DEFINITION OF TRUE DEMOCRACY
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Constitutions
The rock upon which a democratic government rests is its constitution--the formal statement of its fundamental obligations, limitations, procedures, and institutions. The constitution of the country is the supreme law of the land, and all citizens, prime ministers to peasants alike, are subject to its provisions. At a minimum, the constitution, which is usually codified in a single written document, establishes the authority of the national government, provides guarantees for fundamental human rights, and sets forth the government's basic operating procedures.
Despite their enduring, monumental qualities, constitutions must be capable of change and adaptation if they are to be more than admirable fossils. The world's oldest written constitution, that of the United States, consists of seven brief articles and 27 amendments. This written document, however, is only the foundation for a vast structure of judicial decisions, statutes, presidential actions, and traditional practices that has been erected over the past 200 years--and kept the U.S. Constitution alive and relevant.
This pattern of constitutional evolution takes place in every democracy. In general, there are two schools of thought about the process of amending, or changing, a nation's constitution. One is to adopt a difficult procedure, requiring many steps and large majorities. As a result, the constitution is changed infrequently, and then only for compelling reasons that receive substantial public support. This is the model of the United States, whose Constitution is a brief statement of the general principles, powers, and limits of government, together with a more specific listing of duties, procedures, and, in the Bill of Rights, the fundamental rights of individual citizens.
A much simpler method of amendment, which many nations use, is to provide that any amendment may be adopted by approval of the legislature and passed by the voters at the next election. Constitutions able to be changed in this fashion can be quite lengthy, with specific provisions that differ little from the general body of legislation.
No constitution like America's, written in the 18th century, could have survived unchanged into the late 20th century. Similarly, no constitution in force today will survive into the next century without the capacity for change--while still holding fast to principles of individual rights, due process, and government through the consent of the governed. -
THE CULTURE OF DEMOCRACY
A Civic Culture
Democracy is more than the sum of its institutions. A healthy democracy depends in large part on the development of a democratic civic culture. Culture in this sense, points out Diane Ravitch, does not refer to art, literature, or music, but to "the behaviors, practices, and norms that define the ability of a people to govern themselves.
"A totalitarian political system," she writes, "encourages a culture of passivity and apathy. The regime seeks to mold an obedient and docile citizenry. By contrast, the civic culture of a democratic society is shaped by the freely chosen activities of individuals and groups. Citizens in a free society pursue their interests, exercise their rights, and take responsibility for their own lives. They make their own decisions about where they will work, what kind of work they will do, where they will live, whether to join a political party, what to read, and so on. These are personal decisions, not political decisions."
Literature, art, drama, and film--the artistic expression of a society's culture--also exist independently of government. A democratic society may support or otherwise encourage artists and writers, but it does not set artistic standards, pass judgment on the worth of artistic endeavors, or censor artistic expression. Artists are not employees or servants of the state. The primary contribution of a democracy to art is freedom--to create, to experiment, to explore the world of the human mind and spirit. -
Democracy and Education
Education is a vital component of any society, but especially of a democracy. As Thomas Jefferson wrote: "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never shall be."
In contrast to authoritarian societies that seek to inculcate an attitude of passive acceptance, the object of democratic education is to produce citizens who are independent, questioning, and analytical in their outlook, yet deeply familiar with the precepts and practices of democracy. Vanderbilt professor Chester E. Finn, Jr., said in his address to educators in Nicaragua: "People may be born with an appetite for personal freedom, but they are not born with knowledge about the social and political arrangements that make freedom possible over time for themselves and their children....Such things must be acquired. They must be learned."
From this perspective, it is not enough to say that the task of education in a democracy is simply to avoid the indoctrination of authoritarian regimes and provide instruction that is neutral concerning political values. That is impossible: All education transmits values, intended or not. Students can indeed be taught the principles of democracy in a spirit of open inquiry that is itself an important democratic value. At the same time, students are encouraged to challenge conventional thinking with reasoned arguments and careful research. There may be vigorous debate, but democracy's textbooks should not simply ignore events or facts that are unpleasant or controversial.
"Education plays a singular role in free societies," Finn states. "While the education systems of other regimes are tools of those regimes, in a democracy the regime is the servant of the people, people whose capacity to create, sustain, and improve that regime depends in large measure on the quality and effectiveness of the educational arrangements through which they pass. In a democracy, it can fairly be said, education enables freedom itself to flourish over time." -
Conflict, Compromise, and Consensus
Human beings possess a variety of sometimes contradictory desires. People want safety yet relish adventure; they aspire to individual freedom yet demand social equality.
Democracy is no different, and it is important to recognize that many of these tensions, even paradoxes, are present in every democratic society. According to Larry Diamond, coeditor of the Journal of Democracy and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, a central paradox exists between conflict and consensus. Democracy is in many ways nothing more than a set of rules for managing conflict. At the same time, this conflict must be managed within certain limits and result in compromises, consensus, or other agreements that all sides accept as legitimate. An overemphasis on one side of the equation can threaten the entire undertaking. If groups perceive democracy as nothing more than a forum in which they can press their demands, the society can shatter from within. If the government exerts excessive pressure to achieve consensus, stifling the voices of the people, the society can be crushed from above.
The answer is that there is no single or easy answer. Democracy is not a machine that runs by itself once the proper principles and procedures are inserted. A democratic society needs the commitment of citizens who accept the inevitability of conflict as well as the necessity for tolerance.
It is important to recognize that many conflicts in a democratic society are not between clear-cut "right" and "wrong" but between differing interpretations of democratic rights and social priorities. In the United States, there are many such debates. Is it proper, for example, to allocate a certain percentage of jobs to minority groups that have traditionally suffered from discrimination? Does the state have the right to expropriate someone's home for a badly needed road? Whose rights prevail when the society seeks to prohibit logging in the name of wilderness preservation, but at the cost of job losses and economic devastation to small communities dependent upon the lumber industry? Are the rights of citizens violated, or are those of the community protected, if the police stop people at random to curtail drug trafficking?
These are not easy questions, and the broad precepts of democracy only provide guidelines for addressing and analyzing these issues. Indeed, the answers may change over time. It is for this reason that the culture of democracy is so important to develop. Individuals and groups must be willing, at a minimum, to tolerate each other's differences, recognizing that the other side has valid rights and a legitimate point of view. The various sides to a dispute, whether in a local neighborhood or national parliament, can then meet in a spirit of compromise and seek a specific solution that builds on the general principle of majority rule and minority rights. In some instances, a formal vote may be necessary, but often groups can reach an informal consensus or accommodation through debate and compromise. These processes have the added benefit of building the trust necessary to resolve future problems.
