Profile of a patriot

I’ve got to tell you about my friend Dan, an extraordinary human being. To begin with, he smells bad. He can’t recall the last time he bathed. His clothes are old and frayed. They get washed about as often as he bathes. He has a scraggly beard, and his hair is never combed. And last month he was fired. His boss told him he’d become unproductive. Maybe so, but more likely he was just too unpleasant to be around.

Dan wasn’t always unhygienic. In fact, as recently as last fall, anyone would have said he was a well-groomed, attractive person. What happened, you ask. A divorce? A death in the family? News of a terminal illness? No, none of these. Incredibly, it was the trauma of realizing that another Trump-Biden election was inevitable and destined to be a tossup.

I had to get my head around this. I’d known Dan for almost 20 years and was very fond of him. His breakdown was shocking. I was concerned, of course, and mystified. Dan was always full of surprising insights. Perhaps he saw something about the fate of the nation that I’d like to see too.

I decided to invite him over for lunch. When I met him at the door, I was momentarily stunned by his appearance. We embraced, and I led him inside. I took his arm …

Dan, I’m very worried about you. You’re a dear friend, and you’re in a slump I don’t understand. It scares me. If you don’t mind, I’d like to talk about it. I’m not presuming to be your therapist, but there is value in talking, probably for both of us. I think you’ve been struck by a vision of something acutely painful. I hope you’ll share it with me.

Ken … thank you … so much! When you came by last January and I sent you away, I felt miserable. I wasn’t talking to anyone then. I wasn’t sure I could ever turn my depression into words, and I wondered whether you’d ever talk to me again. I think now you may be a way out of this hell. I’m ready to talk.

I’m so glad! Please tell me about your depression.

I’m in mourning, Ken. Last fall, I realized our country was dying with no hope of recovery.

Why would you think that?

It’s a long story of evolution gone awry. When America was founded in the 18th century, it was a historical novelty. There was nothing like it before. Oh, there were the Greeks with their direct democracy and the Romans with their democratic republic, but our democratic republic was an invention, penned by a few men and refined by a convention. Unprecedented! It provided for free speech and a free press, a separation of powers, and mechanisms for amendment.

And the rules for populating the branches of government with representatives and judges, as well as rules for removing them from power.

Yes. It looked like the American Constitution had all that was needed to cope with changing times and a growing nation. As our country lurched forward, it faced a near-fatal question — whether an individual’s freedom extended so far as to permit the ownership of slaves. We fought a civil war, amended the Constitution, and rolled on. The lesson in this episode was that the boundaries of freedom were a disputatious matter that could incite civil disorder, if not war.

I think I see where you’re going with this. There are contentious issues about freedom’s boundaries that we have today. Abortion and gun control, for example.

True, and there’s also the matter of paramilitary groups. Should people have the right to associate in such groups?

I’d say no. They now seem ready to act at a conservative president’s behest.

Good point, and this raises the question of the boundaries of presidential power. For example, the War Powers Resolution of 1973 allows the president, under special conditions, to deploy military force without a Congressional declaration of war. But presidents have dodged these conditions more than once and faced no consequences.

Former President Trump brushed aside a presidential boundary in the last year of his term. He ignored the requirement that the Senate confirm his cabinet nominations by simply saying that his cabinet choices were “acting” officials who therefore needed no confirmation.

He has already promised to go on a firing rampage with civil service employees as his target. Anyone he suspects of not working in his interest will get the boot. These employees have a few legal protections, but they’ll be of little help; the Justice Department will be headed by an “acting” Attorney General.

Then there’s the matter of executive orders. These are presidential fiats that don’t require the approval of Congress. The rationale is that the president is the head of the executive branch, and the Constitution says presidents must ensure that laws are “faithfully executed.” But who is to say an executive order lacks a credible connection to the faithful execution of a law? Only the Supreme Court can do this. If Trump is president, will our irresponsible Supreme Court countermand his executive orders?

