2.3.3 The Definition of Acceptability

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The words €˜acceptable€™ and €˜acceptability€™, which are matters of personal judgement, are used repeatedly in this book to evaluate aspects of governance. As the term is used here, governance is minimally €˜acceptable€™ to an individual if it is €˜tolerable€™ €“ which is to say that the individual is prepared to comply with its requirements and that it is not so bad as to constitute a sufficient reason for that person to try to overthrow it. For many people, tolerable governance could be simply defined by having enough to eat and being able to live in peace, but acceptability can be progressively increased from the merely tolerable:

· Governance increases in acceptability if it more successfully meets that person€™s requirements, as defined by their understanding of the list above (2.1) or an equivalent list.

· Governance is more acceptable if it is negotiable, i.e. if people can initiate the meaningful renegotiation of unsatisfactory aspects within an acceptable timescale €“ as described below (2.4).

· Given people€™s inherent diversity (2.2), more of them are likely to be satisfied if they can choose for themselves where possible. This is perhaps an argument for restricting the role of the State and it is certainly an argument for avoiding a monolithic system of imposed uniformity. Different ways of providing choice are explored in the next few chapters (and these are linked in the Index).

· People€™s acceptance increases if they have to make fewer reluctant concessions.

· People prefer to pay less tax.

These points are particularly important to people who, when they join a society, are subject to governance which has been negotiated by other people €“ by previous generations, for example.

The acceptability of governance can be thought of as being on a scale between what is tolerable up to the (improbable) state of people feeling that no further improvement is possible. There is no means of quantifying acceptability, but each individual is able to judge that one arrangement is more acceptable than another.