The recent action taken by the US administration against Venezuela, which LCI condemns because it lacks, at the very least, UN authorisation, conceals important aspects that the dominant political culture, of whatever political colour, does not consider. Through the analysis of the forms of politics, interesting insights are gained that lead to the urgent need to update the forms in which politics is organised in Italy and around the world.
First of all, in order to understand what is happening in a new light, it is necessary to analyse a very broad historical period, starting 2,800 years ago with the expulsion of the kings from Athens. We apologise in advance for some of the drastic simplifications we must make in order to present only the fundamental concepts of this historical journey.
Through a terrible twist of history, all of today’s political culture is permeated by the thinking of the great philosopher Aristotle (fourth century BC), who summarised in his writings all the prejudices of his era (e.g. patriarchy, the inferiority of women, slavery, etc.) and passed them on to the modern era. In particular, he intuited that politics is a very important human activity, stating, however, that it is a natural characteristic of the “well-made” man (the political animal) and adding that the purpose of politics is the good. This last statement is a terrible intellectual trap because it takes away the intrinsic value of politics and shifts it into the ethical realm. Aristotle thus destroys politics at the very moment he recognises it theoretically.
Unfortunately, all of Aristotle’s prejudices are still alive today and govern the modern world, contributing to absurdities such as the death of hundreds of thousands of young people in war or the genocide in Gaza.
The Romans (500 years before Christ, 2500 years ago!) understood that the profound meaning of politics is to confine power and to allow, thanks to the confrontation between bearers of different visions and interests, to find an agreement without resorting to violence: from this it emerges that politics has in its DNA the dialogue between peoples and the negation of war.
They had therefore moved beyond the era of kings and entered the republican period, in which the management of society was entrusted to two consuls who had great power but could only govern for one year (temporary power) and decide collectively. Unfortunately, these political innovations were not codified and so, after 400 years, with the rise of Aristotelian thought, political culture took the path of ethics (doing good) and forgot the pragmatic approach of limiting power: some time later, Rome also entered the imperial phase. Since the republican political form was not codified, with the arrival of the empire, it “evaporated” and only Aristotle’s writings remained.
Later, St Thomas Aquinas (1224-1275), one of the theological pillars of the Catholic Church, permeated the entire Christian world with Aristotelian thought. The latter thus became a cultural reference point that greatly influenced the way modern states conduct politics.
Today, 2,400 years later, this way of thinking, seemingly obvious and agreeable, is leading humanity into the abyss due to systemic crises such as wars or the inability to address and resolve phenomena such as climate change in a timely manner.
In essence, Aristotelian thinking has led the West to organise politics in an extremely weak way; therefore, over time, politics has been unable to govern human development in a harmonious manner.
All this has allowed the uncontrolled development of emerging powers such as economic, financial and technological powers, which have subjugated politics. This is a self-perpetuating vicious circle that has led, among other things, to an abnormal concentration of wealth and power in a few hands. Suffice it to say that progressive tax rates in the United States have been significantly lowered since 1950 (see https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_(Stati_Uniti_d%27America)).
However, it must be clearly understood that politics is the only human activity that can regulate society, not economics or finance.
If politics is in a pathological state, everything descends into chaos, and it is indeed chaos that seems to dominate our era.
Western culture, as mentioned above, has therefore come to conceive and accept (without understanding the enormous gravity of what was happening) at least two pathological forms that weaken politics:
1) the fact that the profession of politician is considered a job like any other and can therefore become a permanent source of income for supporting one’s family
2) the fact that the same individual can be both in the leadership of their party and in parliament making laws for everyone.
These two customs kill politics, which becomes an activity of no use to citizens, incapable of governing the complexity of our age.
Politics becomes “weak” because if a person derives their income from it to support their family, they will be viscerally attached to their position.
That person will therefore be much more inclined to satisfy those who allow them to keep their “job” (e.g. the party secretary who puts them on closed electoral lists, the economic powers that help them in their election campaign, etc.) rather than the citizens who have never been in a position to influence their election or re-election.
This mechanism generates mistrust among citizens towards politicians who make promises (during the election campaign) but do not keep them (in parliament) because those elected avoid promoting effective measures that could be unwelcome to the entities that enabled their re-election.
But there’s more!
1) Being in the party leadership allows MPs to muzzle their press office and influence internal institutional procedures: the party is therefore unable to freely criticise the MP it has included among its candidates, and so those who should be evaluated become their own controllers. Little by little, institutions are swallowing up the spaces that should be available to citizens and associations and that would allow them to contribute to the political life of the state with candidates and proposals to solve problems.
Inexorably, trust in institutions is collapsing and abstentionism is growing. Abstentionism is therefore not the result of disinterest, but of a more or less conscious perception of the futility of politics as it is currently organised.
2) The aim of protecting one’s job generates laws (such as the four electoral laws that have been passed in Italy since 2005 to date) that shield the careers of those already in institutions, excluding young people and making it very difficult to bring in new energy and new ideas. This is an unforgivable waste of social energy.
