Organic vs. Mechanistic view of government

دولت عضوی و دولت مکانیستی

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Participants •Government •Context •Planning Process •
Posted by Rezwan • Apr 13, 2009 • (0) Comments •
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In Public Finance, we read that

Views of how government should function in the economic sphere are influenced by ideological views concerning the relationship between the individual and the state. Political philosophers have distinguished two major approaches [Organic and Mechanistic].

Organic: In the "Organic" view, society is seen as a natural organism, "the community is stressed above the individual", and the goals of society are set by the state. Example: Plato's Republic describes an ideal state that uses perfect rationality to guide human achievement.

Mechanistic: In the "Mechanistic" view, "government is not an organic part of society. Rather it is a contrivance created by individuals to better achieve their individual goals."

Iran: Iran is said to run on an organic model. The book uses Iran as an example:

...the Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini argued that "only a good society can create good believers." He wrote that "Man is half-angel, half-devil," and the goal of government should be to "combat [the devil part] through laws and suitable punishments" (quoted in Taheri, 2003)

In a sense, the organic view is utopian. A utopian view believes in the perfectibility of human beings, and in an ideal way for human beings to be.

You may think that this organic view of government is limited to the current Islamic government and its supporters, but I find that many political conversations with Iranians, even those critical about the Islamic Republic, are peppered with organic government assumptions. "The Government" is often spoken of as a single entity. Countries are spoken of as individuals. Sentences begin with "America should..." as if "America" is a single, conscious entity. And finally, the view of our fellow Iranians tends to be organic as well. Sentences begin with "Iranians like to...", as if there exists a standard Iranian.

The problem is that in practice, a government, or a country, is not a single entity. It is really a collection of individuals following certain evolving policies and rules, often acting in their own interests, often making mistakes, and on occasion doing something quite admirable.

Although Iran is said to operate under an organic view, in practice it doesn't seem to work this way. Indeed, there seems to be constant tension between rugged Iranian individualism and this organic ideology. A frequent complaint of foreigners working with Iranians is that you never know who to actually work with, as the departments of government don't work well together. Working with Iranians has been compared to "herding cats". (Here's another article on "herding cats" which views it as an emerging human resources paradigm." This bodes well for Iran.)

An area in which Iranian individualism expresses itself is in traffic. Government has no influence here, the driving is run on a spontaneous set of rules that arise from individuals negotiating the streets, but I digress.

America. What about America? It's supposedly "mechanistic", celebrating the rugged individualism of its people. But anyone looking at it can't help but notice its government keeps growing like some sort of huge pulsating organism.

The authors of Public Finance state that

the mechanistic view has come to dominate Anglo-American political thought. However, its dominance is not total. Anyone who claims that something must be done in the "national interest"," without reference to the welfare of some individual or group of individuals, is implicitly taking an organic point of view. More generally, even in highly individualistic societies, people sometimes feel it necessary to act on behalf of, or even sacrifice their lives for, the nation.

It's possible that these views may converge into some sort of "coordinated collaboration" view of government in time as the needs of the individual and the community and their respective responsibilities are better defined and explored.

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