"Coalition-building," Diane Ravitch observes, "is the essence of democratic action. It teaches interest groups to negotiate with others, to compromise and to work within the constitutional system. By working to establish coalition, groups with differences learn how to argue peaceably, how to pursue their goals in a democratic manner, and ultimately how to live in a world of diversity."
Democracy is not a set of revealed, unchanging truths but the mechanism by which, through the clash and compromise of ideas, individuals and institutions, the people can, however imperfectly, reach for truth. Democracy is pragmatic. Ideas and solutions to problems are not tested against a rigid ideology but tried in the real world where they can be argued over and changed, accepted or discarded.
Self-government cannot protect against mistakes, end ethnic strife, or guarantee economic prosperity. It does, however, allow for the debate and examination that can identify mistakes, permit groups to meet and resolve differences, and offer opportunities for innovation and investment that are the engines of economic growth. -
Democracy and Power
For authoritarians and other critics, a common misapprehension is that democracies, lacking the power to oppress, also lack the authority to govern. This view is fundamentally wrong: Democracies require that their governments be limited, not that they be weak. Viewed over the long course of history, democracies do indeed appear fragile and few, even from the vantage point of a decade of democratic resurgence. Democracies have by no means been immune to the tides of history; they have collapsed from political failure, succumbed to internal division, or been destroyed by foreign invasion. But democracies have also demonstrated remarkable resiliency over time and have shown that, with the commitment and informed dedication of their citizens, they can overcome severe economic hardship, reconcile social and ethnic division, and, when necessary, prevail in time of war.
It is the very aspects of democracy cited most frequently by its critics that give it resiliency. The processes of debate, dissent, and compromise that some point to as weaknesses are, in fact, democracy's underlying strength. Certainly, no one has ever accused democracies of being particularly efficient in their deliberations: Democratic decision-making in a large, complex society can be a messy, grueling, and time-consuming process. But in the end, a government resting upon the consent of the governed can speak and act with a confidence and authority lacking in a regime whose power is perched uneasily on the narrow ledge of military force or an unelected party apparatus. -
Checks and Balances
One of the most important contributions to democratic practice has been the development of a system of checks and balances to ensure that political power is dispersed and decentralized. It is a system founded on the deeply held belief that government is best when its potential for abuse is curbed and when it is held as close to the people as possible.
As a general term, checks and balances has two meanings: federalism and separation of powers.
Federalism is the division of government between the national, state or provincial, and local levels. The United States, for example, is a federal republic with states that have their own legal standing and authority independent of the federal government. Unlike the political subdivisions in nations such as Britain and France, which have a unitary political structure, American states cannot be abolished or changed by the federal government. Although power at the national level in the United States has grown significantly in relation to state authority in the 20th century, states still possess significant responsibilities in such fields as education, health, transportation, and law enforcement. In centralized, or "unitary," systems, these functions are administered by the national government. For their part, the individual states in the United States have generally followed the federalist model by delegating many functions, such as the operation of schools and police departments, to local communities. The divisions of power and authority in a federal system are never neat and tidy--federal, state, and local agencies can all have overlapping and even conflicting agendas in such areas as education, for example--but federalism does maximize opportunities for the citizen involvement so vital to the functioning of democratic society.
In its second sense, checks and balances refer to the separation of powers that the framers of the American Constitution in 1789 so painstakingly established to ensure that political power would not be concentrated within a single branch of the national government. James Madison, perhaps the central figure in the drafting of the Constitution and later fourth president of the United States, wrote: "The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands...may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny."
Separation of powers is in some ways a misleading term, because the system devised by Madison and the other framers of the Constitution is more one of shared rather than separate powers. Legislative authority, for example, belongs to the Congress, but laws passed by Congress can be vetoed by the president. The Congress, in turn, must assemble a two-thirds majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate to override a presidential veto. The president nominates ambassadors and members of the cabinet, and negotiates international treaties--but all are subject to approval by the Senate. So is the selection of federal judges. As another example, the Constitution specifies that only the Congress has the power to declare war, although the president is commander-in-chief of the armed forces--a source of tension between the two branches that was apparent during the protracted Vietnam War of the 1960s and early 1970s and in the brief Gulf conflict of 1990- 91. Because of the need for congressional approval to enact a political program, political scientist Richard Neustadt has described presidential power in the United States as "not the power to command, but the power to persuade."
Not all the checks and balances within the federal government are specified in the Constitution. Some have developed with practice and precedent. Perhaps the most important is the doctrine of judicial review, established in an 1803 court case, which gives the U.S. Supreme Court the power to declare acts of Congress unconstitutional.
The separation of powers in the American system is often inefficient, but it provides an important safeguard against the potential abuse of power by government--an issue that every democracy must confront. -
Prime Ministers and Presidents
Among a democracy's most important decisions is the method of electing its leaders and representatives. In general, there are two choices. In a parliamentary system, the majority party in the legislature, or a coalition of parties, forms a government headed by a prime minister. This system of parliamentary government, which first evolved in Great Britain, is today practiced in most of Europe, the Caribbean, Canada, India, and many countries in Africa and Asia (often former British colonies). The other major method is direct election of a president independently of the legislature. This presidential system is practiced today in much of Latin America, the Philippines, France, Poland, and the United States.
The chief difference between parliamentary and presidential systems is the relationship between the legislature and the executive. In a parliamentary system, they are essentially one and the same, since the prime minister and members of the cabinet are drawn from the parliament. Typically, the government's term of office will run for a specified period--four or five years, for example--unless the prime minister loses a majority in parliament. In that case the government falls and new elections are held. Alternatively, another party leader is offered a chance to form a government by the head of state, either a president or constitutional monarch, whose role is chiefly symbolic.
The separation of powers characteristic of the American-style presidential system is lacking, since parliament is the preeminent governing institution. Instead, parliamentary systems must rely much more heavily on the internal political dynamics of the parliament itself to provide checks and balances on the power of the government. These usually take the form of a single organized opposition party that "shadows" the government, or of competition among multiple opposition parties.
In a presidential system, both the head of government and the head of state are fused in the office of the president. The president is elected for a specified period directly by the people, as are the members of the congress. As one element of the separation of powers, members of the president's cabinet are usually not members of congress. Presidents normally can be removed from office before finishing their terms only for serious crimes or malfeasance in office. A legislative majority for the president's party can ease passage of his political program, but unlike prime ministers, presidents do not depend on such majorities to remain in office. -
Parliaments and Presidents
A principal claim for parliamentary systems, which today make up the majority of democracies, is their responsiveness and flexibility. Parliamentary governments, especially if elected through proportional representation, tend toward multiparty systems where even relatively small political groupings are represented in the legislature. As a result, distinct minorities can still participate in the political process at the highest levels of government. This diversity encourages dialogue and compromise as parties struggle to form a ruling coalition. Should the coalition collapse or the party lose its mandate, the prime minister resigns and a new government forms or new elections take place--all without a crisis threatening the democratic system itself.
