When allegations of corruption are made against people in positions of power, such as those levelled against Spanish Prime Minister Mr Mariano Rajoy earlier this year (Tremlett, 2013), it can generate enough fear and anger to get people out onto the streets in protest. However outright corruption, such as that which Mr Rajoy was accused, is not all that can cause that kind of anger or fear.
Lobbying, in particular by wealthy interests seeking the support of those in power - and often through declared and legal financial contributions - can also have an unseemly edge. At the UK's Prime Minister's Questions, opposition leader Mr Ed Miliband accused the Prime Minister Mr Cameron of being in the pocket of just such a lobbying interest. Mr Miliband pointed out that hedge funds that had received £145m in tax cuts from the Conservative Government, had also made £25m worth of contributions to that party (Wintour, 2013).
When powerful organisations with vested interests are able to work in concert, even if such collaboration is done legally, and above board, there still remains a stench of impropriety, of exploitation. And even the perception of corruption is enough to cause fear, since powerful interests with power concentrated in their hands pose a real threat to even the most basic of rights. The might and influence of such a confederation allows them to
deflect questions, suppress debate and prevent change. In the face of
such a torrent of might, how can people, and their rights, prevail?
In Agrarian Justice, Thomas Paine stressed that:
'Cultivation is at least one of the greatest natural improvements ever made by human invention. It has given to created earth a tenfold value. But the landed monopoly that began with it has produced the greatest evil. It has dispossessed more than half the inhabitants of every nation of their natural inheritance, without providing for them, as ought to have been done, an indemnification for that loss, and has thereby created a species of poverty and wretchedness that did not exist before.'
Paine argued that those who took advantage of the system of private property still owed something back to the community, who were exploited and dispossessed by the existence of the institution. While his comments here were aimed at the general construction of modern western society, which from its root and beginning was built around a foundation of property, the point extends beyond its roots to many other forms of corruption, impropriety and exploitation. People oppose the collusion and corruption of the powerful, because it is an abdication of civil responsibility - by purpose or neglect, it threatens people's rights.
Throughout history vested interests have gathered power about themselves, using their wealth and influence to form powerful confederations that allow them to strip away the encumbrances upon them that are the rights of others, and to rule in their own favour. Each time it has sparked not just protests but revolutions (The Economist, 2013). But those mass movements take a big risk when they decide to oppose them by pitting power against power.
In order to oppose them, the people put together their own powerful movements. Yet, when they do, they only build more power structures, new potentially unchecked leaders and new vested interests. The risk is that, by relying on popular might to defeat institutional might, you tear down one power structure just to replace it with another.
This is where civil disobedience offers guidance to mass protest. It opposes power, not with a power of its own, but with refusal. The true power of concerted action by vested interests is in its monopoly on the use of force - the ability to compel, control or coerce others through might of arms or fear. Rather than meet fear or force head-to-head with the might of a popular movement, civil disobedience argues that the fundamental answer to attempts at control and tyranny must be the refusal to co-operate.
The difficulty comes in facing the fear wrought by those who wish to impose their views, their systems, their control, by way of punishments - like fines or imprisonment - or through denial of rights and services. Facing those kinds of threats calmly, without anger or using violence, takes phenomenal courage. But in such action is the most basic defence against despotism. Tyrannous attempts to control others depend upon tyrants successfully getting people to play their game by their rules - but without the compliance of the people, tyranny is for naught.
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References:
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+ Giles Tremlett's 'Spanish prime minister Rajoy accused of hiding secret income'; in The Guardian; 31 January 2013.
+ Patrick Wintour's 'Ed Miliband challenges David Cameron on pay rise and party funding'; in The Guardian; 10 July 2013.
+ Thomas Paine's 'Agrarian Justice'; 1795.
+ The Economist's 'The march of protest'; 29th June 2013.
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