Understanding Government: Democracy

Government power is distributed in different ways.

In a dictatorship, one person has most of the power in a country. In a monarchy, the executive power is hereditary. In an oligarchy, most of the power is held by a small elite. Two other forms of government are democracy and republic.

DEMOCRACY AND REPUBLIC

The definitions of these last two terms have become somewhat confused. In a pure democracy, all citizens would decide all issues directly. But this is impractical in most political jurisdictions. Instead, they use representative democracy, in which citizens elect the people who make the decisions.

A republic in its most general form is any government that is not a monarchy. (Hence the Roman Republic, People's Republic of China, etc.) But as used by America's Founding Fathers, the term means a government whose structure is designed to limit its power. This structure can include democratic elections.

The difference between a republic and a democracy is that in a republic there is a right answer to policy questions and the structure of the government should facilitate its achievement, but in a democracy the right answer is seen as being whatever people want. Thus in a republic elections exist to limit government, but in a democracy, they exist to fulfill an abstract theory.

It is worth noting that America's Founding Fathers created a republic and had nothing good to say about democracy. Since then, elements of democracy have been added into the structure of American government, creating a somewhat confused mixture of the two. Thus America is sometimes referred to as a democratic republic. Other times it is simply referred to as a democracy, but this term is meant to include some republican features as well. (This is the meaning that is used in the rest of this article.)

FREEDOM AND CHOICE

Democracy is sometimes equated with freedom, or referred to as political freedom. However, this notion is confused. Freedom means that everyone can do what they want, so long as it does not infringe on the rights of others. Democracy means that some portion of the population, often a majority, imposes its will on everyone. All government is based on force, including democracy. Fewer people may be coerced in a democracy than in a dictatorship, but democracy is still based on coercion, not freedom.

For example, consider a group of people trying to decide where to go out for lunch. In a dictatorship, one person picks a restaurant and forces everyone to go there. In a democracy, people vote, and the majority or plurality forces everyone to go to their choice. With freedom, everyone can choose for themselves where to go. They can choose to go the same place as others, or go their separate ways.

Democracy offers choice, not freedom. These are not the same. If someone puts a gun to your head and says that you must either eat an apple or eat an orange, you have a choice, but you don't have freedom. Democracy restricts the choices that people can make by penalizing some of them.

Democracy is sometimes seen as a free market in politics, similar to the free market in goods and services. But this analogy is fundamentally flawed. In a free market, change happens on the margin. Products and services don't have to get majority support to be successful. Just a few customers can make them a success, and this can build into more support when others see this success.

In the free market, you get what you pay for. There is no penalty if your choice does not get majority support. In a democracy, there is. In an election, you either win or lose. Change does not happen on the margin. This encourages strategic voting, which eliminates the process that the market uses to promote success. However, there is a marginal effect to some extent because politicians change their voting behavior based on their margin of victory.

THE DEMOCRATIC IDEOLOGY

Support for democracy is sustained by a ideology, a vision of how democracy works. Understanding the politics of democracy requires understanding this vision.

The democratic ideology can be summarized as follows.

Democracy expresses the will of the people, which government must carry out. Voting is a right that must be encouraged so that this will is expressed. Politicians should put aside their differences and work for the common good. Democracy allows everyone to have an equal say in the outcome. Since everyone has a chance to participate in the process, they are morally obligated to accept the result.

This vision is fundamentally flawed. There is no such thing as the will of the people. Different people disagree. There may be two, five, or a million different opinions on an issue. On some issues, many people have no opinion at all, and on others, their opinions are highly superficial. There is no one "will of the people" for government to enact.

The will of the people is a dangerous idea because it allows politicians to claim to embody it by virtue of the fact that they were elected. They may get support for bad policies by telling people that their policies are the people's will.

Voting is not a right, it is a power. A vote is a share in the decision-making of government. Government is based on force. Its power can be used for good or bad ends. There is no right to violate others' rights.

Viewing voting as a right leads to the belief that everyone should be able to vote and should do so. Understanding that voting is a power leads to the question of who should have this power. While freedom is generally better preserved when power is dispersed rather than concentrated, there is no reason that groups such as children and felons should have this power.

Likewise, there is no particular reason that having more people vote will lead to better outcomes, particularly if they know little or nothing about the issues or candidates. It is sometimes said that "it doesn't matter how you vote, just that you vote". But this makes no sense for voting as a decision-making process. It only makes sense if voting is used to provide popular support for whatever the government does.

People disagree about both what goals should be pursued and how to achieve them. Politicians likewise disagree, and these disagreements are not just partisanship or bickering. They cannot work together for the "common good" because they don't agree what it is or how to achieve it. If most everyone agreed on a given topic, it would cease to be a political issue.

People do not have even close to an equal say in a democracy. Some people have far more power than others. One of the most important insights of political scientists is the Iron Law of Oligarchy, which says that all organizations are inevitably controlled by a small elite, or oligarchy. This is because people have different levels of intelligence, dedication, political skill, wealth, access to information, political connections, etc. Thus is it impossible for people to have an equal say.

Money is almost essential in politics, so people with money have disproportionate influence. People may all have equal votes, but they need information to decide how to vote. Money is necessary to inform the public about a candidate or message. Thus the rich have disproportionate influence in a democracy. Policies like campaign finance reform that attempt to fix this actually concentrate power even further.

Are people morally obligated to accept a policy because it was decided democratically? Recall that all government policies are based on force. A private organization can also make decisions democratically, and if people don't like the result, they are free to leave the organization. In this case, people would only be morally obligated to accept the result if they agreed to do so ahead of time, regardless what it would be. Government does not ask whether you want to participate or let you walk away if you don't like the result. It is only reasonable that people try to mitigate the harm that government might cause, but the fact that they do so doesn't mean that they are morally obligated to accept the result. There may be very good pragmatic reasons to do so, however.

DEMOCRACY AND CULTURE

Democracy is not necessarily the best form of government in all times and places. It has certain cultural prerequisites.

Some factors are more likely to lead to successful democracy. Democracy works better with a literate, educated populace. A common language is essential. Relatively rapid communication is helpful. A healthy middle class is helpful. A committment not to resort to violence when you lose an election is essential.

Not all countries meet these conditions. If the people are illiterate and have to work all day to survive, democracy is unlikely to succeed. There is a reason that monarchy was the most common political system for so long.

Attempting to impose democracy on a country which is not culturally friendly to it is likely to end badly. It may be a case of "one man, one vote, one time", or it may result in a civil war.

CONCLUSION

Democracy cannot solve the fundamental problems of government.

All government, democratic or not, is based on the use or threat of force. In any government, its employees are not responsible for their actions as people are in a free market. It is true that democracies mostly do not engage in democide or make war with each other. But they still see the negative effects of taxes, spending, redistribution, and regulation. Demcoracies may be even more susceptible to economic collapse through massive debt than other governments, due to public support for redistribution.

Government is necessary for some things. But democracy is a poor substitute for freedom. Rather than try to fulfill some abstact and flawed vision, government decision-making should be structured to limit government power as much as possible.