That’s a horrible thought, Dan. I can understand why you talk about America’s demise, but it’s certainly not inevitable. It could well be that Biden wins in November.

Sure, Biden might win, which is far better than embarking on a dictatorship. But here’s the bad news: it doesn’t actually matter. America is still doomed. It’s doomed because it’s ungovernable.

Inevitably, political parties arose early in our history. They were foreshadowed as far back as the Continental Congresses. Over the decades, the prevailing parties went through metamorphoses beyond anyone’s control. The allure of human exploitation shaped them, as did our fortunate geography, the possibility of westward expansion, our vast stretches of arable land, the abundance of natural resources, the energy of foreigners who escaped poverty and religious oppression, and a swelling national pride that often expressed itself as jingoism. Most telling, in the 1980s, a fever of greed swept over our politics.

Today, we have two very partisan parties. I’ll call them the Blues and the Reds. They oppose each other on practically every governmental, economic, and social issue that concerns the public. The Blues are preoccupied with the welfare of the entire population, but they avoid confrontation with our ruling oligarchy. The Reds embrace our oligarchy and use the term “socialism” as a bogeyman to frighten voters away from efforts to transfer wealth for the public good. The Blues are horrified by the saturation of firearms in the population and the bloody consequences of unregulated ownership. The Reds see gun ownership as an American birthright and want no regulation, despite the mass shootings in schools, churches, and other public places. The Blues want government to have no role in fundamental private matters, like the decision to have an abortion or to marry someone of the same sex. The Reds want government to intervene if a personal decision is opposed by a Biblical dictate. In fact, the Reds want America to formally become a Christian nation. One more difference, the most important one. The Blues believe a government of laws is a defining attribute of America. The Reds believe a tyranny is palatable if not preferable.

I’ll give you this, Dan. I can’t imagine a credible chain of events that leads to a reconciliation.

Some people think that someday enough Reds will join the Blues to push through several desperately needed Constitutional Amendments, like one discontinuing the Electoral College or giving more Senate seats to populous states or outlawing gerrymandering or regulating firearms.

Well, I know why the first three will never happen. Many states are sparsely populated Red states. There’s no way in hell they’ll say yes to an amendment that would diminish their political power.

Exactly. As for firearms regulation, most Reds believe it’s synonymous with firearms confiscation. And that would lead to a tyrannical government. They fear a tyrannical government! What irony!

We’ve always had a so-called “lunatic fringe” in our country, people who are neurotically superstitious, pathetically uninformed, or bereft of critical thinking. Every country has them. They’re usually fewer than 10% of the voting population. In the 2020 presidential election, Biden got 81.3 million votes, and Trump got 74.2 million. Imagine, 74.2 million after he cozied up to Putin, horribly mismanaged the pandemic, and tried to extort political support from Ukraine! That’s a shocking indictment of his supporters, but nothing compared to their current lunacy. They’ve watched him spread malignant lies about the election; start an insurrection to stop the count of electoral votes; label the jailed insurrectionists “hostages”; receive 88 felony indictments; hawk trading cards, sneakers, and Bibles to pay for legal fees; pose as a Christ figure, battling a corrupt power structure; and beleaguer the entire legal system with petitions for trial delays. You’d think that at least half of his 74.2 million supporters would have deserted him in the ensuing years, but no. He’s tied with Biden in the polls! It shows that the lunatic fringe in our country is massive and durable. One day, Trump will disappear from the national stage, but the insane political bloc he created will still be around to stymie our social progress and world leadership. America will sputter like an old jalopy. We’ll be helpless in the face of the stresses the AI revolution will bring.

What shows me the steadfastness of Trump’s supporters is their reaction to his claim of absolute presidential immunity. He’s confessing, “Yes, I’m guilty. I’m guilty of everything. But … haha … I have immunity from prosecution!” And that’s good enough for them.

Remember when he said he could shoot someone in broad daylight and be absolved by his followers? He had sized them up perfectly. He couldn’t help but gloat about it.

