I can see why you read the Ouang passage as you do.  Looked at in purely
moral terms, your interpretation is extremely plausible.

<<Tim Romano wrote:

By (or not by) the people. A people may accept to be ruled by an individual,
or by a group, or by some combination thereof. A people may or may not
choose the rulers they accept. Even in situations where rulers are chosen,
by popular election, government "by the people" is a matter of degree>>

I concur.

<< if
every decision, great or small, were subject to a vote by all of the people,
rule "by the people"  would still be rule "by most of the people" since
unanimity is rare.  >>

This is true, but perhaps not very relevant, since the word "democracy" is
rarely used in modern times in the sense of total direct democracy.
Nevertheless, I follow your logic to this point.

<<To the extent that a people is willing to accept the
rulings of an appointed judiciary (appointed and confirmed by rulers they
may have voted against) they are not purely self-governed.>>

You are correct.  No nation is  (or really can, in practical terms, be)
PURELY SELF GOVERNED.

Now here is where you lose me.  I think that what follows is a bit of a
leap.
In the next sentence you ask,

<<What, then, is
government "by the people" but a chimera?>>

I think something like the fallacy of the excluded middle is being committed
when you pose this question.

As you said before, such government is a matter of degree.  Athens was more
a government of the people than its rival Persia.  (Even though in Athens
slaves and women had no right to vote; in Persia NO ONE had such rights).

Currently the US is more of democracy, a government "by the people" than
either Saudi Arabia or North Korea.  Though arguably, Finland and France,
where the electorates are more empowered, where people are more likely to
vote, are more democratic than the US (only some 35% of eligible voters in
the US actually vote, the lowest turnout for the industrial democracies).
It is a matter of degree.

The trouble with Pound is, I think, that he did not limit himself to being a
moralist, as you say he was.  He quotes Adams approvingly in the Cantos as
saying that not enough people take the time to study government.  Pound
agrees with Adams and does (perhaps unfortunately) take the time.  A huge
portion of the Cantos is devoted to the subject of political philosophy;
perhaps there is more political philosophy in Pound than in the work of any
other poet who wrote in English.

True government "by the people" may be virtually impossible.   But let us
look at Pound's life, his commitments, and the fate of some of his exemplars
(Mussolini, Hitler, and Franco, for instance,--- who are all praised in the
Cantos--- as well as the Chinese Emperors, most of whom were little better
than dictators and tyrants who offer scant lessons to our era) They
illustrate one very important point:  A bad democracy is on principle better
than most so-called "good" dictatorships, especially those praised by Pound.

In one part of the Cantos, Pound quotes Confucius as complaining about
political figures who get themselves into power and do everything they can
to "retain" power.  The strange thing is that Mussolini did exactly this
from 1922 til 1943, quite a long reign for anyone.  Equally strange is that
Pound did not see this as excessive.

Regards,

Wei







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