Abolish the Petition Office

Abolish the Petition Office

Michael Walzer: Abolish the Petition Office

The prime minister of China, according to yesterday?s New York Times, visited a petition office in Beijing and asked Chinese citizens to complain about their government. That seems like a good liberal position. But a Chinese dissident, perhaps acting on the prime minister?s request, says that the petition office doesn?t in fact address citizen?s complaints. It only forwards them to government offices, often in the provinces, where they are routinely ignored. A good dissenting point, a useful complaint?but it doesn?t come to grips with what is really wrong with the prime minister?s request.

Government officials shouldn?t have to make requests like that, and citizens shouldn?t act on them?they should act without them. All governments need to be criticized, but they don?t need obedient criticism; they need verbal disobedience, and sometimes other kinds of disobedience too. I don?t find the picture of thousands of citizens rushing to the petition office and dutifully filing their complaints inspiring. Thousands of citizens protesting in front of the petition office because their complaints have gone unanswered for so many years?that would be inspiring. But that?s not what the prime minister wants.

American department stores commonly have counters where customers can complain, often ineffectively, about unhelpful clerks or shoddy goods. I don?t think that is the right model for governments. The store doesn?t belong to its customers, who patronize it as individuals, looking for individual satisfaction. But the state belongs to its citizens, who should be able to act collectively to shape its policies. The owner of the department store decides what goods he wants to sell, but the prime minister of a state doesn?t decide what goods and services he wants to provide. That?s for the citizens to decide, and then if the provision isn?t satisfactory, they can, of course, complain about it, but they can also replace the prime minister. That possibility, when it exists, is what makes their complaints more effective than the complaints of department store customers.

So this is what the Chinese dissident should have said: abolish the petition office, and let the complaints be made in newspapers and magazines, on the web, at political meetings, and in the streets.