Lebanese Political System: Needs Creative destruction.

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by Ghassan Karam

Lebanese secular activist, holds up a banner during a march calling for secularism and the abolishment of sectarianism, in Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday April 25, 2010.
Lebanese secular activist, holds up a banner during a march calling for secularism and the abolishment of sectarianism, in Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday April 25, 2010.

Contrary to what many of the Lebanese political leaders often proclaim, the Lebanese political system is very highly archaic, stultified, anachronistic and even feudalistic. It is a system that is rigid and so it nurtures in its constituents a feeling of helplessness, a feeling that change is difficult if not impossible. Such feelings do not encourage free thought or free political thinking, such a system in essence is very undemocratic and helps produce a static architecture, a society whose social parameters hardly change. The individual fears self expression for the fear of being ostracized by the group in which he/she was born , a group that acts as the โ€œmodernโ€ lord of the manor.

One easy way to understand the inefficiency implied by such a political system can be best illustrated from the study of economics. Microeconomics; price theory; is built around the concept that the most efficient society is that whose structure conforms to the strict guidelines of perfect competition. It is easy to illustrate, as every book in Econ 101, does that as markets become less perfectly competitive then the degree of exploitation and inefficiency increases. A popular such an explanation can demonstrate mathematically that a perfectly competitive market will produce quantity โ€œaโ€ of a good when a market that has 3 firms will produce ยพ of โ€œaโ€, a market that is a duopoly (two firms) will produce 2/3 of โ€œaโ€ while a pure monopoly will produce only ยฝ of โ€œaโ€.

Lebanon has adopted a system that is designed to be inefficient since it essentially has divided the country into 3 tribes. Each has its distinct identity and is not capable of thinking in terms of what is good for the national good since in its narrow vision of reality it is taught to think only of its own tribe , a narrow vision driven by selfishness. It also happens that each of these tribes is a sectarian/religious one. The main divisions are 50% of the seats in the chamber of deputies must belong to Christians while the other 50 % belong to the Moslems who are almost equally divided between Sunni and Shia. (The above does not take into consideration the 5% Druze).

As is obvious the three major sects have a fixed allotment of seats and the great majority in each sect vote in favour of their religious identity. A fixed allotment, besides being discriminatory by its nature, leads to the stagnation and the inefficiency of a market where the 3 firms agree on dividing the territory in question. This arrangement is not conducive to change, to new ideas and to progress. It does lead, inadvertently to the most conservative society, a society where the Schumpeterian and Marxist idea of political creative destruction is alien.

One easy explanation for creative destruction is the inherent competition between the firms, in any market structure, provided that the firms are not prevented from competing with each other. Boeing, the large airplane manufacturer became at one point the hegemon in the commercial aviation industry. That is when Boeing did not feel the need to innovate and to listen to the demands of its clients. It actually became so arrogant that it dictated to its clients what it thought was good for them. All of this changes and for the better, when a few European countries decided to form Airbus which introduced many a new technological breakthrough in airplane manufacturing. This obviously shook Boeing to its roots and pushed it to respond by being equally creative and equally efficient. The flying public gained from this.

This is unfortunately what passes for elections in Lebanon. No one group, except for the Christians who are more or less equally divided between the Sunnis and the Shia, feels the need to introduce new ideas and to compete on the bases of policies that are favour the common good. In that case elections are practically a sham, not because the votes are not counted accurately, but because the puppeteers are still the same ones. In a sense Lebanon has had the same puppeteers ever since its creation in 1920.

This charade must stop. Get rid of this system of specified seats and let the people vote any way that they want to but let them vote freely for whoever they want to represent them. Otherwise this silly and archaic game will always have one result and one result only: a static government and a cabinet that by having representatives from each group winds up paralyzed and cannot govern. We need to introduce the incentive of creative destruction otherwise we will continue running on the spot, as we have been doing for almost seventy years. We need to have the traditional leaders fear the outcome of elections so that they can be driven to become more open, less autocratic and more responsive. No one, not a Salam, a Hariri, a Junblatt, an Arslan, a Beri, A Gemayel, a Aoun, a Geageaโ€ฆ. Should feel comfortable about the outcome of the vote. It is time that we act as Lebanese Christians, Lebanese Moslems and not the reverse.

