Gaddafi Green Book Critical Perspectives
Gaddafi. The name today associated with it many connotations. Dictator whose only source of
legitimacy is oil wealth? Intelligent leader who fuses and Islamic and Arabic society with socialism?
Certainly, Gaddafi as a human would inflict contrasting opinions and perspectives since one’s
actions fundamentally contains contradicting behaviours and thoughts. It would hence be difficult to
judge him as a person, not fairly at least. But if I put aside his behaviours and actual intentions as the
Libyan dictator, what would I feel about his theories and ideology? Would my power of hindsight
help reveal newer, adapted perspectives?
The first few pages, being one that supposed paints the context on which his “realised issues of
society” and “solutions” builds on. And yet these few pages strike me with the image that a lot of
assumptions are made (note: it seems like the whole book has such a style of making assumptions
and calling them definites). It assumed that: 1) Politics is about struggles of “instruments of
governments”, 2) Particular government structures are “always victorious” at the end, and 3) The so
called “victory” must be accompanies with the “defeat” of the people (aka everyone else). Conflict
Theory. This toxin again.
To address these assumptions, I would use contradicting scenarios of our observed political world,
and alternative theories built on logic instead of sentiments. I fail to see how politics are “struggles of
instruments of governments”. The nature of polities, and hence politics, relies on the fundamental
justification of utilizing specialization, cooperation, and economies of scale, so as to bring better
outcomes to all its members compared to if they all conduct their own welfare on their own. The
immense power and efficiency of social cooperation (or I would refer below as “amalgamation”/
“amalgamative effect”) dictates that participating in large and extensive polities are almost always
overall beneficial to its members, even when there are significant drawbacks in the likes of social
pressures, taxation, or compliance to majorities. Therefore, is the key question of politics (if there is
one at all as it does in the case of economics) about how ideologies and social groups conflict with
each other? (as in zero sum games) Or is it more a matter of maximising social efficiency (to maximise
the amalgamative effect) and preventing the drawbacks of unjustified and unnecessary intrusion on
individual liberty?
Having given an alternative theory, the assumptions of Gaddafi can be addressed.
For one, politics should not be seen as a zero-sum game. It ought not to be assumed that we must
struggle and out-compete the other systems and ideologies, since these struggles are mind games and
does not yield benefits on its own (and neither does its conversion of others into believing this).
Instead, what we should do is to compromise with all social/interest groups holding contradicting
ideologies, and hence deciding what are to be achieved and making empirically effective steps
towards it. The goal of politics is not to win other ideologies, but to maximise the amalgamative
effects. In a more realistic background, this would be like compromising between the wealthy and
the poor, and agreeing on the fact that amalgamative benefits are maximized when education is
promoted. Certainly there are still disagreements regarding how much the wealthy deserves, but
these are irrelevant to governance, as no matter which way it goes, it does not produce more
amalgamative benefits. And having 21st century societies and economies as an evidence, particular
that of Nordic countries, it is rather obvious that a government that focuses on delivering more
amalgamation, in the form of pooling money together to give excellent education and cost-efficient
infrastructures, are the way to raise welfare of all. Foolish of 18th century Marxists to think taking
money from wealthy would raise living standards of the poor.
For two, there does not exist victories in politics. As mentioned above, Gaddafi’s obsession with
victories and losses are immense. But in a society, what exactly counts as victory? Does it mean
sitting on the throne? Controlling most wealth in society? He fails to explain why any of these would
constitute a victory. The fact is that sitting on a throne or holding wealth means nothing more than
holding the means to make changes, changes to society, one’s own life, etc. Power cannot itself be an
end if not manifested or used, which is why ceremonial monarchs have power but no “victories”. This
does not itself constitute a victory, as it is the changes that are made, and their effectiveness, that
could be called victories (let’s for now forgo the nihilist premise as that provides no alternative
answers anyways). Therefore, a healthy and social perspective to power and the means to make
changes should be about whether their distribution can maximise amalgamative benefits, and more
often that not it creates an outcome requiring compromise and action, not stagnancy, “victories”, and
inactions. (Certainly there also is the dim perspective where the best distribution of power is
absolute concentration on oneself so as to ensure only one’s own amalgamative welfare, but this
would invoke a conversation about benevolent vs. selfish governance and is a topic for another day).
For three, a popularly and majoritarian government presents no inherent damage to the minorities,
when complying with the legitimacy and amalgamative principles. Gaddafi mentions how the 49% is
harmed and “dictated” by the politician who received 51% of the votes. However, this is in the
assumption that: i) the government controls everything an individual does, which it does not nor
justifiably should, and ii) the government has not other limits, which it does under natural law to
satisfy its legitimacy at the first place. The nature of society, which does not inherently involve updown governance, shows the justification of society is amalgamation. Being ruled by a person who I
do not favour (rational reasons or not), as long as this can still deliver the amalgamative effects or
ideally maximise it, it would remain a rational decision and hence a reasonable contract to be ruled by
such and participate in society. It would be like the fact that, I can still trade bread with wool and
enjoy economies of scale, or enjoy the continued education and healthcare provided by pooling social
resources, even under the governance of the person who I don’t personally favour. Furthermore, it can
even be argued that, because electoral representative democracies are required to maintain cohesion
and stability in society and hence provide the setting for amalgamation to occur, the 49% accepting
the rule by the 51% delivers the best outcome and most welfare, in contrast to breaking the society up
to have 100% agreement (one-man society) and suffering from the reduced welfare from a nonexistent amalgamative society. Certainly, we also need to consider that elected governments in
democracies are limited in power of intervening individual lives, no matter how popular they are. (Off
topic: no matter how everyone in the society wants to brutally murder a person, the state is in no
authority to do so and should even protect that person, or else the state loses the legitimacy by
disqualifying the ability to consent a member has when delivering power to an upper authority, hence
creating a paradox of invalid governance) All this argument puts forward to explain is the fact that
democratic governance, with adherence to the rule of subsidiarity and constrained authorities, is the
best amalgamative outcome for societal members, and hence fully justified and rationally consented
to, and further constitutes no dictatorship.