Bulgaria	2021-01-01	38.70%
Kyrgyzstan	2021-01-01	39.16%
Portugal	2021-01-01	39.24%
Algeria	2019-01-01	39.88%
Egypt	2018-01-01	41.05%
Mali	2018-01-01	42.70%
Ireland	2018-01-01	43.87%
Congo, Democratic Republic of	2018-01-01	45.40%
State of Palestine	2005-01-01	45.56%
Venezuela	2018-01-01	45.74%
Sudan	2015-01-01	46.40%
North Macedonia, Republic of	2019-01-01	46.65%
Georgia	2018-01-01	46.83%
Palau	2020-01-01	47.73%
Cabo Verde	2021-01-01	47.96%
Moldova, Republic of	2020-01-01	48.54%
Slovakia	2019-01-01	48.74%
Iran, Islamic Republic of	2021-01-01	48.78%
Benin	2021-01-01	50.63%
Tanzania, United Republic of	2020-01-01	50.72%
Burkina Faso	2020-01-01	50.79%
Romania	2019-01-01	51.18%
Croatia	2019-01-01	51.20%
Bosnia and Herzegovina	2022-01-01	51.45%
Slovenia	2022-01-01	51.74%
Mozambique	2019-01-01	51.84%
El Salvador	2019-01-01	51.88%
Comoros	2019-01-01	53.84%
Cameroon	2018-01-01	53.85%
Côte d'Ivoire	2020-01-01	53.90%
Madagascar	2018-01-01	53.95%
Bangladesh	1986-01-01	54.09%
Tunisia	2019-01-01	55.02%
Dominican Republic	2020-01-01	55.29%
Chile	2021-01-01	55.64%
Lithuania	2019-01-01	57.37%
Colombia	2022-01-01	58.10%
Serbia	2022-01-01	58.40%
South Sudan	2010-01-01	58.62%
Mongolia	2021-01-01	59.35%
Uganda	2021-01-01	59.35%
Guatemala	2023-01-01	59.37%
Gabon	2016-01-01	59.46%
Costa Rica	2022-01-01	59.97%
Armenia	2013-01-01	60.18%
Namibia	2019-01-01	60.82%
Ukraine	2019-01-01	62.51%
Mauritania	2019-01-01	62.66%
Niger	2021-01-01	62.91%
Paraguay	2023-01-01	63.29%
Chad	2021-01-01	63.37%
Mexico	2018-01-01	63.43%
Kenya	2022-01-01	64.77%
Yemen	2012-01-01	64.78%
Malawi	2020-01-01	64.81%
Austria	2022-01-01	65.19%
Nicaragua	2021-01-01	65.26%
Senegal	2019-01-01	66.27%
Finland	2018-01-01	66.76%
Iceland	2020-01-01	66.92%
Republic of The Congo (Brazzaville)	2021-01-01	67.17%
Russian Federation	2018-01-01	67.50%
São Tomé and Príncipe	2021-01-01	67.76%
Poland	2020-01-01	68.18%
Czechia	2023-01-01	68.24%
Honduras	2021-01-01	69.09%
Kazakhstan	2022-01-01	69.44%
Montenegro	2023-04-02	70.14%
Zambia	2021-01-01	70.61%
United States	2020-01-01	70.75%
Ukraine	1994-01-01	71.63%
Cyprus	2023-01-01	72.04%
Panama	2019-01-01	73.01%
France	2022-01-01	73.69%
Azerbaijan	2018-01-01	74.24%
Peru	2021-01-01	74.57%
Taiwan	2020-01-01	74.90%
Liberia	2017-01-01	75.19%
Djibouti	2021-01-01	76.44%
Korea, Republic of	2022-01-01	77.08%
Timor-Leste	2022-01-01	77.26%
Syrian Arab Republic	2021-01-01	78.64%
Guinea	2020-01-01	78.88%
Ghana	2020-01-01	78.89%
Brazil	2022-01-01	79.05%
Uzbekistan	2023-01-01	79.88%
Argentina	2019-10-27	80.42%
Ecuador	2021-01-01	80.99%
Indonesia	2019-01-01	81.93%
Sierra Leone	2023-06-24	83.00%
Philippines	2022-01-01	83.07%
Kiribati	2016-01-01	83.12%
Sri Lanka	2019-01-01	83.72%
Belarus	2020-01-01	84.28%
Tajikistan	2020-01-01	85.34%
Zimbabwe	2018-01-01	86.84%
Turkey	2023-01-01	87.04%
Burundi	2020-01-01	87.71%
Bolivia	2020-01-01	88.42%
Seychelles	2020-01-01	88.45%
Maldives	2018-01-01	89.22%
The Gambia	2021-01-01	89.34%
Uruguay	2019-01-01	90.13%
Angola	1992-01-01	90.37%
Togo	2020-01-01	92.28%
Singapore	2011-01-01	94.80%
Turkmenistan	2022-01-01	97.17%
Rwanda	2017-01-01	98.15%
Equatorial Guinea	2022-01-01	98.41%

