The Place of the President, Vice President and Plutocracy as a Concept (Part 4)
In our last three outings, we have seen that the President and the Vice President under the Nigerian and American Constitutions, are both elected under a joint ticket during the national elections. As such, both the President and Vice President are expected to work together, and none is dispensable under the various Constitutions. Today, we shall conclude our luminous series on this vexed national issue. Please, read on.
Summary of Part 1 - 3 Vice President of the United States: Distilled Facts
1) He is the second-highest officer in the executive branch of the U.S. Federal Government, after the President of the United States, and ranks first in the presidential line of succession. The Vice President is also an officer in the legislative branch, as President of the Senate.
2) Article I, Section 3, Clause 4 of the U.S. Constitution confers upon the Vice President the title President of the Senate, and authorises him to preside over Senate meetings. In this capacity, the Vice President is charged with maintaining order and decorum, recognising members to speak, and interpreting the Senate's rules, practices, and precedent.
3) As President of the Senate, he may also preside over most of the impeachment trials of federal officers.
4) The Twelfth Amendment, like the superseded Article II clause, provides that the Vice President, in his capacity as President of the Senate, also presides over counting and presentation of the votes of the Electoral College.
5) Article II, Section 1, Clause 6 stipulates that, the Vice President takes over the "powers and duties" of the Presidency in the event of a President’s removal, death, resignation, or inability.
6) The extent of any informal roles and functions of the Vice President depend on the specific relationship between the President and the Vice President, but, often, include tasks such as drafter and spokesperson for the administration's policies, adviser to the President, and being a symbol of American concern or support.
Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria: Distilled Facts
1) As the Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, he does not owe a duty of allegiance and loyalty to the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, or the political party on whose platform he was elected to the office of Vice President.
2) The allegiance of the Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is to the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and he has an unreserved or unalloyed duty to defend the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as required both in his Oath of Office and Oath of Allegiance under the Constitution.
3) Vice-President should have an undivided loyalty, but that loyalty is due to the Federal
Republic of Nigeria and not, I repeat not, to Mr. President or to any political party, which, in any case, is a stranger to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
4) The relationship between the President and Vice President, is not that of master and servant, as each of them is a creation of the Constitution and neither employs the other.
5) The interest, tangible or intangible of the Vice-President, vests and could no longer be so easily wished away by either the President or the political party which sponsored them for the election. On his election, he ceases to be Vice Presidential candidate of the sponsoring party, and becomes the Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria by the grace of the electorate, and no longer of the President who nominated him as his running mate and the party which sponsored both of them.
6) The Vice President is created by the Constitution. His appointment and removal from office, are also provided for in the Constitution.
Fellow countrymen, let the President and Vice President work together for the benefit of, and in the interest of the Nigerian people. Let no cabal or powerful group, sabotage one in preference for the other. The country eventually suffers the consequences of such inappropriate action. The End.
Plutocracy and Democracy as forms of Government: Comparing Oranges and Apples (Part 10) Introduction Avid readers, you will recall that we started this long series titled: Is Democracy the best form of Government?, on 18th June, 2019. So far, we have considered some forms of government, such as Democracy, Diarchy, Oligarchy, Autocracy, Fascism, Dictatorship, etc. Today, we shall continue another form of government, Plutocracy. When governance rests at the whims, caprices, and simulated schemes of a small powerful, wealthy minority that only listens to itself, unmodified by the normal checks and balances of a functioning constitutional democracy, it should be treated by the non-partisan as to what it is, plutocracy. It is certainly not democracy. Today, we shall x-ray how plutocracy differs from democracy.
Plutocracy Said CHRYTIA FREELAND, Author of “Plutocrats”:
“The Rise of the New Global SuperRich and the Fall of Everyone Else, says that the present trend towards plutocracy occurs, because the rich feel that their interests are shared by society”.
Origin of Plutocracy Viewing Plutocracy from the lens of history and collection of other governance concepts, will reveal that the concept is as old as the evolution of man himself, governance concepts and political theories. There have been many plutocracies down through history, Carthage, Italian City-States of the Middle Ages, were plutocracies. Other historic examples of plutocracies include, the Roman Empire, some City-States in Ancient Greece, Merchant Republics of Venice, Florence and Genoa, and the pre-World War II Empire of Japan (the zaibatsu). It was chronicled that early kings of Carthage were military leaders, and being a monarchical country, the Sovereign or Crown was generally available to the highest bidder. The Italian City-States of the Middle Ages were good examples of plutocracies, and in many ways, they ran the show in medieval Europe.