That sickens me, Dan…. Yes, I see now why your pessimism is so deep. I see why America will probably be a hospital case for a very long time. But some day, well after you and I are gone, might there not be a gradual reconciliation and reawakening of America’s founding principles?

Of course, Ken. But the people of that time would be fooling themselves if they thought the original America had revived. It would be like Charlemagne believing he had reestablished the Roman Empire in Europe. There can’t be a once and future America. The original America, that bold, brilliant experiment, has evolved into a schizophrenic beast without a future. And that’s sad, Ken. Terribly, terribly sad.

Social planning

No nation operates without social planning. Why? Because there are powerful people in every nation, and their first priority is to retain power — or better yet, enhance it. They succeed by doing social planning. Sometimes these powerful people are autocrats. They plan to make citizens more tractable, control speech and the news media, make scapegoats of minorities, and enrich themselves by force and fraud.¹

Sometimes powerful people are democratically elected to public office. They presumably plan to improve the comfort, health, and life choices of the citizens they represent. In return, the citizens keep returning them to power.²

Sometimes powerful people take advantage of a frail democracy and see profit in transitioning to an autocracy. They form a “hybrid” government, one that has the ornaments of democracy — a legislature, judiciary, and active media — while planning to undermine it and retain political power indefinitely.³

I’ll focus on established democracies. They are the only societies in which social planning can be both well executed and admirably motivated. No person who is sane, reasonably informed, and able to travel would wish to live elsewhere. However, notice my qualification earlier: “they presumably plan….” As you will see, their plans can be deceptive.

A democracy fails if its governing bodies fall under the control of a rival power center. For example, the military might stage a coup and bring an autocrat to power. Fortunately, most democracies have developed a tradition of military subservience to civilian authority, and the threat to them is quite remote.

Failure is more likely to come from a more insidious power center, the superrich. They are insatiable; they dream of limitless wealth, regardless of the cost to their fellow citizens. If they aren’t constrained by the law, they will bend it until democratic society frays and breaks.⁴

Of course, the wealth of a nation is not limitless. To get a super-sized share of it, the superrich aim their budgetary plans at an economic sweet spot, a place where ordinary citizens struggle to keep hunger and illness at bay with just enough left to consume the products, services, and distractions the wealthy offer. It’s a difficult target to hit. Trying is risky, but the rewards are enormous.

When the superrich make budgets that aim too low, they can usually insulate themselves from public unrest, even though they cast no votes, make no executive orders, and hand down no verdicts. They are an oligarchy, a shadow government. They send lobbyists to the seats of power. They contribute billions to reelection committees. They offer the use of their jets, yachts, and vacation properties to legislators and judges. They own media outlets that distort facts and give legs to lies. They create propaganda that reinforces economic mythology. For instance, the idea of a “free market” is a fiction. Governments routinely subsidize businesses and rescue them from failure. Socialism is not a national poison and, in fact, big business depends on it for its viability. And the founders of business empires are not “captains of industry,” public benefactors who deserve wealth and adulation. Many of them are indeed people of vision, but none could have actualized their visions without laborers, investors, a receptive society, and a good deal of luck.⁵

More than anything, the superrich are looking for a magic bullet. They ask, “How can we get the needy to feel good about their lives when, by any objective measure, they should feel miserable?” If the superrich could find the answer, they could lay claim to the sweetest of sweet spots. It would amount to no less than a license to steal. Amazingly, they’re making headway. They use a trick known as deflection.

Deflection means selling people a pathway to happiness without improving their standard of living. It’s done at their workplaces. It begins with counseling that acknowledges grievances — low pay, a dead-end job, disrespectful treatment, harassment by superiors. It offers skills training and promises a future of equitable treatment, personal growth, accomplishment, inclusion, and respect. The promises are supposedly kept through a series of team building sessions, an interminable kind of group therapy. Yes, it’s a deception, but sometimes deceptions work.⁶

I marvel that the superrich have convinced anyone that adding 1,000 dollars or euros or yuans to a mountain of billions is morally more justifiable than putting it in the pockets of people who struggle for a living. How damnable it is to even put that argument. How damnable it is to believe it! I’d go so far as to say that the appalling number of twisted governments in the world owe their existence to this moral blindness.