Source: Voter Turnout Database

Note that this list is copied and shortened from a large list which encompasses several years of data for each country, in addition to parliamentary and other elections. Those other data were deleted, as they are not pertinent to this article.

There are 113 countries on this table. 22 countries show less than half of the population’s participation, and 81 countries show less than two thirds of the population’s participation. This is if we believe that the data, which has probably been provided to this agency by the governments of those countries, are correct. And they don’t seem to be! First of all, it is different for each country as to who is qualified to vote, which makes the comparison difficult. There are two countries where we have more information about voting populations, both of which unfortunately differ from these table. For instance, more than forty eight percent of Iranians participated in 2021 election according to this table. It means that almost half of Iranians believe in their government, which is far from what we see on the ground. Another country is the United States. In 2020, according to this table, more than seventy percent of the people voted in presidential election, which is in contradiction with the following article on Pew Research: “The elections of 2018, 2020 and 2022 were three of the highest-turnout U.S. elections of their respective types in decades. About two-thirds (66%) of the voting-eligible population turned out for the 2020 presidential election – the highest rate for any national election since 1900. The 2018 election (49% turnout) had the highest rate for a midterm since 1914. Even the 2022 election’s turnout, with a slightly lower rate of 46%, exceeded that of all midterm elections since 1970.” According to this article, voters’ turnout in 2020 was much lower than the number claimed on the above table, and it was supposed to be the year of the highest turn out along with two other years. Finally, it is important to know who the candidates are and what limitations are put on them in each country. For instance, only candidates from Democratic and Republican parties are usually elected in the United States. There are other parties too, but with the publicity and propaganda existed for these two parties because of their powers, other parties never have a chance to even get close to them in number of votes. In Iran, all the candidates must go throw a religious screening by some mullahs, and it is not open to majority of people, especially those who are not Muslims. In other countries, similar limitations may have been put on those wishing to run as candidates.

People are different and as a result they have different views about the governments of their choices. There are various forms of governance recommended, each claiming to incorporate a larger number of voters in elections. However, many of them have been put in practice, and so far, none has been able to achieve this goal. When comparing political strategies, we should remember that governments usually have the best propaganda machinery, in order to convince the nation of their agenda. There are lobbying groups forming citizens’ views towards certain policies. Governments use the best of such lobbying strategies to direct people’s views towards their own policies. For instance, the great majority of Americans believe that Russia attacked a smaller country, Ukraine, and United States involvement is a humanitarian jester in supporting a smaller nation. There is no doubt that creating a war by any government is a criminal action. We can easily condemn Russia for instigating a war. When we check further into this matter however, we learn that when Soviet Union was falling into pieces, United States promised Russia not to expand NATO. However, many of those smaller nations became parts of NATO, regardless of what was promised. Afterwards, Russia warned Ukraine, specifically, not to become a member state, since Russia was almost surrounded by NATO member nations. In addition, after Russia attacked Ukraine, in more than one occasion, Zelenskyy called Russia to negotiate, but the government of the United States prevented him from any negotiations. This is ignored by American public, and the fact that this and other policies of the United States’ governments are dictated by weapon manufacturing conglomerates. Needless to say, such conglomerates have kept this country in perpetual war, except for the time Trump was the president, since he owned non-military firms, and perpetual war was not in his personal benefit!

