Finding the Truth about Democracy
A reader claims that we do not need a state that is 100% democracy to see that it is not workable. We have had enough examples to see that it does not work.
You must have been misunderstanding many things I have written about as I have basically taught the idea that the samples of democracy that we have had indicate, not its failure, but its success. In the previous post I said:
“One can examine how elements of democracy have influenced society and then make an educated guess as to the pros and cons of a true democracy.”
What I said that you are resisting was that a true democracy has not yet been demonstrated.
Even so, many of the details and problems in working out a true principle will not be foreseen. A principle must be demonstrated in reality to know all the details and problems that will surface.
Using logic and principles one can predict possibilities, but in the demonstration of an idea you have free will and unforeseen circumstances entering in making it impossible to predict all the details.
A reader gave this quote attributed to Jefferson
“A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.”
Snopes gave a good explanation how this originated in 2004 and was not said by Jefferson:
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/jefferson-mob-rule-quote/
This explains why the statement is so out of harmony with his other comments on Democracy.
The word Democracy has a bad connotation among some, but these are usually people on the far right and left who are pushing for minority views and do not want democracy. I think there are many in the middle, like the early Perot supporters, who would be enthused about it.
I like a reader’s suggestion of calling the process “Molecular Democracy.” Anti-democracy people will be assailing it no matter what we call it so maybe we could put out a fire by using the name to begin with.
I previously asked my critical friend this question: “What principle are you using to which I am blinded?”
To which he said this: “The primary principle that you are blinded to is one of the most fundamental of all. ‘A is A.’ A thing is what it is, and no amount of wishing for it to be otherwise can change that principle.”
I don’t think I would call this a principle. I would say that the principle of correctly identifying or describing our reality works through the principle of perception.
First of all, most every conscious person on the planet believes “A’ is ‘A.” For instance — show 10 people an apple and they will admit that it is an apple. But what we are talking about involves more than seeing one simple thing or object and admitting it exists. We are talking about a subject with many nuances where we have to match up “ACDGFH” with “BCDEFJ” and use the harmonies to see the truth.
If the problem of you and I reaching agreement were as simple as seeing that “A=A” then why does few seem to be agreeing with you? The “A” that you are seeing must not be that obvious. Perhaps it is not just a simple “A,” but a more complex problem.
A reader supplied a famous antidemocracy quote by Alexander Fraser Tyler, in “Cycle Of Democracy,” circa 1770, wrote the following:
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over lousy fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average of the world’s great civilizations before they decline has been 200 years. These nations have progressed in this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; from faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to Complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependency; from dependency back again to bondage.”
This quote is often used by strict Constitutionalists who cringe when our government is called a Democracy and insist on it being called a Republic instead. Some of this group have the notion that a Democracy would be much worse than a Republic and even compare it to a tyranny. A phrase often used is “a tyranny of the majority.”
That said, let us examine this quote an analyze it.
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government.”
There are several problems with this statement. The first is there has never been a permanent government of any kind on the earth in the history of the planet. So if we predict the future based on the past we could say, “There is no such thing as a permanent form of any government.”
Thus singling out democracy as not being permanent is an illusionary contrast.
Secondly, there has never been a true democracy in recorded history. Athens was perhaps the closest to a real democracy in the ancient world but consider this.
Greater Athens had about 250,000-300,000 people. Only a male head of a citizen family could vote. Citizen families may have amounted to 100,000 people and out of these some 30,000 were the adult male citizens entitled to vote in the assembly. In addition to this those qualified to vote were required to vote.
Most people of today would not view a government where only about 10% of its residents having the power to vote as much of a democracy. Secondly, there is an obvious flaw in requiring citizens to vote. That is you get many people voting who do not care or are not informed about the item under consideration.
Even with its flaws, however, Athens grew to be the most prosperous and free society in the ancient world. Even after the government was destroyed by Sparta, the principle of democracy lived on and provided much inspiration for the Founding Fathers of the United States.
The quote continues:
“It (democracy) can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury.”
The problem with this conclusion is we have never had an example of a democracy where all permanent residents can become citizens and all citizens can vote on issues. Thus one cannot say that the majority of such voters would selfishly raid the treasury.
This did not seem to be a major problem in ancient Athens, a partial democracy. Their main problem was from powerful leaders in surrounding governments, threatened by democracy and seeking to overthrow it.
On the other hand, this raiding of the public treasury is a major flaw in our Republic of the USA. The people here are not raiding the treasury, but our leaders are for the purpose of buying votes.
The quote continues:
“From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over lousy fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.”
This is true, but this describes a Republican form of government — not a democracy.
The quote ends with:
“The average of the world’s great civilizations before they decline has been 200 years. These nations have progressed in this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; from faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to Complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependency; from dependency back again to bondage.”
This sequence is incorrect for there has been very little real liberty in the history of the world. Perhaps Rome fits this model most closely, but its cycle took 1000 years.
Here is the sequence we see most often in history:
From bondage to rebellion; from rebellion to great struggle for freedom; from struggle to the overthrow of government; from overthrow to creation of new government that frees the rebels and brings bondage and revenge to the others. The government has only slightly changed and the victims are merely moved around. The new victims become rebels which leads to another overthrow. The cycle continues with slight improvements occurring over history.
All throughout history policy has been made by the minority, not by the majority through Democratic means. Until such a democracy surfaces we can only guess as to whether the people would raid the treasury, grow complacent or the government would just last 200 years.
“Democracy is based upon the conviction that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people.” —Harry Emerson Fosdick
Dec 22, 2008
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