The major drawback to parliaments is the dark side of flexibility and power sharing: instability. Multiparty coalitions may be fragile and collapse at the first sign of political crisis, resulting in governments that are in office for relatively short periods of time. The government may also find itself at the mercy of small extremist parties that, by threatening to withdraw from the ruling coalition and forcing the government to resign, can make special policy demands upon the government. Moreover, prime ministers are only party leaders and lack the authority that comes from being directly elected by the people.
Another concern is the lack of formal institutional checks on parliamentary supremacy. A political party with a large enough majority in parliament, for example, could enact a far-reaching, even anti-democratic political program without any effective limits to its actions, raising the prospect of a tyranny of the majority.
For presidential systems, on the other hand, the principal claims are direct accountability, continuity, and strength. Presidents, elected for fixed periods by the people, can claim the authority deriving from direct election, whatever the standing of their political party in the Congress. By creating separate but theoretically equal branches of government, a presidential system seeks to establish strong executive and legislative institutions, each able to claim its electoral mandate from the people and each capable of checking and balancing the other. Those who fear the potential for executive tyranny will tend to emphasize the role of the Congress; those concerned with the potential abuse of a transient majority in the legislature will assert the authority of the president.
The weakness of separately elected presidents and legislatures is potential stalemate. Presidents may not possess the votes to enact their program, but by employing their veto power, they can prevent the congress from substituting its own legislative program.
Presidents, by virtue of their direct election, may appear more powerful than prime ministers. But they must contend with legislatures that, whether or not controlled by the opposition, possess an election base independent of the president's. Party discipline, therefore, is considerably weaker than in a parliamentary system. The president cannot, for example, dismiss or discipline rebellious party members as a prime minister usually can. A prime minister with a firm parliamentary majority is assured of passage of the government's legislative program; a president dealing with a congress jealous of its own prerogatives must often engage in protracted negotiations to ensure a bill's passage.
Which system best meets the requirements of a constitutional democracy: parliamentary or presidential? The answer is the subject of continuing debate among political scientists and politicians, in part because each system has unique strengths and weaknesses. It should be noted, however, that both are compatible with constitutional democracy, although neither guarantees it. -
POLITICS, ECONOMICS, AND PLURALISM
Participation
Citizens cannot be required to take part in the political process, and they are free to express their dissatisfaction by not participating. But without the lifeblood of citizen action, democracy will begin to weaken. Citizens of democratic societies have the opportunity to join a host of private organizations, associations, and volunteer groups. Many of these are concerned with issues of public policy, yet few are controlled or financed by the government. The right of individuals to associate freely and to organize themselves into different sorts of nongovernmental groups is fundamental to democracy. When people of common interests band together, their voices can be heard and their chances of influencing the political debate increased. As Alexis de Tocqueville, the great 19th-century French political observer, wrote, "There are no countries in which associations are more needed to prevent the despotism of faction or the arbitrary power of a prince than those which are democratically constituted."
The myriad groups to be found in democratic societies can be classified in several ways. Those that function primarily to pressure government with regard to particular issues are referred to as interest groups, or lobbies. Private interest groups, such as business associations, professional groups, or labor unions, usually have an economic stake in the policies they advocate, although they may also take public positions on issues far outside their area of specialization.
So-called public interest groups, like environmental and social welfare organizations, seek what they perceive to be a public, or collective, good. This does not make such public interest groups wiser or more virtuous than those with private interests. Rather, the degree of self-interest is often secondary in the positions they take on public issues.
Both types of interest groups are active in any democracy. Both pay close attention to public opinion, making every effort to widen their base of support as they seek simultaneously to educate the public and influence government policy.
Interest groups serve as a mediating force between the isolated individual and a government that is usually large and remote. It is through the interplay of these groups--and through the process of open debate, conflict, compromise, and consensus among them--that a democratic society makes decisions affecting the welfare of its members. -
Voting
Voting in the election of public officials is the most visible and common form of participation in modern democracies and also the most fundamental. The ability to conduct free and fair elections is at the core of what it means to call a society democratic.
The motivations of voters are as numerous as the societies and interests that they represent. Voters obviously cast their ballots for candidates who will represent their interests, but other factors influence voter preference as well. Party affiliation is one: Individuals who identify strongly with a political party are much more likely to vote than those who identify themselves as independent or nonpartisan. Indeed, in systems of proportional representation, voters may only be able to vote for a political party, not for individual candidates.
Political scientists have identified numerous other factors that can influence voter preference and turnout at the polls. For example, nations with systems of proportional representation, where every vote counts toward representation in the legislature, tend to have higher voter turnouts than nations where a simple majority or plurality of the votes within a district determines the winner. Socioeconomic status, the relative ease of registering to vote, the strength of the party system, the media image of the candidate, the frequency of elections- -all affect how many and how often voters will cast ballots. In democratic elections, the struggle is often not to determine which candidate commands the greatest public support but who can most effectively motivate his or her supporters to convert their opinions into votes. The lingering danger of voter apathy is not that public offices will go unfilled but that office holders will be elected by smaller and smaller percentages of eligible voters. -
Political Parties
Political parties recruit, nominate, and campaign to elect public officials; draw up policy programs for the government if they are in the majority; offer criticisms and alternative policies if they are in opposition; mobilize support for common policies among different interest groups; educate the public about public issues; and provide structure and rules for the society's political debate. In some political systems, ideology may be an important factor in recruiting and motivating party members; elsewhere, similar economic interests or social outlook may be more important than ideological commitment.
Party organizations and procedures vary enormously. On one end of the spectrum, in multiparty parliamentary systems in Europe, political parties can be tightly disciplined organizations run almost exclusively by full-time professionals. At the other extreme is the United States, where rival Republican and Democratic parties are decentralized organizations functioning largely in Congress and at the state level. This situation changes every four years when national Republican and Democratic party organizations, relying heavily on volunteers, coalesce to mount presidential election campaigns.
Political parties are as varied as the societies in which they function. The election campaigns they conduct are often elaborate, usually time-consuming, sometimes silly. But the function is deadly serious: to provide a peaceful and fair method by which the citizens of a democracy can select their leaders and have a meaningful role in determining their own destiny. -
The News Media
To govern is to communicate. As modern societies grow in size and complexity, the arena for communication and public debate is increasingly dominated by the news media: radio and television, newspapers, magazines, books, even computerized data bases.
The news media in a democracy have a number of overlapping but distinctive functions. One is to inform and educate. To make intelligent decisions about public policy, people need accurate, timely, unbiased information. Because opinions diverge, they also need access to a wide range of viewpoints. This role is especially important during election campaigns, when few voters will have the opportunity to see, much less talk with, candidates in person. Instead, they must rely on newspapers and television to explain the issues and characterize the respective positions of candidates and their political parties.