3) The system adopted by the West to define the composition of the institutions in which laws are made for everyone is inherently corrupt, i.e. it pushes parliamentarians and candidates into the hands of those who have the power to determine their careers. This also harms those who believe they are “winning” because institutions make decisions that are contrary to the general interest, for example by going against the laws of nature: this is the origin, for example, of the slowness in curbing climate change or the perseverance in building and possessing atomic bombs capable of destroying life on the planet.
Let us now look at the events in Venezuela in the light of the analysis just made. First of all, it must be clear that it is the US administration that is deciding on military operations in Venezuela. This administration is very different from the American people, not least because it is elected by a minority of voters and, moreover, the composition of the US Congress is deeply subject to economic (and not only economic!) forces that make decisions based on criteria that have nothing to do with politics and the welfare of the American people. Just think of how much the funding of economic lobbies influences the outcome of the election campaigns of the various candidates. Furthermore, as we have already mentioned, the weakness of politics has allowed for enormous centralisation in the field of communication, which makes it possible to influence the behaviour of millions of people. In these conditions, does it make sense to talk about free elections and democracy?
It is also significant that all this is happening because Venezuela is a country rich in oil resources and the economic powers, blinded by the prospect of huge profits and the power given by control of this toxic resource, are acting and influencing accordingly in synergy with Donald Trump’s MAGA (Make America Great Again) slogan.
If American politics and therefore the American administration were in a physiological state and acting in the interests of Americans, are we sure they would behave in this way? Wouldn’t a new course to eliminate fossil fuels from the economy and influence other nations in this direction have already been decided long ago? Why do the voices of those who have understood that the laws of nature are insurmountable remain unheard?
These dynamics demonstrate the power of political organisational forms: as long as we continue to think, in an ethical way, that better people are enough to make better policies and we do not delve deeper into the study of political forms, we will not be able to solve the vital problems of humanity.
Another key to interpreting what is happening is provided by the categories of politics. Currently, the dominant ones were proposed by the 20th-century German philosopher Carl Schmitt, and are “friend – enemy”. With these categories, we tend to have a tribal view of relations between human communities based on force: organisations such as the UN become annoying obstacles.
Those that seem most suitable for emerging from chaos were proposed by the Italian philosopher Giuseppe Polistena in his essay “Politica, questa sconosciuta” (Politics, this unknown) (2022 – Mimesis edizioni) and are “Everyone – no one”. “Everyone”, from the richest to the weakest, must be included in the political gaze, “no one” can have so much power as to prevail over others. Democracy originates from the category “everyone”, while constitutionalism originates from the category “no one”. With these categories, the behaviour of the US administration would be simply inconceivable in the light of the category “no one”.
The process of ceding sovereignty, which is fundamental to generating peace, also originates from the category “no one”. Since 1648, the year of the Peace of Westphalia, nation states and the concept of national sovereignty have emerged. It is interesting to note that the concept of sovereignty is extremely dangerous because it is the fuel that feeds wars. There are many examples in history that show that when there has been a transfer of sovereignty from warring human communities to a higher body, violence has disappeared. Think of the populations that waged war against each other before the founding of Rome, or the so-called Maritime Republics that fought each other before the unification of Italy. Unfortunately, from 1648, the date of the Peace of Westphalia, to the present day, humanity has not been able to build a body with the authority and means to prevent and stop wars and to prevent initiatives without UN backing. The UN is powerless precisely because of its organisational structure: the veto power of each of the five powers on the Security Council allows them to block decisions that could stop wars and genocides. This happens when one of the five powers puts its geopolitical interests before those of humanity as a whole.
All those who fight for peace and against genocide should organise themselves to influence the path of UN reform. In this regard, we would like to highlight the interesting proposals of Luigi Ferrajoli, professor emeritus of philosophy of law, in his book “Progettare il futuro: per un costituzionalismo globale” (Designing the future: for global constitutionalism) (2025 – Feltrinelli).
We conclude by highlighting one last important aspect. The new approach to politics that we are proposing and that LCI fully adopts does not need to rely on ethics because, if we move beyond the Aristotelian view of politics as having to do “good”, we understand that it is the correct forms of politics that generate ethical behaviour. Not the other way around!
The new thinking proposed by Polistena therefore opens an era of great cultural change and ignites a reasonable hope for a more peaceful world for all living beings.
To overcome the pathologies of politics, the Italian Civic List proposes to start building a joint network of groups, organisations and associations in Italy and around the world which, on the basis of the new approach outlined here, will address the issue of how to make better use of politics and how to restore it to a physiological state. For LCI, parties must become free associations of citizens where elected representatives have no power within the party and party coordinators cannot stand for election.
A first and urgent objective of this network should be to put pressure on parliament to ensure that the new electoral law complies with the constitution: this is a very important step!
Continuing with laws such as those of the last twenty years is a farce that harms everyone!
We will return to this topic shortly.
P.S. The photo was downloaded free of charge from www.freepik.com
We would like to thank the philosopher Giuseppe Polistena for reviewing this article.
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