Is democracy obsolete?
Kennedy's inaugural address as the President in 1961 inspired children and adults to see the importance of civic action and public service. His historic words, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country,” challenged not only every American but everyone living under democratic rules around the world to contribute in some way to the public good. But contrary to what JFK said, it is the duty of a nation too to provide its citizens with an opportunity for a better life. We hate to be the bearer of this tragic news, but if you didn’t already know, most democratic countries fail miserably at that task.?
You and I and everyone reading this today know that democracy means that magical quote from Abraham Lincoln’s speech, “and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” But a century and a half and a few years later, we would rather say that democracy used to mean “rule by the people” and, funny enough, now it means “mob rule." Social media has made it possible to form a mob overnight, and mobs can be easily manipulated by smart, greedy, and cynical people. Selfish individuals control the media that manipulates the mobs by playing on people’s fears and prejudices; they determine who gets elected and what the elected representatives decide.
The philosopher Socrates, known as one of the wisest men who ever lived, was forced to drink poison in 399 BC after being condemned to death by the citizens of Athens in a public vote. This shows the folly of democracy. The problem with democracy is the voters. They don't know enough to be able to evaluate the choices available to them. This is exacerbated by the toxic media, which is often propaganda rather than news. This prevents the public from being able to form an objective opinion, even if they wanted to. Interestingly, in the 2019 UK general election, there was an inverse correlation between education level and votes for the winning party. In other words, the winning party was voted in by the least educated part of the population. And among the most educated, virtually none voted for the winning party.?
But in an ideal world, you'd want the winning party and the votes of the most educated people to be positively correlated, which literally never happened in an ancient or modern democracy.?
Now that the definition and basic reasoning as to why democracy might be obsolete in the modern world have been covered, we can move on to a viable solution to democracy, namely “Epistocracy”
?"Epistocracy" means government by the best meaning, A government run by citizens with political knowledge. In an epistocracy, the well-informed would be making the decisions. This would sweep away the charlatans and snake oil salesmen who prey on the ignorance and prejudice of the ill-informed.?
In their place, you'd have a system that favors rational deliberation, competence, intellect, and ideally some degree of moral responsibility and character. The goal of this is basically to get better people into government and to get better government policies, decisions, and outcomes.?
Democracy and epistocracy are both creations of humans, but one has already been the system, namely, democracy, and the other, epistocracy, can be brought as one new system of government.?
The central principle of epistocracy, contrary to democracy, is that only politically competent individuals should possess political rights, that is, the right to vote and run for office, because each right presupposes a responsibility, and only competent citizens can be assumed to be responsible for their actions.
Epistocrats argue that some forms of epistocracy—a system in which political competence is a necessary condition for political rights, or at least a democracy with authoritative epistocratic committees—is superior to democracy if we take widespread political ignorance into consideration.?
Epistocracy is not entirely correct either. Like any other system of government, it also has some complications.?
One possible criticism of the epistocracy is that it is elitist. By its very nature, it goes against the modern idea that all opinions are equally valid. But that's precisely my point. In the nicest possible way, all opinions are not equally valid. Some opinions are just flat-out wrong. Some are morally dubious. Others are factually incorrect. Right now, we are at sea in a world of these opinions, and the concept of objective truth is under attack. I would seek to reverse that.?
It seems to me a large part of the problem is precisely this idea that any viewpoint is equally valid. That is simply not the case. If you are in a hospital and need a complex surgical operation to save your life, who will you trust: a qualified surgeon who is an expert in the exact procedure you need, or some random person from the internet??
The same is inevitably true of politics. Some people understand economics, diplomacy, and so on, or at the very least have enough information to argue a case one way or the other plausibly. Others are woefully uninformed and entirely unable to come to an objective conclusion.
Now that we have comparisons and analyses of both the systems at hand, we can come to a conclusion.?
The central thesis of Adam Smith's “The Wealth of Nations theory” is that our individual need to fulfill self-interest results in societal benefit. He called the force behind this fulfillment the invisible hand. And Smith’s wealth of nations theory was monumentally false, misleading, and erroneous. Humans simply care first for themselves and then for others, and this holds true for nations too.?Trump won in 2016 because all humans' first concern is for themselves, and they are vulnerable to fear stoked by lies.?
Obsolete means out of date. Democracy, whether direct or indirect, is a system where taxpayers get a say in how their taxes are spent and citizens get a say in what laws they live under and who makes those laws, and who acts in their name. It seems pretty timeless to me. So No, I don’t see it as obsolete in any way, shape, or form. But the management of society's civil and national resources should be administered by sane, sensible, fair-minded people for the good of all citizens in a country, regardless of their race, sex, opinions, or beliefs. At this time, a quote from Plato might sound fair. Plato in his The Republic said, “The heaviest penalty for declining to rule is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself. " Therefore, epistocracy is my preferred choice.?
References?
1. Brennan, Jason. Against Democracy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016.?
2. Dahl, Robert Alan. Democracy and Its Critics. New Haven [u.a.]: Yale University Press, 1989.?
3. Urbinati, Nadia. Democracy Disfigured: Opinion, Truth, and the People. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2014.?
4. Wellman, Christopher Heath. A Theory of Secession. Cambridge University Press, 2005.