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Comments

24 responses to “Lebanese Political System: Needs Creative destruction.”

  1. 5thDrawer Avatar
    5thDrawer

    Good to see you again, Ghassan … the feeling of flogging a dead horse must be strong.
    Hope you have been well.

    1. ghassan Karam Avatar
      ghassan Karam

      Try and try again ๐Ÿ™‚ Every once in a while a new way of presenting the same issue might be helpful. This did wind up sounding that it is against sectarianism , which it is, but I started with the intension that it is the lack of competition that is the root cause. Obviously though we do not have competition and creativity because of sectarianism. Its a vicious circle.

      1. 5thDrawer Avatar
        5thDrawer

        Ghassan … From a recent article in Daily Star, the competition now seems to be with ‘creative’ Syrian refugees who are allowed to open shops and undercut ‘the locals’ in various ways. Again, a government problem of ‘regulations’, of course …
        But of course, I recognize you mean political competition in the ‘brain dept’. The ‘family business’ just carries on. ๐Ÿ™

  2. 5thDrawer Avatar
    5thDrawer

    Good to see you again, Ghassan … the feeling of flogging a dead horse must be strong.

    1. ghassan Karam Avatar
      ghassan Karam

      Try and try again ๐Ÿ™‚ Every once in a while a new way of presenting the same issue might be helpful. This did wind up sounding that it is against sectarianism , which it is, but I started with the intension that it is the lack of competition that is the root cause. Obviously though we do not have competition and creativity because of sectarianism. Its a vicious circle.

      1. 5thDrawer Avatar
        5thDrawer

        Ghassan … From a recent article in Daily Star, the competition now seems to be with ‘creative’ Syrian refugees who are allowed to open shops and undercut ‘the locals’ in various ways. Again, a government problem of ‘regulations’, of course …
        But of course, I recognize you mean political competition in the ‘brain dept’. The ‘family business’ just carries on. ๐Ÿ™

  3. Sebouh80 Avatar
    Sebouh80

    The message of this article is clear, the Lebanese political establishment is rotten to the core, and that another world is possible provided that the people are united and committed to overthrow the current corrupt system in power which since Lebanon’s inception was based on favoritism, sectarianism and remanent of old feudal dynastic families that still play a prominent role in the Lebanese political arena.

    1. ghassan Karam Avatar
      ghassan Karam

      Sebouh,
      The unfortunate thing about this Sebouh, is that there isn’t even a single sign that things are about to get better.

      1. Sebouh80 Avatar
        Sebouh80

        I totally agree.

  4. Sebouh80 Avatar
    Sebouh80

    The message of this article is clear, the Lebanese political establishment is rotten to the core, and that another world is possible provided that the people are united and committed to overthrow the current corrupt system in power which since Lebanon’s inception was based on favoritism, sectarianism and remanent of old feudal dynastic families that still play a prominent role in the Lebanese political arena.

    1. ghassan Karam Avatar
      ghassan Karam

      Sebouh,
      The unfortunate thing about this Sebouh, is that there isn’t even a single sign that things are about to get better.

      1. Sebouh80 Avatar
        Sebouh80

        I totally agree.

