Is the decline of Parliament irreversible?

• Author: Balthazar, Louis

This article looks at some factors that have contributed to the decline of Parliament including the gradual loss of relevance of politics generally and the tendency of the executive branch to function as if Parliament did not exist. The author puts forth a few suggestions that might lead to a reversal of the decline.

Audiences are always taken aback when I remind them that Aristotle located politics at the very tip of the moral pyramid. Why have we come to consider the political order as amoral, if not immoral, or quite simply, as a necessary evil? Of course we can always blame politicians themselves, as their behaviour is far from always exemplary. However, that is a facile reflex which will not take us very far. First of all, we have elected those politicians and we must acknowledge that they have never tried harder to please us than in our time. That may even be a part of the problem. They are trying too hard to please us, to meet our most superficial, materialistic and least noble requirements. In the purest market economy style, they give us, or rather they try to give us, that which meets our least well thought-out appetites for well-being.

In fact, our representatives are basically responding to pressure resulting from special interests, interests that are very often, it must be said, self-centred ones. Even though they may in their eloquent speeches talk to us about the greater interest, the common good, they do not really believe in it. However, should politics not be the ideal forum in which to pursue social justice, to seek to further the equality of all citizens, to redistribute riches to some extent, and thus guarantee basic security for all? We have for the most part lost our sense of social solidarity, which is the essential reason for the existence of a political order. We have at the same time lost our sense of social duty that is our sense of social responsibility.

The popular neo-liberal movements largely contributed to making us forget this sense of community which is at the basis of the political order. Fortunately, liberalism triumphed over the communist menace which never managed to accommodate a modicum of democracy. At the same time, it gave free reign to a market economy system based on individualism and the freedom to sell and buy everything at the best possible price. It greatly reinforced our individualistic behaviours and led many to believe that true democracy resides in the market. Our real representatives may well be those who managed to sell us their shoddy wares, because, as some have said, we vote for them. We elect them by buying their products. It has been said of politics that it is the art of selling to people that which they do not want to buy, of making things work which would not work in the market economy.

We know of course that the truth lies elsewhere. We know that our simple consumer's behaviour would never suffice to provide us with social services, a cultural policy, a truly democratic education system. We are currently witnessing a growing awareness, one which is to be found in an increasingly large proportion of the population, of the contradictions of the global capitalist system based on the unbridled freedom of businesses to invest and develop wherever they like, however they wish, by eliminating all of the restrictions that might be placed on them by the political order. Unfortunately, this...