A second function of the media is to serve as a watchdog over government and other powerful institutions in the society. By holding to a standard of independence and objectivity, however imperfectly, the news media can expose the truth behind the claims of governments and hold public officials accountable for their actions.
If they choose, the media can also take a more active role in public debate. Through editorials or investigative reporting, the media can campaign for specific policies or reforms that they feel should be enacted. They can also serve as a forum for organizations and individuals to express their opinions through letters to the editor and the printing of articles with divergent points of view.
Commentators point to another increasingly important role for the media: "setting the agenda." Since they can't report everything, the news media must choose which issues to report and which to ignore. In short, they decide what is news and what isn't. These decisions, in turn, influence the public's perception of what issues are most important. Unlike countries where the news media are government-controlled, however, in a democracy they cannot simply manipulate or disregard issues at will. Their competitors, after all, as well as the government itself, are free to call attention to their own list of important issues.
Few would argue that the news media always carry out these functions responsibly. Newspaper reporters and television correspondents may aspire to a standard of objectivity, but the news is inevitably filtered through the biases and sensibilities of individuals and the enterprises for which they work. They can be sensational, superficial, intrusive, inaccurate, and inflammatory. The solution is not to devise laws that set some arbitrary definition of responsibility or to license journalists, but to broaden the level of public discourse so that citizens can better sift though the chaff of misinformation and rhetoric to find the kernels of truth. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., a distinguished justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, said in 1919: "The best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market." -
Democracy and Economics
Democracy implies no specific doctrine of economics. Democratic governments have embraced committed socialists and free marketeers alike. Indeed, a good deal of the debate in any modern democracy concerns the proper role of government in the economy. Nevertheless, it would be fair to say that the proponents of democracy generally regard economic freedom as a key element in any democratic society. This fact has not precluded economic issues from becoming the chief force dividing--and defining--the "left-right" political spectrum as we know it today.
Social democrats, for example, have stressed the need for equality and social welfare as the core of the government's economic policies. In the past, this has entailed government ownership of the major components of the nation's economy, such as telecommunications, transportation, and some heavy industry. They also call upon government to provide medical, unemployment, and other welfare benefits to those in need. By contrast, centrist and conservative political parties usually place much greater stress on the free-market economy, unimpeded by government control or intervention, as the most effective means of achieving economic growth, technological progress, and widespread prosperity.
Virtually all sides in the economic debate, however, share a greater common ground than they might concede in the heat of political argument. For example, both left and right accept the important role played by a free labor movement, independent of government. Workers in a free society have the opportunity to form or join unions to represent their interests in bargaining with employers on such issues as wages, health and retirement benefits, working conditions, and grievance procedures.
No contemporary democratic state has an economic system that is either completely state-owned or totally free of government regulation. All are mixtures of private enterprise and government oversight. All rely heavily on the workings of a free market, where prices are set not by the government but by the independent decisions of thousands of consumers and producers interacting each day.
Political parties on the left, while generally social democratic in orientation, recognize that the free market, acting in accordance with the principles of supply and demand, is the primary engine of economic growth and prosperity. Similarly, center-right parties, while generally opposed to government intervention or ownership of production, have accepted the government's responsibility for regulating certain aspects of the economy: providing unemployment, medical, and other benefits of the modern welfare state; and using tax policy to encourage economic development. As a result, modern democracies tend to have economies that, while diverse in the details, share fundamental features.
In recent years, the collapse of centrally planned economies in many parts of the world has reinforced the emphasis on the critical role of free markets. In economic as in political affairs, it seems, the indispensable element remains freedom. As Morris Abram, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission and now chairman of UN Watch in Geneva, has said, "Freedom alone may not guarantee economic success. But repression most certainly guarantees economic failure." Even in those rare cases where authoritarian regimes have made significant economic strides, they have done so by granting the freedom in the economic realm that they deny their citizens politically. Moreover, their success generally has not strengthened the hand of the regime over the long term but has contributed, as in the case of Chile and Taiwan, to demands by the people for political freedom commensurate with their economic freedom.
Democracies will continue to debate economic issues as vigorously in the future as in the past. But increasingly, the debate is focusing not on the failed alternative of state-run command economies but on ensuring the benefits of the free market for all in an increasingly interdependent world. -
Who Should Run the Ship of State?
Plato compares the state to an elaborate and expensive ship. A ship, to accomplish a safe and successful journey, needs an expert navigator at the helm, a captain who knows the capacities of the vessel, meteorology, water currents, astronomy, the ins and outs of administration and ship management, and a good number of other related matters. An ignorant and untrained person at the helm of a ship would endanger vessel, cargo, crew, and passengers alike. Similarly, Plato suggests, the ship of state needs expert governors at the helm, governors who are well informed about such things as law, management, economics, sociology, military strategy, history, and other relevant subjects. Ignorant and incompetent governors can be and have been disasters for states and citizens.
The Greek word for navigator is kybernetes. It is related to the Latin gubernator, and thus the origin of the English word governor. The connecting idea is that governing is a craft like seafaring, a craft that has to be learned by study and training. It requires, according to Plato, a considerable degree of specialization. Just as someone who is trained in horse breeding cannot be trusted with producing good shoes, so citizens who are trained to be cobblers, merchants, or playwrights cannot be trusted with such a special task as running a ship or a commonwealth. The results would be haphazard at best.
In connection with oligarchic government the Republic offers the following question and answer: "'What would happen if someone chose the captains of ships according to their wealth, denying a ship to a poor person even if that poor person is a more competent navigator?' 'That would be a bad voyage in the making'"(551c). Rich men as such are not only suspect because most of them tend to use public office to increase their personal wealth and the wealth of their class, something Plato also takes into account, but primarily because the art of making money is not identical with the craft of running a commonwealth for the benefit of all citizens. The latter requires a kind of knowledge and wisdom that far exceeds the expertise of a typical businessman.
