The limits of democracy
Suffrage is… powerless and unreliable. It can be exercised only periodically; and the tyranny must at least be borne until the time for suffrage comes. Besides, when the suffrage is exercised, it gives no guaranty for the repeal of existing laws that are oppressive, and no security against the enactment of new ones that are equally so.
Lysander Spooner
Democracy is not sufficient for a liberal society, it is even opposed to liberalism in many cases since it allows politicians to appeal to classes for support whilst ignoring the masses.
Democracy is however the only means to peacefully effect regime change, and whilst we have a large state its the only way to let people have any say in the actions of the state.
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June 3rd, 2008 at 12:40 pm
And by all of those standards, democracy is the best system ever invented. Right?
June 3rd, 2008 at 12:44 pm
That depends on how you define democracy though, doesn’t it? I’ve never personally defined democracy as suffrage; in a true democracy you measure the interests of the minority with the will of the majority and the latter should not be able to trump the former without good reason.
Admittedly, I’ve met lots of Lib Dems (and one ex-Lib Dem in particular) in my time for whom democracy and suffrage were the same thing and whose solution to everything was just to have more votes. But we play their game by ceding the definition of that word to them.
June 3rd, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Spooner of course is one of my favourites. The inspiration behind my depressing rant yesterday was this very dilemma.
The main difficulty I have is not with “democracy”; after all one can also claim that the free market is democratic, especially if it is on a level playing field and nobody is coerced into doing deals, whether for goods, labour or land, they don’t feel comfortable with. But with the elected dictatorship we have now at all sorts of levels of government.
The key, I suppose, to achieving revolutionary change by democratic consensus is first to achieve a consensus that the current system iss broken, corrupt, coercive etc. But I have absolutely no confidence that the current system can deliver on that because of the vested interests.
But it was notable that a hundred years ago when revolutionary Liberal change was in the air under Asquith, L-G and Churchill that they did achieve such a popular consensus and were then defeated by the aristocracy. But I do believe it could be done again if the arguments were compelling both as to how badly the current system is broken and how much better the alternative might be (and constitutionally I would look to developing something based on Hume’s “Perfect Commonwealth”).
Personally, I feel that we need a Liberal organisation forcing open the “Overton Window” publicly (if such a thing could get publicity for anything other than being seen my the establishment as utter cranks of course). It would probably have to sit outside of party politics to start with and I don’t think it exists yet - I find even ASI and IEA too wedded to gradual change in many ways, or perhaps just too focussed on economic activity and not public political economy.
But I’m afraid I’m resigned to die trying!
June 3rd, 2008 at 5:54 pm
“Democracy is not sufficient for a liberal society, it is even opposed to liberalism in many cases since it allows politicians to appeal to classes for support whilst ignoring the masses.”
Aye, but why a liberalism which opposes the majority of the population?
As far as I’m concerned, as long as you run democracies with the caveat that no measure may be taken which may affect a citizen’s future participation in deliberation, you’re onto a good one.
Constitutions should minimise their constraints on the free will of the public. Bread and housing is more important than any sacred piece of paper will ever be.