As it was mentioned, United States is trying to create a global war in various places in the world. Currently, Russia is kept busy in a useless war while the United States is sending its advanced military aids to Ukraine. In the Middle East, its proxy, Israel, is slaughtering Palestinians in a hope to expand that war to Iran and other countries in the region. In preparation of a war with China, one can find at least one article in American media per day, against the Chinese government and how bad it treats its people and its contractors, and how those working in China try to leave that country, which is governed by a brutal dictator. But when you speak to people who have recently come back from China, you hear a different story. According to them the technology and various infrastructures are amazingly progressed, and one cannot find copy of them in the west. Also, wealth of each individual is extremely expanded, and keeps increasing each year. It is also important to know that the economic system in China, which is a form of capitalism in a new format that allows the government to exercise control through strict rules and regulations, makes doing business in China much more regulated and restricted than in western countries.

Why have we never had a government that represented a great majority of people? What sort of a government, or what kind of establishment or political system should we have to achieve this goal? To respond to these questions, we need to look at the history and examine theories of government from ancient Greece philosophers to our current ideologues. When checking those theories, we realize that all various concepts of governments culminate with one person on the top exercising unlimited power, which benefit a certain group of industrialists and individuals, but not the majority of the population. The only exception is no government at all, and a system where all the people run the country, at the time when the “government withers away”, as Carl Marx theorized. One might say that Socialism has also been tried many times in various forms in Soviet Union, China, Cuba, North Korea, and some other countries and it never worked out. The reason is that none of these attempts began from the foundation that Marx theorized; the process should start by the country that is most advanced and powerful, such as England of Marx’s time and the United States of 1950s through 1980s.

Currently, there are several countries with kingdoms, where only one person decides about all aspects of citizens’ lives, with nothing to hide! However, as long as we can go back in history, there has always been one person on the top, usually a king, along with a group of people taking care of the business of the state. Currently, we have a few kingdoms and so-called democracies and so-called socialists. However, the form of the government is with one person on the top of the government who dictates everything, whether this person has been put on the top by constitutional monarchy or by election. In the age of mass media when people carry the source of media with them and check it out through their cellphones several times a day, commercialism and advertisement play important roles in becoming head of a state. Going back to the above table and checking percentage of population who vote, those who vote are influenced by media as to whom to vote for. So, whoever can control the media, can decide the next leader. According to the above table, the highest voting turnout in the most recent election was in Turkmenistan, where 97.17% of people voted in January first 2022. Again, the number does not seem to be correct, but even if it was correct at the time, it is no longer, as per Wikipedia, it is a totalitarian state now:
”The politics of Turkmenistan nominally takes place in the framework of a presidential republic, whereby the President of Turkmenistan is nominally both head of state and head of government. However, as of 21 January 2023 a "national leader" was appointed who chairs an independent People's Council (viz.) with authority to amend the constitution, and who exercises supreme political authority. No true opposition parties are allowed; every registered political party supports the third and current President Serdar Berdimuhamedow. The country is frequently described as a totalitarian state.”

Therefore, the only form of government which has been theorized but has never been tried is no government at all, as it was specified by Carl Marx. Hopefully we will witness this form of government as well. At the present global political condition however, it is hard to predict any such event, as wars are expanding by the big powers. We can only hope for peace, as continuation of these wars will destroy the world with a nuclear holocaust.