In French Revolution Third Estate or the middle class (bourgeoisie in French) was numerically superior to First & Second Estates combined (nobility and clergy). Also bourgeoisie class paid maximum taxes to French government but most of the monetary privileges of French Treasury went to nobility and clergy. So bourgeoisie class wants to stop the theft of their money by nobility and clergy in the name of tax. Naturally French bourgeoisie thought that if tey could bring Representative government in France their numerical strength would help them to reduce taxes on themselves and also reduce privileges of the first two estates. So clearly Payment According to Ability was the end goal of French bourgeoisie while Representative Government or Democracy was the means to achieve that goal.
Nepoleon understood this end and means strategy of the French bourgeoisie. So when he found that democracy was weakening the governance and destroying decision making capacity of French state, he rjected Democratic norms and brought back Monarchy while uphoding Payment According to Ability and its corollaries like Recruitment on the basis of merit, land to the tillers, etc.
Actually when the Producer Group is numerically more than Privileged Group then Democracy leads to Payment According to Ability. That's what happened in French Revolution.
But if the Producer Group is numerically less than Privileged Group then Democracy only violates Payment According to Ability Principle.
In case of class struggle usually Producer Group is more populated than Privileged Group.
But in case of multi national countries, it is often found that Producer Nation is less in number than Privileged Nation. In such a situation Democracy only ensures numerically superior Privileged nation to keep squeezing out the numerically weaker Producer nation. In this case, separation is the only desired outcome for the Producer nation. Such a situation exists today in India where South Indian provinces are paying maximum taxes while Hindi provinces are squeezing out maximum privileges using higher population figure. This is becoming most important point in Indian politics soon which has potential to balkanize India and change the course of world politics.
So Representative government has higher chance to ensure Payment According to Ability if the country is homogeneous. A Heterogeneous multi national country has maximum chance to end up where Democracy will violate Payment According to Ability.
So National Determination must precede any form of Representative Government.
Author: Saikat Bhattacharya