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¹There are 195 countries in the world. Each year, the Economist Democracy Index labels the type of political regime in 167 of them. (It classifies 28 countries as “microstates” and omits them from its surveys.) 59 of the 167 are labeled as autocratic.

²74 of the world’s countries are democracies. Of these, 24 are “full democracies” and 50 are “flawed democracies.” See the Economist Democracy Index for definitions of these terms.

³34 of the world’s countries are hybrid governments. That means 93 governments are either autocracies or moving toward autocracy. The total will be 94 if Donald Trump is elected this fall.

⁴236 billionaires have signed with The Giving Pledge, promising to give at least half their wealth to charity. Do I think better of them for making this pledge? No, they aren’t trustworthy. Many of them will not keep the pledge, and surely only a fraction will keep it while alive. Only consider that half of, say, 50 billion is 25 billion. Half an obscene sum is still an obscene sum. What’s needed is a yearly wealth tax that’s more than a token amount.

⁵Perhaps the worst consequence of oligarchic propaganda is that its veneer of bullshit hides a country’s real story from its citizens. Thus the need for reform and the oligarchy itself are seldom acknowledged.

⁶I almost laughed as I wrote this sentence. In America, deceptions work quite well. People will actually line up to buy bibles with Satan’s signature.

Thoughts on democracy, Part 3

In Part 1, I offered this definition of democracy:

A system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.

The virtue of this definition is that it pretty much fits all the historical instances of governments that have called themselves democracies. But, if you’ve read Parts 1 and 2, you might agree that the definition isn’t nearly as discriminating as it needs to be. It gives a pass to all sorts of offensive practices, like selective disenfranchisement; enslavement; persecution of minorities; favored treatment of the wealthy; and, through lobbying, negation of the electoral process. I prefer a definition with criteria that rule out practices like these. It would have to be simple yet comprehensive. Something like this:

A government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Yes, direct from the Gettysburg Address. Of course, everything depends on how we understand the three criteria that the definition comprises. I interpret “of the people” to mean that any citizen—anyone native born or naturalized—can vote. Eligibility should be limited only by age; that is, children cannot vote. “By the people” means any citizen can hold elective office, again subject only to age requirements. “For the people” means the aim of government is the welfare of all the nation’s citizens. Notice especially the word “welfare.” It’s one of those dog-whistle words I mentioned in Part 2. Sadly, many of us believe that government should not exist for the well-being of the people—of all the people. I maintain that if it does not, that government is not a democracy.

Using these criteria, we see that ancient Athens was not a democracy. Nor was Rome. Nor was the first French Republic, where there was no freedom of expression. Weimar Germany was one, until it was overcome by resentment and began brutalizing its minorities. Iraq isn’t a democracy, nor is Israel. Neither has a government that’s “for the people.” In fact, we can pretty much rule out the rest of the world, save Western Europe and Japan. There one can make a good case that all the criteria are satisfied.

At the time of the Civil War, we were not remotely a democracy. Lincoln’s resolute declaration that a “government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth,” though stirring, was patently absurd. Such a government couldn’t perish because it didn’t exist to begin with! Of course, America has come a long way since then. Our progress lies almost entirely outside the Constitution, in amendments and federal laws like Social Security, Medicare, and Obamacare. How close are we to being a democracy? Well, judge for yourself; here are the initiatives we would still have to undertake:

Protecting the working poor, jobless, and homeless

* Providing an adequate food allowance to any household with an income below an annually determined standard, regardless of employment status or duration in poverty.

* Providing homeless people with a place to sleep and stay warm, state or county ordinances notwithstanding.

* Creating a national minimum wage consistent with a “livable income,” and annually indexing it for inflation.

* Creating a corps of construction workers that continually maintains the nation’s infrastructure.

* Forming a government-business alliance for the purpose of job training and placing graduates in jobs.