The problem of ignorance, of the lack of relevant expertise, is even worse in connection with the democratic masses, according to Plato. The rich tend to be educated and sophisticated experts at least in the areas where they make their money. As successful professionals they have undergone the rigors of training and acquired some sort of extended education, and thus demonstrated a certain degree of intelligence, perseverance, self-discipline, initiative, and industriousness. These are qualities that Plato finds by and large lacking among the lower classes. He describes the demos as undisciplined and ill informed, and thus easily manipulated by unscrupulous politicians with their usual promises, flattery, and rhetorical tricks. Ordinary people, according to the Republic, are easygoing, fun loving, readily swayed by entertaining speakers, and always inclined to travel the path of least resistance. -
Ordinary people are particularly disinclined to suffer the hardships of prolonged and concentrated study. They have no interest in theories or comprehensive views of things; they naturally concentrate on the small tasks at hand, while leaving the big decisions to those who may or may not deserve their confidence. They will thus always be at the mercy of forces and conditions which they do not really comprehend, and thus be in no position to take effective charge of their own destiny. They will be persuaded by politicians to trust them with their lives and fortunes, and they have only the vaguest ideas of where these politicians will take them, and no insurance that they will not be headed for avoidable hardships or outright disaster. The following is Plato's allegorical description of what typically happens in a democracy:
Imagine something like this occurring on a ship or a fleet of ships. The owner of the vessel is bigger and stronger than anyone else on board, but he is hard of hearing, can't see well, and he doesn't know how to navigate a ship. The sailors all fight over who should be at the helm, and every one of them thinks he ought to be the skipper--even though they have never learned the navigator's craft, cannot name any instructor who has taught them, nor indicate any time when they underwent training. They insist, in fact, that there is no craft of navigation that could be taught, and they are ready to rip to shreds anyone who maintains that there is.
They're always all over the owner of the vessel, begging, and doing everything to get him to turn the helm over to them. Sometimes, when others are at the helm, they kill them or throw them overboard. Then they run the ship, having dulled the owner with wine or drugs or in some other way. They use up the vessel's supplies and sail along in a way that can be expected from such people. Anyone capable of talking the owner into letting him steer the boat is called by him a 'navigator' or 'expert of ships.' Anybody else is dismissed as of no use. They haven't got a clue that a real captain must know about the seasons, the sky, the stars, the winds, and everything else about ships if he is to be in genuine command of the vessel. And they don't think that there is an art that empowers the captain to decide where to direct the ship, regardless of whether the others feel like going there or not. And they do not believe that one can master that art. (Republic, 488a-d).
It is interesting that Plato acknowledges the demos as the rightful owner of the ship of state, but it is clear that he does not think the owner fit to be in charge of anything. Nor does he think that the usual breed of politicians (the "sailors") could be trusted with the task of governing--be they the spokesmen of the demos or the oligarchs. Something entirely new has to be invented if such disastrous events as the Peloponnesian War or the ensuing civil strife are to be avoided in the future. Nothing short of a carefully designed rule by highly educated experts would be equal to the task: a carefully designed dictatorship of reason.
Not surprisingly, no philosopher has ever taken quite seriously the idea of installing a council of intellectuals as the government of a state, and scholars like Alan Bloom have suggested that the whole argument in favor of Philosopher Kings and Philosopher Queens has no other purpose than to demonstrate the impossibility of such a utopian scheme. Yet, there is enough force in Plato's insistence on expert knowledge as a precondition for good government that his peculiar kind of elitism cannot be rejected out of hand. Plato's discussion of his utopian state is an enlightening thought experiment, and his critique of democracy an important challenge. Even in an age that has finally adopted democracy as the basic norm of acceptable government it is important to answer Plato's challenge with detailed counter-arguments. With respect to the argument implied by the ship analogy philosophers have responded to Plato's critique of democracy in the following way:
Even if one admits that expert knowledge is necessary for the government of a commonwealth, and that most ordinary people do not have a sufficient grasp of all the social, administrative, legal, and other relevant details that go into the running of a government, people nevertheless need not relinquish their right to appoint the officials that run the government, or to recall them, if the results of their performance seem unsatisfactory. The owner of a ship may not know how to navigate, but he or she still has the right to determine where the ship will go. Hired expert navigators may be necessary to figure out the best means of getting to some place, but the owners of the ship should still be able to determine the ends. Voters in a democracy may not know all or even any of the technicalities of running a government, but they surely can judge the results. What is essential for democratic government is not that citizens be able to understand and do everything themselves, but that they be able to determine the major outcomes and their over-all destiny as a community.
Turning the ship analogy against Plato in this way is a persuasive move, but it ultimately does not take care of Plato's challenge. For if it is plausible to argue that voters may be too uninformed to decide on the best means to reach a certain goal, then it is also plausible to argue that they may not be informed enough to choose the right goals. A serious lack of knowledge can manifest itself not only in the way of how a boat is run, but also in the choice of destinations. What can and has to be criticized is not only a citizenry's possible ignorance of the due processes of their government, but also their ideas and expectations about where their society ought to go, what goals they want to reach as a commonwealth. The democratic election of a leader who plans to replace a capitalist democracy with a fascist warfare state, e.g., is a case in point. Hitler, it is worth remembering, was elected by a democratic vote, and it is surely not irrelevant to ask whether those who voted for him did not suffer from an unacceptable degree of ignorance and lack of political education.
The democratic decision to engage in a series of expansionist wars, as sanctioned by the Athenian Assembly, is another case in point. What Plato witnessed as a young man was not a lack of understanding of the technicalities of governing on the part of the demos, but rather poor judgment in the choice of goals. Major political destinies can be judged in terms of wisdom, feasibility, logic, moral responsibility, and other criteria that make the general intellectual competence of an electorate a relevant and urgent issue. It is obviously not a foregone conclusion that whatever the majority decides is also the best—or even acceptable. Both long-term and short-term expectations and decisions of an electorate may be quite thoughtless, ill-advised, stupid, illusory, dangerous, or outright insane. ("With individuals insanity is something rare. With groups, parties, nations, or whole epochs, however, it is the rule,” Nietzsche suggests in Beyond Good and Evil.) In spite of the above critique of the ship analogy, in other words, Plato's challenge to the idea of democracy still stands.
Granted, then, that sound political decisions concerning means as well as ends require not only a reliable knowledge of such things as economics, geography, sociology, and military strategy, but also something like moral competence, the question arises as to how this sort of preparedness can be acquired. Plato's answer is: by a thorough and systematic education; no viable government is possible without an adequate amount of knowledge and training. It is for this reason that education is a major preoccupation of PlatoÂ’s Republic. -
Plato's Cave in Modern Times
For a modern reader of the Republic it is not necessary to summarize its author's analyses as an argument against democracy. One can also read the book as a reminder of what would have to be the case for a genuine democracy to function. For the major implication of Plato's discussion of knowledge and democracy is the contention that democracy will not work--will not be a democracy--unless its citizens are sufficiently educated for it. And that is a point that as eminent a democrat as Thomas Jefferson or as important a founding father as James Madison has emphasized as well. "Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves therefore are its only safe depositories. And to render even them safe, their minds must be improved to a certain degree," Jefferson wrote in his Notes on the State of Virginia in 1785, and Madison stated in a personal letter: "A people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives. A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps both."
One of the challenging questions that Plato's critique of democracy poses today is the question whether the citizens of today's mass democracies are interested and informed enough to participate meaningfully in the democratic process, i.e., whether today's democracies are in fact what they pretend to be: societies where people are "their own governors," where they are truly in command of their own lives.
