Listening to the Voice of Humanity

Straight from the Heart

Feature- world crisis

Listening to the Voice of Humanity

Steven Kull

Part-5

Some have argued that long as there is a level  playing and all people have the option to join or form an interest group, when-

Asked by WorldPublicOpinion.org whether their nation is run “ for the benefit of all people’ or “by few big interests looking out for themselves” in nearly every nation polled majorities…said it was the latter.

Interest groups compete the net outcome is something that approximates the will of the people. Some have argued that this market of competing interests has an innate intelligence that is most likely to produce outcomes serving the common good.

But most people around the world do not think that is what is occurring in their country. Asked by WorldPublicOpinion.org whether their nation is run “for the benefit of all people’ or “by a few big interests looking out for themselves” in nearly every nation polled majorities- on average 63% - said it was latter.

Publics also tend to be less polarized than elected officials. Plotting the position of elected officials on a left-right spectrum, one tends to find a bimodal or u-shaped curve with clusters on the left and right and few in the middle. Thus, it is often difficult to find common ground.

However, the public lends to follow more a normal curve with a bulge in the middle and few at the extremes. Among the public, most do not strongly position themselves on one or the other end of the spectrum, but rather to try to find ways to balance, and hopefully integrate, the values at the ends of the spectrum.

Increasing the influence of the Whole

So what do people think should happen? All around the world people seem to think that the will of the people- i.e., the voice of the society as a whole- should play a larger role in government decision-making.

In a poll of 19 nations from around the world, majorities in every nation agreed with the principle enunciated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that “the will of the people should be the basis for the authority og government.” On average, 85% agreed.

This does not mean that they think that other more specific elements in society should not also play a role. Asked how much influence the will of the people should have on their government on a 0-10 scale the mean response across 21 nations was 8.0- not the highest possible number, through still quite high.

To be continued…

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