On Democracy

Mr Churchill, erstwhile PM of the UK said on the floor of the House of Commons on the 11th of November, 1947 that "Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

Said quote having been beaten to death from time to time by many a commenter to justify everything from fascism to electronic voting to pornography. The key to (ab)using the quote lies of course in paraphrasing it, emphasizing a word or two to change it's meaning (emphasize "tried" for instance in the last bit and the meaning changes completely, opening the field for the user to propose an entirely new form of government for trying!) or simply going full anon with ; 'Someone once said' and then proceed to cast aspersions on their intellect and/ or intent. That can be done with any good quote, whether actually uttered by a dignitary or made up on the spot (full disclosure: I've often made up quotes for school/ college essays, and mostly attribute them to Bertrand Russell - a man hardly anyone has read and who could plausibly have had an opinion on anything).

But I digress. This here is supposed to be a meditation on Democracy. More specifically Representative Democracy.

The infamous "they" say democracy in general started with ancient Greece of course, and conjure up images of potbellied, half-robed, and flaxen-bearded sophists gathering in yonder agora for a good spot of drunk verbal jousting. They also say the tradition spilled over into Rome where unfortunately some bloke called Julius had other ideas.

This is hogwash, of course... for one thing Greek democracy (particularly in fabled Athens) was participatory, not representative, and although Aristotle did say (and condemn many of us, myself included)" "To take no part in the running of the community's affairs is to be either a beast or a god!", what us modern people fail to acknowledge is that Graeco-Roman citizenship was exclusive! Women, 'barbarians', and slaves had no vote, no say. Citizenship was for the privileged few.

This was probably for the best because a) it cut down the number of participants in the debate in yon fabled agora and b) it probably cut out the 'salt of the earth, unwashed masses' types who wouldn't be 'wise' in the Socratic sense anyway.

Of course, beyond early Rome, there were few instances of even semi-democratic republics (unless there were some in Africa that got wiped out by slavers before the historians knew it). In India for instance, the authority and dharma of kings were institutionalized by many means, not least through religion, but also through the works of Chanakya and his ilk.

So let us then fly past the monarchies and the feudalism and imperialism and fascism and communism with scarce concern and arrive at a seminal epoch - Earth circa 1947, post World War II, when Imperialism was in its death throes and the cognoscenti were mostly nodding their heads in acquiescence when Mr. Churchill said what he did. The consensus was, 'Democracy Rocks'.

The consensus also was that we needed a more... acceptable way to keep the unwashed masses in check than slavery or the denial of suffrage to women, both of which the western cognoscenti now considered despicable, although their own Bibles silently (for the former) or actively (for the latter) encouraged the practices. Fear not, for the Brits and Yanks had in the time past come up with practical representative democracy, which they proceeded to prescribe to a world in flux.

Representative democracy is convenient to the cognoscenti. It is power in the hands of a representative who, by definition, will be elected from among 'the best of us'. S/he will be more qualified, better educated, wiser etc. than the people s/he represents. "More qualified" is the new "Powerful"; "Wiser" the new "Manly"; and "Politically connected" the new "Royal". Which is sort of predictable when one frames the descriptions in a post-industrial, faux-egaletarian, more crowded, and income-gap ridden world.

It would be tedious now to walk you through the dense history of the past sixty-two odd years, so instead take a moment to view the rushes: democracy fails (for the most part) in Africa, flounders (for the most part) in Asia and South America, takes on a local, somewhat corrupt but vibrant flavor in India, and finds zealot levels of belief in North America and western Europe. (we will conveniently forget the Middle East and anything west of India for the length of our discussion, where the black gold seems adequate reason for the prescribers to withold prescription from time to time e.g. Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan).

Of course, the prescribers do get an anomalous zealot elected to high office in the last 9 years of this period who foolishly starts, well, prescribing zealously... but then his work will (one assumes) be undone in a few years to come.

More pertinently in the here and now, the world's largest democracy is currently in high gear, electing officials to various levels of office. We vote in millions, for reasons as varied as from a bottle of free booze to a high falutin philosophy. Every one of my closet elitist friends is afraid Mayawati will be PM (perhaps not recognizing that maybe Mayawati being PM is the logical next step in the emancipation of the under-privileged). The dance of democracy, that imperfect goddess, is in full flow.

So here's my question: Why hasn't anyone pointed out the obvious? That democracy, in the cosmic scheme of things, is only a recent invention with an at best spotty track record?

Why isn't anyone concerned that in most democracies (India, the US, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Pakistan for about ten years of its sixty year lifetime) seems to give the world as many (albeit less potent or long lived) dynasties as any other form of government?

Why isn't anyone concerned, (this is most puzzling for me) that the cognoscenti everywhere seem to be alternately at war with or engaged in manipulating and hoodwinking the very masses they want to serve?

Why aren't we concerned in this age of information and the world wide web that although participatory democracy is actually almost feasible in this day and age, we ('wisely') still stick to the representative variant? Why aren't we concerned about the obvious focussing (and consequent abuse) of power this allows?

Think about it - a voting machine on every street corner, that uses biometrics to establish identity, and on a timebound basis allows you to vote yea or nay on not representatives, but issues, bills, and propositions before local, state, and national governments.

Does that really sound so impractical or unreasonable? Why have elections where we exercise our right every few years? Let the 'unwashed masses' of yore rule, continously. Remove this creamy layer of elected officials. Let the bureaucrats get their instruction directly from the public they serve! Sure, we'll probably see a guillotine or three, and almost certainly have a couple of wars and a disastrous foreign policy for a while... but hey, it will be the people's rule.

Perhaps government will break down and political parties will transmogrify into lobbying groups - people wont vote on issues unless they have their skin in the game somehow. Certainly people like me who wax eloquent about their apathy and agnosticism will not bother to vote every hour or day or week when we don't vote every few years! Perhaps the litany of boredom that is governance will actually put most voters to sleep...

But doesn't all this happen anyway? Wouldn't true technology-enabled participatory democracy be democracy in all her glory?

More to come... out!