The image of Plato's Cave is strongly reminiscent of today's media situation, particularly the situation created by motion pictures as the main medium of mass entertainment and communication. When movie theatres had an almost monopolistic position in the entertainment industry, millions of people sat motionless in dark caverns, all mesmerized by the same shadows that moved across the screens in front of them. And when television became the primary medium of entertainment and communication, people spent even more time as semi-hypnotized consumers of an endless stream of moving images. It is by no means far-fetched to see today's television consumers as masses of mental prisoners who get their values and their views of the world from the programs and images that powerful corporations or governments keep feeding into their minds. Most viewers are in no position to check what they learn from the screen against the facts outside of television. The world in which they live is essentially a television world. Like the chained prisoners in the Cave they rarely even wonder whether what they see is real.
The vast majority of people in half or fully industrialized societies get most of their information, values, and orientations from television. As a pedagogical force television has largely replaced the authority of parents, schools, or community organizations. In that situation growing numbers of people seem increasingly incapable of distinguishing clearly between newscasts, dramatizations, fiction, entertainment, and advertisements: The uniformity of the screen presentation seems to homogenize everything they see into some sort of hyper reality that is internalized whole. The apparent inability of vast numbers of people to distinguish fully between media content and reality has given rise to numerous theories according to which, for all practical purposes, there is no difference between the two. The French philosopher Jean Baudrillard, e.g., has pointed out that both television productions and real events are now experienced on a plane of virtual reality where there is no difference between computer-generated combat simulations and real wars. Both simulations and real events are reduced to mere spectacles. The consciousness and emotional involvement of a player in a video arcade, for example, and that of a viewer of real war footage, is essentially the same. For ever greater numbers of people the world beyond their immediate daily experience has become simply a world of moving images. -
The present is often called an "age of information" because an enormous body of knowledge has been accumulated by means of electronic data banks, and because access to this body of knowledge has--technologically--become easier than it has ever been before. But that does not mean that people are better informed, even in technologically advanced societies. The central role of television in the lives of most people has not led to a more sophisticated or better informed public discourse, but rather, according to many observers, to a considerable "dumming down" of it. It is true that the public is doused with a flood of facts and alleged facts as in no other time in human history. But these disseminated news items are mostly so chopped up into small pieces and offered in such rapid-fire succession that they become virtually meaningless. They usually come without the background information through which they could be adequately understood, they are so atomized that they lack any internal coherence, and they come with such speed and in such quantities that any new barrage of them quickly blots out their predecessors in the mind of the average viewer. There is never enough time for absorption, let alone critical reflection. And since programmers at the networks systematically avoid any complexity or demanding materials for fear of losing viewers, difficult subject matters (which are an essential part of modern life) are as a rule never aired.
As a consequence both the media and its consumers are now much more informed and excited about their elected leaders' hemorrhoids or scandalous sex lives than about the complex and demanding problems of tax laws, foreign politics, war, and the pressing problems of social justice. Citizens will not get the information that they would need to understand their situation and its often difficult problems, but the titillating sensationalism that distracts them from the matters that really shape their lives. In cahoots with the unacknowledged but effective demands of the majority of viewers television programmers consciously and unconsciously transform the business of information into various forms of prurient or shallow entertainment.
It is the electronic cave dwellers who decide elections, provided they go to the polls at all, and candidates who run for office have to take that into consideration when they plan their electoral strategies. (When the "egghead" candidate Adlai Stevenson ran for President in 1952, an enthusiastic supporter told him: "Every thinking man in this country will vote for you." "That's very nice," Stevenson replied, "but how am I to win the election?") As analyst after analyst has pointed out, election campaigns are typically not run on the basis of solid information and rational arguments, but on the basis of manipulative images, suggestive sound bites, and the most superficial emotional appeals. Accordingly, televised debates between presidential candidates have deteriorated into repetitive and choreographed dispensation of bite-sized platitudes. As a rule, the candidate who has the most money to buy television time will win the electoral contest. (Some wits have therefore suggested that public offices be simply put on the auction block.) Increasing numbers of commentators of the electoral system tend to think that under present conditions, the conditions of our television culture; the democratic process has become a sheer travesty of what it is supposed to be. -
In stark contrast to the growing volume of entertainment stand the facts that determine people's actual lives. By a few (usually barely noticed) changes in tax laws governments effect massive re-distributions of national incomes and wealth. By a few inconspicuous decrees vast stretches of wilderness areas are either saved for a while or permanently laid to waste. Behind-closed-doors operations endanger or wreck national healthcare plans and retirement systems for millions of people. Governments deliberately create international tensions and military situations where immense resources are channeled into military build-ups, and where the population of the whole world can only hope that some unforeseen development will not trigger a process of massive destruction. All these things are done in the name of the people, but it would be a stretch to maintain that they are done democratically. The fact is that the majority of people have hardly any knowledge of the crucial details and analyses that go into the inauguration of any of these measures that so crucially shape their lives. And it may well be the feeling of impotence generated by the realization of their lack of understanding and involvement that makes millions of people so desperately hungry for ever more escapist entertainment.
Many theoreticians, particularly those on the Left, argue that the distortion or abrogation of the democratic process is due to the "brainwashing" and "manipulation" of the masses by the media and other institutions, particularly by television. Being kept busy by making a living during most of the day most people are too exhausted during their time off to do anything else except watch television programs that make no demands on them. And the ruling classes, so the argument goes, have no interest in changing this situation in any event; they have no interest in an alert and informed citizenry that may ask too many critical questions. They have, on the contrary, always had an interest in keeping the majority of the people in a state of benightedness--in the same way in which American slaveholders once had an interest in keeping their slaves in a state of illiteracy, ignorance, and thus total helplessness. And since most of the important media are either owned or controlled by the rich and otherwise privileged groups, it is next to impossible to really enlighten the masses, to liberate them from their "false consciousness." It will only be in certain crisis situations, such as times of unpopular wars or severe economic depressions, that people will wake up from their troglodyte torpor and begin to seriously inform themselves. Without such a crisis, however, the stranglehold of manipulative media on the minds of the voters is too strong to be broken. The reduction of potential voters to an apathetic and confused mass of television consumers works too well for the privileged upper classes to be seriously questioned by anyone in power. The manufacturers of "false consciousness" are forever making sure that the demos will not be able to use the democratic process effectively on their own behalf and for their own advantage.