  5. Naji Abi-Hashem, PhD Avatar
    Naji Abi-Hashem, PhD

    There are many good points in the essay above. However, I would say, the Lebanese system needs a Creative Re-Construction rather than Destruction, as the term carries negative emotional connotations and is affiliated with years of painful experiences, multiple trauma and failures, and plenty of outside interferences. There is a lot of room for improvement and the system can accommodate that very well. Unfortunately, Lebanon has been like a designate patient who is never allowed to recover. However, the system has a lot of solid foundations and parliamentary flexibilities. Lebanon is not a police nation and the freedom of expression and socio-human resiliency are remarkable. Of course, no system is perfect and all have room for improvement. I live in the USA and people vote and elect representatives based on affiliations and clear sub-cultural belonging to social groups, agendas, and mentalities, not to mention the two only large parties who have “fixed allotments” on local, communal, and national levels. Religious faith and tradition, race and ethnicity, and other identities, affiliations, and values actually play a huge role during election time and then they fade away for a while but remain at work dynamically in a subtle way. After elections, lobbying play a huge role in shaping minds and decisions… So, there is no escape of some level of cultural background, value system, and social affiliation. In the opinion of many scholars, there is no neutral democracy or totally secular system. Always contextualization is at work as a dynamic force and integral part of any group of individuals or society. Thus, we hope, work, invest, and pray that Lebanon will recover soon, and more young professional talents move into leadership, and the old guards will fade away, so we can enjoy a progressive, solid, and beautiful country while treasuring our heritage and cultural richness. Thank you!

    1. 5thDrawer Avatar
      5thDrawer

      Thoughts from a doctor … in a country which promotes Insurance Companies to pay high doctor fees, rather than have some regulation under a National Health Plan for ALL, which ALL pay into.
      “Lebanon is not a police nation and the freedom of expression and socio-human resiliency are remarkable.” … Right. The resiliency needs to be strong when you add the ‘socio’ to the ‘human’ under laws not made for all humans to experience equally, but for individual cults also called ‘religions’ which serve only to divide a country into the present small fiefs … which ‘police’ themselves as we have seen in this past week alone with a man losing a penis, and a husband being shot. And this is largely due to an education divided by those same ‘socio’paths – which, as we see in the USA, keep ‘states’ being widely different from each other and from the Country’s Government as well. It’s One reason a Congress of Statesmen cannot decide together on how to apply a policy FOR humans suffering from anti-human behaviour in Syria; – this in either country, actually, although there ARE ‘feet on the ground’ at least from Lebanon- even if they march against those who wish for freedom of choice.
      I may agree there is “no escape from some level of cultural background” – although, I would dare to say not being policed properly is a reason for the obvious bad parts of it.
      The ‘Confessional Parliamentary Democracy’ where no-one confesses allegiance to Lebanon FIRST, and the supposedly elected Parliament cannot function due to a Sectarian Cabinet, thus has no real chance of being the “progressive” Democracy you dream of.
      Is the USA much different? ONLY in that ‘the people’ had to decide in a ‘NEW’ and very Wild Land that being culturally different didn’t matter so much in the end, when pitted against the ONE force no-one can overcome without working together – NATURE.
      And these days, the education is not helping them maintain their success in the ‘humane’ part of that experience – as THAT is being divided by the ‘sectarianism’ too. The glue holding a ‘Great Melting Pot’ together is coming unstuck in many ways – but some things were never ‘stuck’ between states in the first place.
      And, as in the ‘Culture Families’ at work in Lebanon, the ‘Power & Money’ can even run the Congress, as they do a Cabinet … with the lobbyists of the ‘cultures’ trying to decide the wind directions of the world they want to control.
      How can you expect “young professional talents” to move into ‘leadership’, when the ones who may have been more open to education naturally and see past those ‘cultural barriers’ DO see the need, but also the futility … and are trying to get out of the place they can’t practice it – not even as doctors and nurses in a hospital.
      You are right … there is no “Nutrality’ … but that is not what Democracy asks for. Otherwise no-one would vote at all, and humans would be perfectly happy procreating under a despotic feudal system and a stale experience on the planet – until they ran out of food. Democracy asks you to think for yourself – and make the experience better for us all.
      ‘Contextualize’ THIS. Screw the ‘scholars’ – who too often believe they are being ‘dynamic’ by regurgitation of old theories with new names. You can’t “Reconstruct” what never was.