Promoting physical and emotional well-being

* Paying for the cost of preventive care, psychological counseling, doctors’ visits, drugs, nonelective interventions, hospitalization, and physical therapy. This initiative is based on the premise that any health insurance company run on a for-profit basis is morally compromised.

* Regulating the health care industry to ensure that costs and treatments are within reason.

Ensuring an educated, productive populace with equal opportunities

* Caring for and educating children in public schools beginning at the age of 2.

* Guaranteeing to any academically qualified student a four-year college education in return for two years of public service.

Preventing the corruption of democratic government

* Abolishing private contributions to any candidate running for federal office.

* Requiring that all members of Congress routinely report the percentage of meeting hours spent with registered lobbyists, inside and outside their Congressional offices. (This could be done easily by maintaining online calendars.)

* Disqualifying any candidate for re-election who spends more than 25% of his meeting time with registered lobbyists.

* Disqualifying all former members of Congress from becoming a registered lobbyist.

Paying for the people’s welfare

* Making the income tax sharply progressive, with the highest 1% of earners paying at least 75% or their earnings in taxes.

* Taxing all capital gains, dividends, and interest as ordinary income.

* Means-testing Social Security.

* Ending tax exemptions for religious institutions.

* Taxing corporations on all profits, whether earned at home or abroad.

* Abolishing tax breaks for the extraction and transportation of fossil fuels.

* Tying agricultural subsidies to farms in demonstrable economic distress.

* Closing military bases in Western Europe and Japan.

* Sharply curtailing programs for building new weapons systems.

The preamble to the Constitution proclaims that it is ordained and established to, among other things, “promote the general welfare” (emphasis added) and “secure the blessings of liberty.” Can our government really accomplish these objectives if it doesn’t offer freedom from want, provide education and health care, and defend itself against corruption? Don’t answer. Rather, ask yourself how the 16% who live in poverty would answer. Ask how the 40% who are eligible to vote but don’t would answer. How well do you suppose American democracy is working for them?

If you’re answer is, “Well, we’re not perfect, but we’re a damn sight better off than we’d be in most other countries,” you’ve asserted very little. You’ve congratulated Americans on being freer than people who live under a dictatorship and more content than the masses who live in deprivation. Is that actually a reason for national pride? But more to the point, what are the reasons for our national pride? And what is it exactly that makes us “exceptional”?

Whatever makes us special, there’s no denying that, like any other people, we hold dear our lives and the lives of our friends, family, and countrymen. Doesn’t it make sense, then, that we put these at risk only for extraordinary reasons? If so, we should be wary of linking our fate to the fate of nations whose values are not aligned with the “democracy criteria” I’ve proposed. Nor should we ever again use American lives and resources to spearhead a “global democratic revolution,” as Bush the Younger once advocated. His “democracy” is an empty word, not the ideal that Lincoln formulated.

Thoughts on democracy, Part 2

This post will look at some modern instances of democracy. By “modern instance,” I mean a democracy founded at the end of the Enlightenment or later—roughly in the last 250 years. The ones I’ll choose, in my opinion, tell us most about what dooms and what vitiates a democracy.

Democracy and Savagery

In Part 1, I pointed out the lessons taught by the Roman Republic: democracies crumble when factional strife and societal stress threaten stability. People fear a breakdown in the social order, lurch in irrational directions, and rally behind a perceived source of strength. Democracy thus gives way to dictatorship. This was the Roman dynamic, and it was at work again during the French Revolution. In 1789, a state of financial emergency existed in France, and representatives of the church, nobility, and common citizens endeavored to move the country from an absolute monarchy to, at first, a constitutional monarchy. Over the course of a decade, three successive constitutions were put in place, by the National Constituent Assembly, the Legislative Assembly, and the National Convention. While under the control of the National Convention, France was racked by the Reign of Terror, a period when royalists, clergymen, and political moderates were sent to the guillotine. From 20,000 to 40.000 French citizens met their fate in this manner. Those given a trial were not allowed to speak in their defense.. Eventually, the National Convention yielded leadership to the Directory, a group of men who wielded executive power, but it became evident that the only source of national cohesion was the army. In 1799, Napoleon instigated a coup, replaced the Directory with his Consulate, and ended the first French Republic. Economic hardship, deep class grievances, violent factionalism, and war with counterrevolutionary nations had doomed all efforts to sustain a democracy.