There is, of course, no such explanation or excuse for the problematic state of democracy in Plato's thinking. If a democracy is dysfunctional, then this is only a natural state of affairs—a logical outgrowth of the natural constitution of most people. This is how Plato described the prevalent disposition of “democratic man” in the Republic:
He lives from day to day indulging the appetite of the moment. Sometimes he is into drinking and the sounds of music, and sometimes he confines himself to water while trying to lose weight. He takes a shot at gymnastics, but after that he becomes lazy again and lets himself go. Then once more he lives the life of a philosopher. At times he busies himself with politics, and he gets up and says and does whatever comes to his mind. And if he is fond of someone who is a warrior, off he goes in that direction. And if he likes a businessman, once more he goes off into that. His life has neither principle nor order, and this distracted existence he terms joy and bliss and freedom! (561d).
If the majority of the people are too uninformed, lackadaisical, or apathetic to make the democratic process rational and effective, then they just reveal their inherent nature, according to Platonic thinking. It is not an upper class that keeps the demos unenlightened, but it is the people's own disposition that makes them eschew enlightenment, and thus dependent on some sort of rulers. If people did not naturally have the disposition they display in a dysfunctional democracy, other people would not be able to exploit and mislead them the way they do. Ruling cliques do not create popular ignorance and apathy, a defender of Plato might say, they only use it for their own purposes--in the same way in which a seller of dubious merchandise does not create lack of buyer discretion, but simply exploits it. For Platonists, in short, the incompetence and victimization of the masses are a more or less permanent condition. The eventual education and emancipation of the demos envisioned by the Left is a baseless hope in their eyes. They would basically agree with what the conservative scholar and journalist H. L. Mencken once wrote in a letter to Upton Sinclair: "The longer I live, the more I am convinced that the common people are doomed to be diddled forever.” -
A plutocracy is a government system where wealth is the principal basis of power (from the Greek ploutos meaning wealth).
The term plutocracy is generally used to describe two unrelated phenomena. In writings about history, plutocracy is the political control of the state by an oligarchy of the wealthy. Examples of such plutocracy include some city-states in Ancient Greece and the Italian merchant republics of Venice, Florence, and Genoa.
Plutocracies typically emerge as one of the first governing systems within a territory after a period of anarchy. Plutocracy is closely related to aristocracy as a form of government, as generally wealth and high social status have been closely associated throughout history.
The second usage is a pejorative reference to the allegedly great and undue influence the wealthy have on the political process in contemporary society. This influence can be exerted positively (by financial "contributions" or in some cases, bribes) or negatively by refusing to financially support the government (refusing to pay taxes, threatening to move profitable industries elsewhere, etc). It can also be exerted by the owners and ad buyers of media properties which can shape public perception of political issues (e.g. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp's publications alleged political agendas in Australia, the UK and the United States).
Recently, there have been numerous cases of wealthy individuals exerting financial pressure on governments to pass favorable legislation. (see: Lobbying) Most western partisan democracies permit the raising of funds by the partisan organisations, and it is well-known that political parties frequently accept significant donations from various individuals (either directly or through corporate institutions). Ostensibly this should have no effect on the legislative decisions of elected representatives; however it would be unlikely that no politicians are influenced by these "contributions". The more cynical might describe these donations as "bribes", although legally they are not. In the United States, campaign finance reform efforts seek to ameliorate this situation. However campaign finance reform has to successfully surmount challenge by officials who are beneficiaries of the system in place which allows this dynamic in the first place. -
Originally posted by crazy monkey:
Speaking of costs of electioneering, or campaigning as a deterrent to democracy, this is not a problem with democracy. Any candidates standing for some kinds of office whether in national or local election will have to foot certain costs of advertising or putting posters or leaflets to reach electors.
[b]Role of political parties
Some critics of representative democracy argue that party politics mean that representatives will be forced to follow the party line on issues, rather than either the will of their conscience or constituents. But it can also be argued that the electors have expressed their will in the election, which puts the emphasis on the program the candidate was elected on, which they are then supposed to follow. One emerging problem with representative democracies is the increasing cost of political campaigns, which tends to lead the candidates into making deals with wealthy supporters for legislation favorable to those supporters once the candidate is elected.
Les Marshall, an expert on the spread of democracy to nations that have not traditionally had these institutions, notes that "globally, there is no alternative to multi-party representative democracy" for those states that embrace democratic methods at all. This is not controversial: representative democracy is the most commonly used system of government in countries generally considered "democratic".
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Try to stand for local, association or club elections of any size or scale, it would be the same. When a province or country is large such expense will be high. The larger political parties in a bigger country naturall will have larger collections base to pay for such costs. As a percentage of a country's GDP or parties' membership base, it may not be that as high after all as stated. One has to be objective in such an assessment.
So election campaigning costs are unavoidable if it is an investment in standing up for one's beliefs or convictions. It is in the overall inerest of the nation to have such a process to ensure fair and equitable elections to return the best candidates possible.
If freedoms of choice or election of the best is the end objective then it is justified. The benefits from such an election process will outweigh campaigning costs manyfolds if the right party is elected to take the whole nation to success. So let's not be sidetracked by such political writers on the deterrence of high campaigning costs.
The irony is that the same people decrying high costs of electioneering in democracy might not see such costs as a problem if it will better assure them of getting into power. They might even spend more if they have the means to do so in any system to outbeat and outwit opponents. Once establishing their own power base they may even behave differently trying to increase election deposits to discourage oppositions from taking part in election.
Election campaigning costs is the least of any issues. On the contrary in an autocracy there might be resort to legal suits and gerrymandeering of GRC and increases of election deposits that lead to higher costs to discourage oppositions from standing for election not necessarily in a democratic system.
What a farce to refer to campaigning or election costs as a problems with democracy.
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CrazyMonkey,
Kudos for such a brilliant essay, though i shall say\
a discussion forum like this one is not a place to write/publish a university thesis or assignment.
Robert and Elfred,
Both fo you should read what CrazyMonkey has posted in detail. I'm sure, Elfred, that you would be able to mroe clearly understand what advantages democracy has that autocracy doesn't after reading CrazyMonkey's substantial repllies.
ya, thx.
the pikamaster (who is sick of elitism in Singapore) -
Originally posted by crazy monkey:
Election is only part of the whole political structure to ensure fair and equitable rule "of the people, by the people and for the people".
[b]Elections as rituals
Elections are not in themselves a sufficient condition for the existence of democracy.
Firstly, elections have often been used by authoritarian regimes or dictatorships to give a false sense of democracy. This can happen in a variety of different ways:
restrictions on who is allowed to stand for election
restrictions on the true amount of power that elected representatives are allowed to hold, or the policies that they are permitted to choose while in office
voting which is not truly free and fair (e.g. through intimidation of those voting for particular candidates)
or most simply through falsification of the results
Historical examples of this include the USSR under the CPSU before its collapse in 1991, Iraq under Saddam Hussein, and the Philippines under Ferdinand Marcos.