    2. ghassan Karam Avatar
      ghassan Karam

      Naji,
      The choice of the term “creative destruction” is at least partially related to the fact that it has become part of the language, so to speak after Schumpeter popularized the idea and was adopted by many in an effort to explain the need for dynamism and creativity. The implication carried by the term “creative destruction” implies total radical change while the term “creative re-construction” implies evolution instead or revolution.
      I strongly believe that one of the better cases of creative destruction can be seen in the internet. It has destroyed almost everything it has touched and that is good. ( No land lines for telephones, no music CD sales to speak of, newspapers, magazines and book publishers are scrambling to reinvent themselves, travel agencies do not exist…. and online courses are about to change the structure of higher education. Politically the new technology demands a more responsive government,more attention to human rights and more transparency. But none of these effects will come to pass if the architecture stays the same. A complete redesign requires a new architecture.

    3. hameerlebanon Avatar
      hameerlebanon

      Ya Naji and you have a PhD, emphasizing PhD here! does not make you any more intelligent than any one on this board- enough .. please …you need to get around to see how the world works..may be then you can add another PhD!

  6. Naji Abi-Hashem, PhD Avatar
    Naji Abi-Hashem, PhD

    There are many good points in the essay above. However, I would say, the Lebanese system needs a Creative Re-Construction rather than Destruction, as the term carries negative emotional connotations and is affiliated with years of painful experiences, multiple trauma and failures, and plenty of outside interferences. There is a lot of room for improvement and the system can accommodate that very well. Unfortunately, Lebanon has been like a designate patient who is never allowed to recover. However, the system has a lot of solid foundations and parliamentary flexibilities. Lebanon is not a police nation and the freedom of expression and socio-human resiliency are remarkable. Of course, no system is perfect and all have room for improvement. I live in the USA and people vote and elect representatives based on affiliations and clear sub-cultural belonging to social groups, agendas, and mentalities, not to mention the two only large parties who have “fixed allotments” on local, communal, and national levels. Religious faith and tradition, race and ethnicity, and other identities, affiliations, and values actually play a huge role during election time and then they fade away for a while but remain at work dynamically in a subtle way. After elections, lobbying play a huge role in shaping minds and decisions… So, there is no escape of some level of cultural background, value system, and social affiliation. In the opinion of many scholars, there is no neutral democracy or totally secular system. Always contextualization is at work as a dynamic force and integral part of any group of individuals or society. Thus, we hope, work, invest, and pray that Lebanon will recover soon, and more young professional talents move into leadership, and the old guards will fade away, so we can enjoy a progressive, solid, and beautiful country while treasuring our heritage and cultural richness. Thank you!

