Appropriate politics depends on confronted issue.

# 3058

Polybius on apropriate politics.

Following the Greeks, the family is the basic unit of society, with shared interests. If there are involved more than one family, we have a new situation with poentially conflicting interests.Politics comes from polis the city, and the polis is a social organization when there are at play the interests of more than one family. Politics means the procedures of coping with conflict in the polis. Polybius says that democracy is good when cnflicts are within the polis because the different interests can artculate and the people vote. But if the conflict comes from without democracy is not good, because it leads to splitting the community in the factions when what is needed is the united front. Therefore, a centralized authoritarian government is best at handling external conflict, and he goes on to write about how a different time is it in Roman history The people were able to choose one or the other based on appropriate response to events. This kind of social intelligence is not currently in our consciousness. We stop at either Democracy or Autocracy is good independent of circumstances. Therefore, our response to large issues is chaotic, rather than principled.