On Democracy: A Sunday reflection.

Since The Election is about to take place, it would seem appropriate to muse over the good, the bad and the ugly of democracy.

But what exactly is this democracy? According to Britannica, democracy is, literally, rule by the people. The term is derived from the Greek dēmokratiā, which was coined from dēmos (“people”) and kratos (“rule”) in the middle of the 5th century BC to denote the political systems then existing in some Greek city-states, notably Athens - https://www.britannica.com/topic/democracy

Again according to Britannica if a government of or by the people is to be established, at least five fundamental questions must be confronted at the outset:

1.    What is the appropriate unit or association within which a democratic government should be established? 

2.    Given an appropriate association – e.g. a city - who among its members should enjoy full citizenship? 

3.    Assuming a proper association and a proper dēmos, how are citizens to govern? 

4.    When citizens are divided on an issue, whose views should prevail?

5.    If a majority is ordinarily to prevail, what is to constitute a proper majority?

It goes on to say that the preceding questions presuppose an adequate answer to the following even more important question: Why should “the people” rule? No association could maintain a democratic government for very long if a majority of the demos - or a majority of the government - believed that some other form of government were better.

I will let you mull over these questions. But one thing is clear, like all human endeavours democracy is open to corruption.

It was the great philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) who wrote that true freedom is freedom from external constraints on debate and the diffusion of knowledge and freedom internally from the timidity and uncertainty which inhibits independent thought - https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant/

Ask yourself what type of polity would maximise the chances of these flourishing. Surely not an autocratic monarchical system (e.g. Thailand where people must debase themselves in front of the King), or a dictatorial authoritarian system (e,g, Russia and elsewhere where opposition to those in power is not tolerated). This is not to say that sections of society in these countries do not support such systems - clearly, they do! Why? Human biases, lack of education, fear, self-interest, and blind adherence to tradition come to mind.

In my view, politics is an emergent feature of human’s higher cognition and being social animals. Ants and some other insects are social animals but they are best described as eusocial - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusociality Eusociality is distinguished from all other social systems because individuals of at least one caste usually lose the ability to perform at least one behaviour characteristic of individuals in another caste (hmm, does India have some of these characteristics?).

I suppose it is fair to say that democracy is predicated on what could be called social dependence. We depend on each other to form a social system that allows us the freedom for the pursuit of happiness, however one defines it (it is fair to say that in more some societies just staying alive is the biggest consideration). This may have an individualistic focus as in most of the west or a focus on the community as in many Asian societies.

So, a position that one could take is that democracy is a system of government that delivers policies that benefit the majority; I will let you think through what the result would be of taking this to its logical conclusion - https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-the-philosophy-of-the-greatest-good-for-the-greatest-number-have-anymerit/#:~:text=If%20you%20answered%20in%20the,good%20for%20the%20greatest%20number.%E2%80%9D

It was the Utilitarian Jeremy Bentham (1748-1746) who wrote: "it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong.” - https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/utilitarianism-history/

Is this what we should be striving for? Is this the same as the greatest good for the greatest number? Thorny questions indeed, and I am sure that there are many different opinions on these questions.

Sadly, humans tend to corrupt any system. This is evident everywhere and in every system of government – even in Asian societies were the emphasis is on group harmony. And in my view the biggest culprit is self-interest. Strangely, this is a powerful force in human affairs. It is true that in many people self-interest trumps empathy toward others and adherence to moral duty - probably why organised crime exists (although we should acknowledge that many desperately poor may have little choice). According to Russell Cropanzano et. al, “no single motive such as self-interest suffices to account for all human behaviour. To be sure, we all steer behaviour according to personal priorities, but those priorities themselves can have sources independent of the desire for self-interested benefit alone.” - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/229802551_Self-interest_Defining_and_understanding_a_human_motive

I wonder whether the incidence of self-interest is higher in western societies compared to Asian societies? According to Transparency International corruption is more pervasive in countries where big money can flow freely into electoral campaigns and where governments listen only to the voices of wealthy or well-connected individuals - https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2019#

Their 2019 Corruption Perception Index (CPI), which measures public-sector corruption, shows that Western Europe and the EU scored an average of 66 (out of 100), while Sub-Saharan Africa has the lowest score with 32 points. Interestingly the US scored 69. Singapore scored 85, China scored 41 whilst Japan scored 73. If Singapore and Japan are exemplars of Asian values – then the data seems to suggest that Asian societies are less corrupt. Don’t know what to say about China (North Korea scored 17).

Does (western) democracy favour individualism over the sense of community? Here is an interesting article contrasting these two contradictory concepts - https://www.eurasianaffairs.net/western-individualism-versus-the-eastern-spirit-of-community/

Has capitalism and technological progress undermined our sense of community? - https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674047228. I suspect it depends on whether you are a winner or looser.

Regrettably, mostly the bad and the ugly are on display in the US at the moment. In the defence of the US, I am sure that Athenian “democracy” also displayed similar traits and one should acknowledge that it is on display everywhere either overtly or covertly. I am reminded of the famous line by Eddie Murphy in the movie The Distinguished Gentleman - "This is the best legislature money can buy": but it was Mark Twain who said: "We have the best government that money can buy."

According to Freedom House, democracy and pluralism are under assault across the world - https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2020/leaderless-struggle-democracy Freedom House found that 2019 was the 14th consecutive year of decline in global freedom and that ethnic, religious, and other minority groups have borne the brunt of government abuses in both democracies and authoritarian states.

How can we make democracy work better? In this essay Mehdi Hasan has a go at answering the question in respect to the US system - https://www.newstatesman.com/world/north-america/2018/11/eight-simple-steps-fix-american-democracy His solutions are to:

1.    Abolish the electoral college

2.    Pass a new Voting Rights Act

3.    Ban gerrymandering

4.    End the filibuster

5.    Get ‘dark money’ out of politics

6.    Introduce term limits for the Supreme Court

7.    Grant statehood to Washington DC and Puerto Rico

8.    Lower the voting age to 16

Regrettably, this has as much chance of success as me becoming the next president of the US.

Perhaps the answer is to take advantage on our collective wisdom – no different to using open innovation to solve a problem - https://ideas.ted.com/how-can-we-improve-democracy-one-intriguing-idea-set-up-a-jury-system/ It is called deliberate democracy - balancing equality and deliberation by asking a small number of people who serve as a representative sample of the diversity of the population. It is not a new concept - it’s been successfully implemented in other social institutions. Unfortunately, I think that this also has very little chance of being universally adopted - too many vested interests in the status quo. Only a revolution could change things - and we know where this leads.

I will finish by quoting Sonja Avlijas in her essay entitled “Why we should embrace the good, the bad and the ugly” - since democracy is a form of dependency on the will of others, we need to work a lot harder to overcome our narcissism and belief that we know best - https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/transformation/why-we-should-embrace-good-bad-and-ugly/

Good luck to us all – come 4th November we may need it.