    1. 5thDrawer Avatar
      5thDrawer

      Thoughts from a doctor … in a country which promotes Insurance Companies to pay high doctor fees, rather than have some regulation under a National Health Plan for ALL, which ALL pay into.
      “Lebanon is not a police nation and the freedom of expression and socio-human resiliency are remarkable.” … Right. The resiliency needs to be strong when you add the ‘socio’ to the ‘human’ under laws not made for all humans to experience equally, but for individual cults also called ‘religions’ which serve only to divide a country into the present small fiefs … which ‘police’ themselves as we have seen in this past week alone with a man losing a penis, and a husband being shot. And this is largely due to an education divided by those same ‘socio’paths – which, as we see in the USA, keep ‘states’ being widely different from each other and from the County’s Government as well. One reason a Congress of Statesmen cannot decide together on how to apply a policy FOR humans suffering from anti-human behaviour in Syria; – this in either country, actually, although there ARE ‘feet on the ground’ at least from Lebanon- even if they march against those who wish for freedom of choice.
      I may agree there is “no escape from some level of cultural background” – although, I would dare to say not being policed properly is a reason for the obvious bad parts of it.
      The ‘Confessional Parliamentary Democracy’ where no-one confesses allegiance to Lebanon FIRST, and the supposedly elected Parliament cannot function due to a Sectarian Cabinet, thus has no real chance of being the “progressive” Democracy you dream of.
      Is the USA much different? ONLY in that ‘the people’ had to decide in a ‘NEW’ and very Wild Land that being culturally different didn’t matter so much in the end, when pitted against the ONE force no-one can overcome without working together – NATURE.
      And these days, the education is not helping them maintain their success in the ‘humane’ part of that experience – as THAT is being divided by the ‘sectarianism’ too. The glue holding a ‘Great Melting Pot’ together is coming unstuck in many ways – but some things were never ‘stuck’ between states in the first place.
      And, as in the ‘Culture Families’ at work in Lebanon, the ‘Power & Money’ can even run the Congress, as they do a Cabinet … with the lobbyists of the ‘cultures’ trying to decide the wind directions of the world they want to control.
      How can you expect “young professional talents” to move into ‘leadership’, when the ones who may have been more open to education naturally and see past those ‘cultural barriers’ DO see the need, but also the futility … and are trying to get out of the place they can’t practice it – not even as doctors and nurses in a hospital.
      You are right … there is no “Nutrality’ … but that is not what Democracy asks for. Otherwise no-one would vote at all, and humans would be perfectly happy procreating under a despotic feudal system and a stale experience on the planet – until they ran out of food. Democracy asks you to think for yourself – and make the experience better for us all.
      ‘Contextualize’ THIS. Screw the ‘scholars’ – who too often believe they are being ‘dynamic’ by regurgitation of old theories with new names. You can’t “Reconstruct” what never was.

    2. ghassan Karam Avatar
      ghassan Karam

      Naji,
      The choice of the term “creative destruction” is at least partially related to the fact that it has become part of the language, so to speak after Schumpeter popularized the idea and was adopted by many in an effort to explain the need for dynamism and creativity. The implication carried by the term “creative destruction” implies total radical change while the term “creative re-construction” implies evolution instead or revolution.
      I strongly believe that one of the better cases of creative destruction can be seen in the internet. It has destroyed almost everything it has touched and that is good. ( No land lines for telephones, no music CD sales to speak of, newspapers, magazines and book publishers are scrambling to reinvent themselves, travel agencies do not exist…. and online courses are about to change the structure of higher education. Politically the new technology demands a more responsive government,more attention to human rights and more transparency. But none of these effects will come to pass if the architecture stays the same. A complete redesign requires a new architecture.

    3. hameerlebanon Avatar
      hameerlebanon

      Ya Naji and you have a PhD, emphasizing PhD here! does not make you any more intelligent than any one on this board- enough .. please …you need to get around to see how the world works..may be then you can add another PhD!

  7. Bernie Avatar

    Ghassan you outlined the issue in a beautiful way. I and many around the world agree with your ideologies. Shouldn’t someone put up ideas of how this can be achieved? How can we make the people step up and choose the right thing for us all? We need a start point, a stepping stone to set this Creative Destruction. Otherwise such ideas will always remain ideas without any actions.

    1. ghassan Karam Avatar
      ghassan Karam

      Bernie,
      The problem, as I see it, is not in presenting a way forward as much as it is in getting the public to demand a change. When it is all said and done, the whole mess is the ultimate responsibility of the voter who has chosen not only to go along with this archaic set up but often glorifies it.

  8. Bernie Avatar

    Ghassan you outlined the issue in a beautiful way. I and many around the world agree with your ideologies. Shouldn’t someone put up ideas of how this can be achieved? How can we make the people step up and choose the right thing for us all? We need a start point, a stepping stone to set this Creative Destruction. Otherwise such ideas will always remain ideas without any actions.

    1. ghassan Karam Avatar
      ghassan Karam

      Bernie,
      The problem, as I see it, is not in presenting a way forward as much as it is in getting the public to demand a change. When it is all said and done, the whole mess is the ultimate responsibility of the voter who has chosen not only to go along with this archaic set up but often glorifies it.

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