A Citizen Dissents: Essays in Public Policy

By Nicholas Harris

Public policy essays dealing with political economy, public and private corruption, and indigenous land rights.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nicholas Harris
• Release date: Sep 3, 2016
• ISBN: 9781536593570

Book preview

Author’s Note

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This book is a collection of public policy essays, which have been published previously as individual titles.

The second essay in this book, which is titled A New Political Economy, was formerly published as The Next Economy.

A Philosophy of Life

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The planet we call Earth is very old, perhaps as old as six billion years. From its genesis to the time living things began to appear a vast period elapsed, the details of which is largely unknown to us.

Among the first living things were micro-organisms, bacteria, and algae. When animal life first developed it came as one-celled creatures. Then followed worms, jelly fish, fish and amphibians, and reptiles. In this last group were the dinosaurs, often huge creatures which roamed the Earth between about 180 million and 65 million years ago. After the dinosaurs were birds, mammals, horses, sheep, flesh-eaters, and last of all were the ancestors of humans.

Our ancestors were ape-like mammals we call primates, the first of which appeared about 750,000 years ago. They were succeeded by Java Man, Peking Man, Neanderthal Man, and Cromagnon Man.

As advanced hunters of the time Cromagnon people survived by hunting animals; catching fish; and gathering berries, roots, and fruit. It is generally accepted that Cromagnon must have been predatory enough, and superior to, Neanderthal Man, who was driven out and had disappeared by about 25,000BC (now usually shown as BCE – Before Common Era).

Cromagnon learned how to cook meat and store food; make weapons and tools of stone, wood, bone and flint; make sewing implements, bows and arrows; and come together in small groups to live in caves and huts, work together, and share food.

By about 8,000BCE farming had begun in what is now southern Turkey. This fertile region had wild grains and animals (sheep, goats) flourished. With a reliable food source people began to live in one place, build villages, and eventually towns.  They cultivated fields and developed skills in spinning and weaving, metal work, and pottery.

In marking these beginnings of what we usually refer to Western Civilization, this essay recognizes the continuous culture vested in Australian Aborigines. For the moment, however, we are concerned with the culture that has overwhelmed Aborigines and almost eliminated them.

For almost 750,000 years our ancestors lived more-or-less independent lives, and then began to live as a community. It was a profound social change.

If notions of civilization are at all understood, we seem to have found a need for community; and with it a sense of race, of nation, of State. For the time being I will leave open the question of whether our pre-agrarian instincts are still with us; we do not yet have a reliable understanding of socio-biology for a definitive answer.

Still, there are the obvious symptoms of our communal sense, defined variously as nationalism, patriotism, jingoism. At its extremes this national sense is vulgar, crude, and uncivilized beyond objective measure. Twentieth century examples are Adolf Hitler’s Germany, Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union, Idi Amin Dada’s Uganda, and Pol Pot’s Kampuchea

What these dictators did or had done to their own people – and those of other countries and ethnic groups – is a reminder of something disturbing in the human psyche. If it exists in one race, there is no good reason to think that it isn’t in others. And there is ample evidence of this menace, the question being one only of scale.

What conclusion might we draw from this review of our past? What questions arise? What do the symptoms indicate?

Perhaps the first question to ask is that of intent. Do we intend goodwill, or ill-will? If it is the latter, we will respect differences, and advance the principle that all people have common and individual rights. With such rights comes a need to protect them. To do this we established laws and courts to administer them.

A body of law must intend something; it must express our views about fair play, of justice. For principles of justice to be debated and defined the community must come together; as it is impractical for all of us to come together in one place, we developed a method of appointing representatives of us all, a system well-established