In addition, for countries without a strong tradition of democratic majority rule, the introduction of free elections alone has rarely been sufficient to achieve a transition from dictatorship to democracy, until a wider shift in the political culture and gradual formation of the institutions of democratic government have occurred too. There are various examples, such as Revolutionary France or modern Uganda or Iran, of countries have only able to sustain democracy in a limited form until wider cultural changes occur to enable real majority rule.
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Election comprises rights and obligations as to voting process and entitledment to stand for election etc. Every element is important to good corporate governance of the people, by the people and for the people.
These elements as spelt out originally in constitutional legislations may be interpreted or amended by the party in power to suit its own convenience. Over time the rights to stand for election may thus be tweaked and the original democratic intent changed drastically.
This is not attributable to any fault of democracy per se but by men in control. Democracy can be tampered with to become a farce yet the party in power can claim to be practising democracy in form but is actually using democracy to perpetuate one-party or dominant party rule. -
The issue is not which system is better than which system.Originally posted by pikamaster:CrazyMonkey,
Kudos for such a brilliant essay, though i shall say\ a discussion forum like this one is not a place to write/publish a university thesis or assignment.
Robert and Elfred,
Both fo you should read what CrazyMonkey has posted in detail. I'm sure, Elfred, that you would be able to mroe clearly understand what advantages democracy has that autocracy doesn't after reading CrazyMonkey's substantial repllies.
ya, thx.
the pikamaster (who is sick of elitism in Singapore)
I like the Ship part...
Aiyah... hopefully, you'd know what I mean in future. -
Originally posted by crazy monkey:
[b]Tyranny of the majority
This issue is also discussed in the article on Majoritarianism.
Whether or not there is a very broad and inclusive franchise, majority rule may lead to a fear of so-called "tyranny of the majority,". This refers to the possibility that a democratic system can empower elected representatives acting on behalf of the majority view to take action that oppresses a particular minority. This clearly has the potential to undermine the aspiration of democracy as empowerment of the citizenry as a whole. For example, it is theoretically possible in a liberal democracy to elect a representative body that will decide that a certain minority (religion, political belief, etc.) should be criminalized (either directly or indirectly).[/b]
REPLY: I believe that majoritarianism may lead to "tyranny of the majority" but this is far better than "tyranny by the minority" happening often in non-democratic regimes like Iraq or Camodia etc where citizens were killed in genocides aimed at elimination of entire race.
It would appear that for every problem or shortcoming likely to happen whether with constitutions or administration in a democratic country, the same problem exists in non-democratic ones with worse practices.
At least, in the event of tyranny of the majority happening in a democratic country, there are venues for redress or checks and balances provided within the constitutions or general laws like right of expressions of dissent, actions in court or legal recourse within the framework of the laws of the land.
If the same problem happens as stated in the thesis in a non-democratic regime, will there be any tolerance of dissent? What are the legal or constitutional or other alternative solutions in such regimes.
When we talk about problems and solutions to problems in any political system in such a topic "autocracy versus democracy", one should not just single out instances after instances of problems with democracy but should maintain a certain perspective and objectivity.
So in this regard, I disagree with the statement: "Proponents of democracy make a number of defenses to this. One is to argue that the presence of a constitution in many democratic countries acts as a safeguard against the tyranny of the majority." Such an approach in arguing advantages or disadvantages of democracy as against other systems are likely to be biased if there is no system or apple-to-apple comparison.
If the thesis is to establish problems with democracy then it must proceed to compare political constitutions (whether written or unwritten) and policies and practices across the board among all the tangible and practised political systems or between democracy and non-democracy. It should be more objective in making comparisons based on some notable or tangible yardstick.
If for example autocracy not noted for having a fair and equitable election system and three branches of government on the basis of rule of the people, by the people and for the people but has to adopt such democratic processes or practices to get by, could autocracy be worthwhile or be considered as a system for any objective discussions. So far from previous postings, it was established autocracy in the final analysis is equated to accidents or luck in finding of good people in history who rose up at the particular time to make changes to society for the better.
As for luck, it is clearly unpredictable and we cannot really depend on it too much. There is an obvious need to lower the high costs created or discrimination and solve the 20 problems of autocracy as posted. There is a critical need to create more pro-business and people-centred environment to receive luck. Now people here in this forum are discussing on such matters not academic comparisons of system or ancient opinions anyway.
The problem is: autocracy may wish to clamour for system recognition. Its practices so far resulted in some good initially but at great price or costs to majority of citizens. There is a big problem of lack of social cohesions or retentions of talents or nurturing of entrepreneurs needed badly at this juncture due to past one-sided top-down policies.
Autocracy has resorted to use of defamation laws, tweaking of the election laws or constitutions to restrict oppositions from political participation. How could there be any justifications in saying that democracy fares worse in this areas at all under such circumstances ? If just because of difficulties to be encountered in amending constitutions for progress, autocracy has to resort to all these, then what is there to stop future politicians to do worse?
In a democracy the political and governing framework is well established as consisting of free and fair election, legislative, executive and judiciary less vulnerable to the tyranny of the majority. The problem with the above-mentioned type of analytical critique is that while quick to point out problems with democracy and its processes, there is a lack of clear thinking of the system problems vis-a-vis systems.
So many more examples were given to show some specific breaches of minority rights or social problems and that the majority rule resulted in tyranny of the majority without realizing that in non-democratic regimes, the norm might be total annihilation or genocide of a whole race.
At least in a democratic system, minority interest is often respected in that there are venues available allowing affected minority to appeal against decisions or take the governing power to court in accordance with rule of laws of the land. Is there a possibility the problems would be better solved in any other established political systems?
It is regretted that such a thesis or assignment would fall short of objective comparison of systems for our discussions under our particular topic.
The thesis continues to conclude that possession of the franchise doesn't necessarily protect one from oppression. It may be true that this may happen in a democracy but does this only exist in a democracy or does democracy create such problems?
The thesis went on to give an impression that democracy has caused racial or religious discrimination in France.
Fair enough there might be so-called majority tyranny in France but where is the objective comparison again referred to in the foregoing?
If the comparison has been objective, it should be asked: If French minority subjects living in say a muslim country like Iran ask for change to religious laws would such requests ever be entertained. In the first place, French might not be liberally granted rights of abode in such countries. How would an autocratic, muslim or Iran government or its political system handle such a minority problem?
The practicality and advantages of democracy over non-democracy are well established today in that autocratic and non-democratic countries are turning increasingly to democracy to solve all their immense problems not mentioned in the thesis. Such democratising countries would need time to solve teething problems like re-orientations of strong anti-democratic conventions or social and cultural habits of the past.
I therefore find the additional arguments and examples unhelpful to our particular discussion relating to particular solutions to domestic drug problems, discriminations etc for the same reasons as stated in the foregoing.
The so-called tyranny of the majority or majority rule against the minority cannot be termed as a problem with democracy until a more objective comparison is made.
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