Beyond Democracy

Nowadays, "democracy" rules the world. Communism has fallen, elections are happening more and more in those poor underdeveloped third world nations you see on television, and world leaders are meeting to plan the "global community" that we hear so much about. So why isn't everybody happy, finally? For that matter--why do less than half of the eligible voters in the United States, the world's flagship democracy, even bother to vote at all?

Could it be that "democracy," long the catch-word of every revolution and resistance, is simply not democratic enough? What could be more democratic?

Every little child can grow up to be President.

No they can't. Being president means holding a hierarchical position of power, just like being a billionaire: for every one president, there have to be millions of people with less power. And just as it is for billionaires, it is for presidents: it's not any coincidence that the two types tend to rub shoulders, since they both come from a privileged world off limits to the rest of us. Our economy isn't democratic, either, you know: resources are distributed in absurdly unequal proportions, and you certainly do have to start with resources to become President, or even to get your hands on more resources.

Even if it was true that anyone could grow up to be President, that wouldn't help the millions of us who inevitably don't, who must still live in the shadow of that power. This is an intrinsic structural difficulty in representative democracy, and it occurs on the local level as much as at the top. For example: the town council, consisting of professional politicians, can meet, discuss municipal affairs, and pass ordinances all day, without consulting the citizens of the town, who have to be at work; when one of those ordinances inconveniences or angers some of the citizens, they have to go to great lengths to use their free time to contest it, and then they're gone again the next time the town council meets. The citizens can elect a different town council from the available pool of politicians and would-be politicians, but the interests and powers of the class of politicians as a whole will still be in conflict with their own--and anyway, party loyalties and similar superstitions usually prevent them from taking even this step.

If there was no President, our "democracy" would still be less than democratic. Corruption, privilege, and hierarchy aside, our system purports to operate by majority rule, with the rights of the minorities protected by a system of checks and balances--and this method of government has inherent flaws of its own.

The tyranny of the majority

If you ever happened to end up in a vastly outnumbered minority group, and the majority voted that you must give up something as necessary to your life as water and air, would you comply? When it comes down to it, does anyone really believe in recognizing the authority of a group simply because they outnumber everyone else? We accept majority rule because we do not believe it will threaten us--and those it does threaten are already silenced before we can hear their misgivings.

No "average citizen" considers himself threatened by majority rule, because each one thinks of himself as having the power and righteous "moral authority" of the majority: if not in fact (by being so-called "normal" or "moderate"), then in theory, because his ideas are "right" (that is, he believes that everyone would be convinced of the truth of his arguments, if only they would listen sincerely). Majority-rule democracy has always rested on the conviction that if all the facts were clear, everyone could be made to see that there is only one right course of action--without this belief, it amounts to nothing more than the dictatorship of the herd. But such is not always the case--even if "the facts" could be made equally clear to everyone, which is obviously impossible, some things simply can't be agreed upon, for there is more than one truth. We need a democracy that takes these situations into account, in which we are free from the mob rule of the majority as well as the ascendancy of the privileged class. . .

"The Rule of Law"

. . .and the protection afforded by the "checks and balances" of our legal institution is not sufficient to establish it. The "rule of just and equal law," as fetishized today by those whose interests it protects (the stockbrokers and landlords, for example), does not protect anyone from chaos or injustice; it simply creates another arena of specialization, in which the power of our communities is ceded to the jurisdiction of expensive lawyers and pompous judges. The rights of the minorities are the very last thing to be protected by these checks and balances, since power is already reserved for those with the privilege to seize it, and then for the lumpen majority after them. Under these conditions, a minority group is only able to use the courts to obtain its rights when it is able to bring sufficient force upon them in the form of financial clout, guileful rhetoric, etc.

There is no way to establish justice in a society through the mere drawing up and enforcement of laws: such laws can only institutionalize what is already the rule in that society. Common sense and compassion are always preferable to adherence to a strict and antiquated table of law, anyway, and where the law is the private province of a curator elite, these inevitably end up in conflict; what we really need is a social system which fosters such qualities in its members, and rewards them in practice. To create such a thing, we must leave representative "democracy" for fully participatory democracy.

It's no coincidence "freedom" is not on the ballot.

Freedom is not a condition--it is something closer to a sensation. It's not a concept to pledge allegiance to, a cause to serve, or a standard to march under; it is an experience you must live every day, or else it will escape you. It is not freedom in action when the flags are flying and the bombs are dropping to "make the world safe for democracy," no matter what color the flags are (even black!); freedom cannot be caught and held in any state system or philosophical doctrine, and it certainly cannot be enforced or "given" to others--the most you can hope is to free others from forces preventing them from finding it themselves. It appears in fragile moments: in the make-believe of young children, the cooperation