A similar pattern occurred in Germany from 1919 to 1933. After World War I, with Kaiser Bill in permanent exile, Germany adopted a constitution in Weimar, and the Weimar Republic was born. Its immediate and persistent problem was war reparations, which had to be repaid in hard currency, goods, or natural resources. When the government tried to print money to use in buying foreign currency, it bought nothing but hyperinflation. Even after stabilization, it needed loans from New York banks to pay the reparations. The economy remained perched on a razor’s edge until the Depression began and the banks called in their loans. German workers then lost their jobs at a horrific rate. Hindenberg, the German president, appointed one chancellor after another but none had enduring support in the Reichstag, where seven political parties contended. Hindenberg despised Hitler, but his NAZI party held a plurality of seats in the Reichstag, and in 1933 Hidenberg was persuaded to make Hitler chancellor. The constitution contained a risky provision, the “Enabling Act,” which gave the chancellor emergency powers when invoked. Hitler convinced the Reichstag to do so and used it to turn Germany into a fascist state. My view is that resentment—about humiliating reparations, hyperinflation, bank loans, and mass unemployment—created a great well of anger and hatred, and the Germans used democracy as a lens through which their rage came into focus. The result was military aggression throughout Europe and into Russia, and the Holocaust.

The histories of the first French Republic and Weimar Germany should make us think twice when we compare democracy with autocracy. Certainly autocracies can savage the people they govern, but democracies can also produce savagery. Can we say that France and Germany are exceptions, that autocracies are always cruel but democracies are seldom cruel? Clearly not. Rome had its Five Good Emperors. England had its Elizabethan Age. France had the court of Louis XIV. And the modern era has had its share of cruel democracies.

Democracy and Cruelty

Iraq shows us that democracy gets a bad name when a majority disrespects the rights of a minority. Iraq calls itself an Islamic state, which means Shia Islam. (Can a nation be both democratic and have a state religion?) Sunni Muslims are the minority. Although the Sunnis are nominally full citizens, the law offers them little shelter from persecution.Their government representatives are excluded from cabinet meetings. The vice president, a Sunni, is a fugitive; the president accuses him of terrorism. Sunnis face discrimination in jobs, housing, and education, and they fear for their personal safety. Baghdad has become a Shia city. Its streets have been renamed after Shia saints, and Shia banners fly everywhere. How could we have been so stupid as to believe that democracy might blossom there?

Most Americans think Israel’s democracy is exemplary. Indeed, we are so enamored of it that we’ve pledged to defend its existence at any cost. Were we wise to make such a commitment? Consider. Israel, like Iraq, has a state religion. It asks for recognition and acceptance as a Jewish state even though Muslims make up 20% of the population. No party can participate in Israeli elections if its goal is to make Israel religion-neutral. Israel declares that Hebrew and Arabic are its official languages, yet no serious attempt is made to teach Arabic to Jewish citizens. The Israeli flag bears the Star of David; its national anthem speaks of the Jewish dream to return to the homeland. The government uses grants and housing benefits to encourage Jewish women to have more children. It ties housing subsidies and employment opportunities to military service, for which Arabs are unlikely to volunteer. It is less likely to grant building permits to Arab communities than to Jewish communities. It spends three times as much money on the education of Jewish children than on the the education of Arab children. Its courts are more likely to deny bail to Arabs and impose longer sentences on them. At the very least, our support of Israel should be conditioned on a reform agenda, but we ask for nothing. We have entwined our future with theirs.

