Fin Keegan

Andrew Sullivan prises from Kant three tests for judging political leadership:

Kant distinguishes between the “clever” but ultimately immoral politician who views everything in terms of political expedience and manipulates a superficial or false morality for political gain and that rarest of creatures, the moral politician, who recognizes the ultimate harmony between morality and good government.
Kant then cites the three tests which can be applied to discern the immoral from the moral politician. Under three Latin rubrics, as follows:

• Fac et excusa - does he use thin pretexts to seize power in his own country, or, after coming to power, to invade and conquer another nation?
• Si fecisti, nega. When his policies bring about ruin or failure, does he blame his own subjects for the failures, or place the blame on other nations? Or does he admit mistakes and change course to reflect this recognition?
• Divide et impera. Does he maintain his position of power by sowing domestic hatred and discord; through the demonization of a portion of his own citizenry?

Source: Immanuel Kant, Sämtliche Werke vol. 5, pp. 695-97.

Martin Kettle, in passing, makes a useful point about some unexpected consequences of the 1989 revolutions:

It was not…just [in] eastern Europe [that Communism collapsed] but across the world, above all in Russia and China. Once these countries, with their billions of skilled but largely impoverished inhabitants, began to become market economies, the writing was on the wall for high-cost welfare settlements in the developed world.

Source: Kettle: Germany and France are struggling with a new world, The Guardian, May 24th, 2005