History also has it that, the United States was founded as a plutocratic state. From the incipient, one of the major criteria for enfranchisement in the United States of America, was the mass acquisition of land and landed properties. In other words, the qualification for voting was benched on vast ownership of land. For a person to vote, he had to own land. You must prove that, your wealth was above a certain threshold; that you belonged to the land-owning class. You also had to be a white male in order to vote, and you may well have owned African slaves. This reinforced the idea that, "democracy" was not really a core concern at the time. Gradually, black men were allowed to vote; later even women, of all people. It was gradual, but tortuous and laborious.
Definition of Plutocracy or Plutarchy The concept plutocracy is widely used dyslogistically, to describe or admonish against an undesirable condition. Plutocracy or plutarchy, is a society that is ruled or controlled by people of great wealth or income. Unlike systems such as Democracy, Capitalism, Socialism or Anarchism, Plutocracy, is not rooted in an established political philosophy. Plutocracy is linked to the term, dynastic wealth. Plutocracy is also a type of State Government, controlled by a wealthy oligarchy. This is unsurprising, since wealth can easily be translated into power, and power can easily be consolidated for purposes of political control. Also, wealth can easily be used to create more wealth. Power and wealth, are lovers. They are like, Siamese twins. This, naturally, leads to the well- worn division of the “Haves” versus the “Have-Nots”; and to the consolidation of political power in the hands of the Haves. There weren't always State Governments, because there weren't always States, anyway.
Contemporarily, the concept of Plutocracy is used derogatorily. It is sometimes used to refer to societies deeply ingrained in State- corporate capitalism, or whose ultimate priority, is the obscene and primitive accumulation of wealth over other interests. In agreement with the above position, Kevin Phillips, an author and political strategist to Richard Nixon, once opined that the United States is a plutocracy in which there is a "fusion of money and government."
Acceptability of Plutocracy A number of politicians have never agreed that they work as a plutocracy, even when the last four decades have certainly been run by plutocrats, with plutocracy thriving incredibly and successfully, taking advantage of the vulnerability of the populace. It creates a disharmony, and enthrones class differences to distract the poor masses from their thievery. This is exemplified by some USA politicians: Honest Abe was not for plutocracy, when he championed free soil, free labor and free education for all. Progressives were not for plutocracy, when they got the USA country in the Trust Busting mood. Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, were certainly not for plutocracy when they promoted civil rights legislation, and an extension and renewal of some of the New Deal policies of the past.
In a nutshell, Plutocracy can be summed up in the following words:
Private store of money by few individuals, for their own interest; Medium of extracting tribute; unsafe store of values; Small number of people running the show, and getting a whole lot of shockers to work for them; Legalisation of sectional reserve system and wealth.
Examples of historic plutocracies were the Roman Empire, some City-States in ancient Greece, Carthage, the Italian or Merchant City-States, and Republic of Venice and Florence; the Kingdom of pre-French Revolution and the pre-World War II Empire of Japan. There is a thin dividing line, between plutocracy and Aristocracy. While the former is government by the wealthy, the latter is government of the mobility, or the ruling class. Some people have argued that plutocracy is good, because the rulers can be fair, merciful, kind, benevolent, etc, while allowing their subjects to have good life. The reverse side of the coin, however, is that the ruler could be corrupt, brutal, sadistic, and evil-minded. This is why majority of people still prefer democracy – a representative form of government. (To be continued).
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK “People live with the illusion that we have a democratic system, but it's only the outward form of one. In reality we live in a plutocracy, a government of the rich.” (Jose Saramago).
“..... PLUTOCRACY, IS NOT ROOTED IN AN ESTABLISHED POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. PLUTOCRACY IS LINKED TO THE TERM, DYNASTIC WEALTH. PLUTOCRACY IS ALSO A TYPE OF STATE GOVERNMENT, CONTROLLED BY A WEALTHY OLIGARCHY”