Democracy in America

Can our own nation avoid the censure of having a cruel democracy? Hardly. Slavery was abolished in Western Europe well before it was abolished in America, and only then after the bloodiest war in our history. (Ten battles had 19,000 or more casualties!) Even after abolition, Jim Crow laws were widely in force throughout the South for another hundred years. There was also the matter of territorial conflict with Native Americans. This produced the shameful Indian Removal Act, hostilities that continued into the 20th century, exploitive treaties, and eventual resettlement into reservations. 22% of the Native American population still calls them home. There they endure high unemployment and lower standards in health care, housing, and education.

When the Constitution was ratified, the right to vote was even more problematic than it had been in Rome. Until the Civil War ended, it left the question of who was eligible to vote entirely up to the states. They excluded slaves and women (except New Jersey, briefly), as Athens and Rome had. Most of the states also used property or wealth, or both, as criteria for eligibility. It took the 14th 15th, and 19th Amendments to ensure that naturalized citizenship, race, color, prior servitude, and sex could not be reasons to deny eligibility. It took the 17th amendment to ensure that voters elected senators directly. Even so, we needed the 23rd Amendment to give residents of Washington, D.C. the right to vote in presidential elections and the 24th Amendment to prevent states from taxing would-be voters. These protections were supplemented in 1965 by the Voting Rights Act, an omnibus bill ensuring that English-only ballots, proof of education, proof of good character, and other impediments would not prevent people from voting. Today, even though voting cannot be denied to minorities, some states use tactics that make it difficult for minorities to register and vote. Shamefully, they still refuse to acknowledge the most fundamental right of a democracy.

Despite our wealth, we’re more indifferent to economic inequality and hardship than the vast majority of nations. Essentially, only Mexico, South America (excepting Venezuela and Argentina), the former British and French colonies of Africa, and the Philippines have an inequality of wealth greater than ours. Even more shameful, in child poverty we are 34th worst of the 35 developed nations of the world; only Romania is worse. Recently, our Congress voted to cut food-stamp benefits and end extended unemployment benefits despite the high rate of unemployment. The logic is that the unemployed are more inclined to look for work if they face greater suffering.

Of course we could become a more caring society just by voting in more compassionate representatives, but it isn’t as easy as it sounds. First, we are hindered by our culture, which teaches that anyone not financially comfortable is somehow to blame for his circumstances. People who don’t succeed in life are flawed and have no one to blame but themselves. When someone proposes that the government raise taxes on the rich or fund a program for the needy, all anyone has to do is cry “Class warfare!” or “Socialism!” and the proposal is doomed. These alarms are as effective as dog whistles. Second, the wealthy are allowed to buy an unlimited amount of air time for blowing those whistles. Third, no matter whom we elect, our representatives are courted by lobbyists who offer luxuries, travel, and re-election money. A recent study showed that financial institutions sent 25 times as many lobbyists to Washington as were sent by consumer groups, reform groups, and unions. If the whole point of democratic government is to enact the will of the governed, doesn’t lobbying on this scale make democracy pointless? I have to conclude that, in America as in Rome, the government is not really a democracy but an oligarchy.

If we revisit Churchill’s quip, in which he offers faint praise for democracy, we see that it’s impossible to tell how faint the praise is. Is he thinking of a democracy that keeps slaves and disenfranchises women? That implodes into hatred and violence? That oppresses minorities while pretending that they are equals? That perpetuates economic inequality through bribes, slogans, and propaganda? Perhaps he was thinking of a parliamentary democracy of the kind in the U.K. We don’t know.

In Part 3, I’ll offer another definition of democracy, one that I prefer to the definition in Part 1, and one that excludes many of today’s self-described democracies, including our own. I’ll say what we’d have to do to comply with the definition and how a new understanding of democracy should affect our relationships with other nations.

Thoughts on democracy, Part 1

66 years ago, in a House of Commons speech, Winston Churchill called it “the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” He was referring to democracy, of course. What would he say, I wonder, if we could compel him to tell us what he meant by the term, just to be sure we were thinking of it in the same way. Would he offer a definition like the one I found online:

A system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.

