On June 8, 1940, not long after the start of World War II, the French army was defeated and the Nazis entered Paris. All of France waited for the government to decide on a course of action.
Then-supreme commander general Maxime Weygand had resolved to abandon resistance and wanted the government to declare an armistice and concede defeat, which he felt necessary to “preserve the honor” of the French military.
A young brigadier general, then-undersecretary of state for national defense and war, Charles de Gaulle, was vehemently opposed to defeatism, and advocated relocating the French government to the country’s colonies in north Africa.
Weygand did not take this too well. He asked De Gaulle whether he had any recommendations to make, saying that he would like to hear them. De Gaulle replied that governments should not give advice: They should only give orders.
In handling all manner of crises that have come its way, and dealing with problems at all levels, the government seems to respond in one of two ways: It either calls on people to boycott unscrupulous companies, exercise their consumer rights and take things into their own hands, or ministers come clean when they are forced to resign, spilling secrets to get everything off their chests, exposing the offending parties of whom they have knowledge.
Meanwhile officials play their little games and complacently predict the next unexploded bomb.
This government is fond of giving advice, but what the public expects is for their government to give orders born of strong conviction. There is no shortage of people with ideas, or people who like to give advice, but this is not for the government to do. In the face of the enemy — in this case, food safety scandals and greedy capitalists — the government is just throwing down its weapons and surrendering. What it should be doing is taking charge, not giving advice.
However, what the nation needs is not spurious, populist, subjective decisions of the type advocated by German political theorist and philosopher Carl Schmitt. Schmitt favored a dictatorial president over what he considered to be the slow, ineffective process of parliamentary politics and bureaucracy, and came up with the doctrine of Dezisionismus — rendered in English as “decisionism” — which essentially stated that laws derived their validity not from their content, but from who made them.
Scientists provide expert knowledge and opinions, those in government make decisions, give clear directions as to objectives and how these are to be achieved, and commit to implementing them.
Instead, over the past few weeks, the government has issued rushed statements to the effect that ingesting tainted oil is not harmful; exploited the public’s lack of access to the facts; suggested that there is no food safety problem; busied itself trying to detoxify the companies responsible; ignored the situation until an election is imminent; and then panicked, running around like a headless chicken, exploding into a burst of activity and investigating the issue while denying knowledge of the whole thing.
It is not simply a case of attempting to close the stable door after the horse has bolted; the most exasperating thing is how the first decision the government makes when it screws up is to work out how to cover up for itself.
The government should not be offering advice. What the public expects is for the government to make more effective decisions and orders, and to do this to address the problem, and not act simply out of political considerations.
Lin Chia-ho is an assistant professor in National Chengchi University’s College of Law.
Translated by Paul Cooper
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