How “Justice” and “the Will of the People” Become an Excuse for Disasters
There’s an old anecdote about the transformation of leftist ideas. In the early 1950s, Marxists Pol Pot (then Saloth Sar, a student at the University of Paris) and Jean-Paul Sartre, bidding farewell on the banks of the Seine, vowed to make all of humanity happy. Years later, Pol Pot called Sartre and happily declared that he had fulfilled their promise.
“How?” the French philosopher asked, surprised.
Pol Pot’s response: “I shot all the unhappy people.”
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If the goal is to create universal happiness, to establish democracy, human rights, and justice across the world, then even a noble-sounding Western ideal can lead to horrific consequences. Who decides what is just and what is unjust? The people? The majority? And if so, does that mean there exists a “good,” justice-seeking majority and a “bad,” unworthy minority?
In 1970s Cambodia (Kampuchea), the majority were poor peasants. They were, therefore, considered “the people,” while the wealthy city-dwellers were deemed “non-people,” “oppressors” who had supposedly exploited the masses. If “justice” means defending the oppressed, then it is no surprise that the victim becomes the executioner. Thus, the “will of the people” was fully shaped. The “democratic masses,” led by Pol Pot and his revolutionaries, seized Phnom Penh and began to “establish justice.”
How? Very simply. They forcibly relocated the “non-people”—the city dwellers—to the countryside, shooting many along the way, starving others, wiping out entire families.
Did the Cambodian people truly want “justice” at the cost of 1.5 to 2 million lives—a quarter of the population? I don’t have the answer to that question. I can only say this: what “the people” want and what individual people want are not the same thing. What is clear, however, is that had the so-called “puppets of American imperialism” remained in power, so many would not have been killed.
History offers many extreme examples, but in most cases, the desire to “establish justice,” “make people happy,” and implement “the will of the people” does not manifest so brutally. Still, the “victorious people”—the masses, the lumpen—always serve as a convenient cover—if not for outright crimes, then for inept, illiterate, and disastrous governance.
A friend of mine once suggested the following classification of state effectiveness. There are three levels:
The most effective system exists in true democracies (such as Western Europe), where both the people and their elected government share equal responsibility for decisions.
A worse option is an authoritarian system, where a single leader makes decisions alone and bears full responsibility—a model often seen in oil-rich states.
But the worst system is pseudo-democracy—where an autocrat makes all decisions, but the people are held responsible for them. This is the reality in our country.
Our leaders make foolish mistakes, suffer endless failures, and justify themselves by saying, “What do we care? The people made that choice.”
Did “the people” want Armenian Artsakh to cease to exist? Did “the people” want our captives to be humiliated and tortured in Baku? Do “the people” want property taxes to skyrocket and small businesses to suffocate?
Again, I can’t answer these questions.
But one thing is certain: “the people” are not responsible for the disaster.
Specific people, sitting in specific chairs, are.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