This definition gives us three fundamental pieces of information about democracy, one explicit and two implicit. The explicit part is that one has to be eligible to participate in a democracy. We think of this participation as the right that democracy confers. One of the implicit parts is that eligibility can range from liberal to restrictive. It’s a continuum, and it’s reasonable to think that restriction can reach a point at which democracy gives way to another form of government. The other implicit part is that a democracy confers only the right of participation. The definition says nothing about other inherent rights. For example, even though citizens have the right to vote, they don’t necessarily have, say, the right to freedom of religion. This is a simple distinction, but paradoxical. The rights that play no part in democracy when we define its essence have to be present to some extent. If they’re not, democracy collapses. In fact, freedom of speech alone seems essential to a democracy.

What the definition doesn’t say explicitly or implicitly is how democracy affects society; for example, the arts, leisure, civility, education, crime, and so on. Of course, it isn’t the job of a definition to be discursive in this way, but its connection with society is nevertheless essential to understanding what democracy is. I suppose that the only way to understand how democracy interacts with other rights and how it affects the society it inhabits is to actually look at a number of instances. Herewith is a small attempt…

Ancient Athens is commonly regarded as the earliest instance. To be an eligible voter or office holder, you had to be a free adult male, born to Athenian citizens, and militarily trained. Women, slaves, and freed slaves were excluded. So for starters, Athenian democracy was conducted by less than half the population. Because it was a direct democracy—the voters themselves made all the decisions. You had a say in decision-making only if you were present where government business was conducted. Physical proximity, therefore, controlled participation.

The treatment of women was inferior to what was customary in some of the other city-states. Generally, they weren’t taught to read or write. Only four roles were open to them: slave, prostitute, housewife, or priestess. Not only were they denied the vote and public office, they were not permitted to own property. They were kept apart from men, and their public movement was restricted.

Eligible Athenians participated in three governing bodies: the Assembly, the Boule (a council of 500), and the courts. The Assembly required a quorum of 6,000. The courts required at least 200, but often many more sat in judgment. Socrates and Plato deplored democracy because it required such large numbers, and few of the participants had any aptitude for governing. It was a court that sentenced Socrates to death for impiety and for corrupting the youth of Athens. In effect, the court thought he should die for expressing controversial ideas. From our perspective 2,400 years later, there cannot be a greater abridgment of human rights. How are we to reconcile such an event with the claim that ancient Athens was democratic?

The Roman Republic had similar requirements for citizenship. Women and slaves were again excluded, as were people in subjugated territories. Citizenship was divided into classes, and voting rights were conferred depending on one’s classification. The structure of government was also complicated. The system of checks and balances in our Constitution pales by comparison. The oddest groups, to us, would probably be the assemblies, which were voting bodies only. They were not permitted to propose legislation or debate issues. They voted in blocs, with each bloc counting as a single vote. The assemblies elected magistrates, the most important of which were consul and tribune. A consul had sweeping civil and military authority, and there were always two of them. They served for just a year, and each had veto power over the other! Tribunes were populist figures—they protected the rights of plebeians. They could both propose laws and veto them. The body we know best was the Senate, a powerful group of patricians who oversaw military campaigns, advised the magistrates, and managed Rome’s civic affairs. They too were chosen by an assembly, provided that they had wealth, breeding, and the approval of sitting senators. To my mind, this was a hybrid form of government, a merger of democracy with oligarchy.

The Romans taught us many lessons about democracy. They showed how a democracy can frustrate the interests of its citizens with a hodgepodge of interdependent offices and competing interests. They showed that a hodgepodge democracy is susceptible to unforeseen stress—in their case the stress of sudden expansion. (Decades of calamities can follow, as they did in the so-called “Crisis of the Roman Republic.”) Last, they showed us the ugly side of democracy. What Plato knew, Rome made plain to the world: an aroused public can become an irrational force that menaces life and liberty.

In my next post, I’ll look at some modern democracies, including our own. My intent will be to find old themes and new revelations in them.