“The Nature of Man and the Origin of Government”
Why does society require government? “The answer will be found in the fact . . . that, while man is created for the social state and is accordingly so formed as to feel what affects others as well as what affects himself, he is, at the same time, so constituted as to feel more intensely what affects him directly than what affects him indirectly through others . . . I intentionally avoid the expression ‘selfish feelings’ . . . because, as commonly used, it implies an unusual excess of the individual over the social feelings in the person to whom it is applied . . .”
The powers of government, however, “must be administered by men in whom, like others, the individual are stronger than the social feelings.” Consequently, the danger exists that they will convert government powers “into instruments to oppress the rest of the community. That by which this is prevented . . . is what is meant by constitution, in its most comprehensive sense, when applied to government”
“Constitution is the contrivance of man, while government is of divine ordination. Man is left to perfect what the wisdom of the Infinite ordained as necessary to preserve the race” (271). An echo here of the distinction in Aquinas between natural law and human law.
Thus, the key question: “How can those who are invested with the powers of government be prevented from employing them as the means of aggrandizing themselves instead of using them to protect and preserve society?”
Constitutional Design -- Concurrent Versus Numerical Majorities
g.) The ruled must possess the means “of resisting successfully this tendency on the part of rulers to oppression and abuse. Power can only be resisted by power -- and tendency by tendency. Those who exercise power and those subject to its exercise -- stand in antagonistic relations to each other” (272).
h.) “Such an organism, then, as will furnish the means by which resistance may be systematically and peaceably made on the part of the ruled to oppression and abuse of power on the part of the rulers is the first and indispensable step toward forming a constitutional government” (272).
I.) The “right of suffrage”, ensuring “the responsibility of the rulers to the ruled . . . is the indispensable and primary principle in the foundation of a constitutional government” (272).
“The sum total . . . of its effects, when most successful, is to make those elected the true and faithful representatives of those who elected them . . .[,] but in doing so, it only changes the seat of authority without counteracting, in the least, the tendency of government to oppression and abuse of its powers” (272).
The numerical versus the concurrent majority.
Numerical majority: When “one regards numbers only and considers the whole community as a unit having but one common interest throughout, and collects the sense of the greater number of the whole as that of the community” (276). In effect, the greater part of the people is taken as the whole, “and the government of the greater part as the government of the whole” (277). This “leads to the conclusion that . . . nothing more is necessary than the right of suffrage and the allotment to each division of the community a representation in the government in proportion to numbers” (277).
Those who “fall into these errors regard the restrictions which organism [concurrent majority] imposes on the will of the numerical majority as restrictions on the will of the people and, therefore, as not only useless but wrongful and mischievous” (278).
Concurrent majority: “It is this mutual negative among its various conflicting interests which invests each with the power of protecting itself, and places the rights and safety of each where only they can be securely placed, under its own guardianship. . . . It is, indeed, the negative power which makes the constitution, and the positive which makes the government” (278).
Thus while the principle of numerical majority divides the community in two, that of the concurrent majority “tends to unite the most opposite and conflicting interests and to blend the whole in one common attachment to the country” (279-280). Why? Because “Each sees and feels that it can best promote its own prosperity by conciliating the good will and promoting the prosperity of the others” (280).
My simple conclusion:
Majority of TC community + majority of GC community = Concurrent Majority of Cypriots
50/50 reperesentation in upper house neither harms the interests of each community, respectively nor creates a tyranny of numerical majority based on single ethnicity.
