A POLITICAL REBIRTH
I had in mind and half written several articles that I believed could be interesting for the readers of Diario16. However, the theoretical interest for the presumed importance of my ideas was relegated quickly to its fair terms when reading the masterful triad of the professor Jiménez de Parga last Wednesday, Thursday and Friday in these very pages.
The generic title was “Governing with an Economic Crisis.» Although I found it strange, when noticing that heading, I thought by professional deformation that such a prestigious professor was going to fall into the temptation of introducing himself into the absurd and quantitative rough track of numeric charts and the naked economic problem of ideas and Politics with a capital letter. This was a gross initial error and very on the contrary. I understand that he picks up the classic concept of Political Economy that the O-economy understood (moral or political) as the wise and legitimate government of the great family that is the State.
Although many recent analyses study the influence of the Economy on Law and Politics, it is also necessary to highlight the remarkable significance that, for greater economic development and progress, the effective functioning of the legal institutions and norms of the highest class has. The more the Law acts as an ordering factor of economic life, the more it stands out. I also think that the institutional Economy is important. Law and the Economy are condemned to understand each other cordially. Responsible freedom, property, exchange, division of work, capacity of service, competition and widespread managerial mentality, are the basic » institutions » that allow and accelerate the increase of economic value. Therefore the Law will carry out an irreplaceable economic task if it is able to create the appropriate framework for strengthening and defending these basic principles of the market economy without interventionism and obsolete coercions.
From the saturated politician’s point of view I consider the article referring to the sole Administration and reticulated capital the most important of the three. But the explanation is so clear and the advantageousness of its putting into practice so firm that the only comment that it deserves is one of encouraging and demanding the political class to stop meddling with interregional competition and agreeing to work urgently on something that concerns us all in such an evident way. The more internal collaboration and cooperation there is, the greater prestige and capacity for external competition there will be. The more inter-party and inter-regional envy, the worse the situation will be for everyone.
Although Law and by no means Procedural Law is not my specialty, it is only necessary to have a minimum knowledge of the organization of any task or company in our complex financial and post-industrial society to agree on the necessity of substituting the uni-personal Tribunal with an official magistrate aided by assistant judges, several collaborating lawyers and a team of experts in the matters on those that the judges are pronouncing. The comparison with the explosion of consultants, collaborators, technicians, advisors… etc. in other areas of administration it is simply shameful.
Without devaluing the other proposals, personally I find the ideas for the regeneration of our democracy that are outlined in the first instalment of the series very attractive. In Europe, together with economic paralysis, the fatigue and routine boredom of the democracy of parties and the internal monolithicism and corruption of those same political formations that are articulated around a personal and highly advised isolated power, begin to become widespread with intensity. Voting discipline and closed lists convert the transparent and open debate of ideas into an ideological monochord fight. That captive vote of the party nomenclatures transforms the rich and varied nuances of those same ideas and political proposals into a fronton court with obsolete, unidirectional and absurd rallying between the Left and Right. The debates of ideas in Parliament become ideological fights where each gladiator looks for the personal Achilles Heel of the opponent and entrenches himself desperately in the conquered power and maintains his decisions and statements, defending them cloak and dagger (however dishonourable they are) against all reason and against the always productive common sense. Rancid ideologies triumph and renovating ideas are lost.
I only disagree with the professor on one point: letting matters take their course so that our current politicians clarify and decide to start these reforms. There are other quicker routes, even without electoral reforms, to demand and to start those projects. We will speak later on. What is clear is that we need global Politics, true Ethics and Philosophy with a capital letter: Wisdom. I do not know if he who has the most power and has had in Spain in these years has in his interior greater ambitions for our country than his fellow citizens. What I am sure about is that he has not demonstrated the healthy ambition of high Politics that the professor Jiménez de Parga outlines from the written and open terrace of a plural newspaper.
JJ Franch Meneu
