Why Democracy?

THE FIRST QUESTION we might ask about democracy is, why? Why choose this form of governance? After all, alternatives have always been available.

The first advantage of democracy derives from its very structure: the participation of all its citizens. Democracy asks, demands really, that all citizens offer their ideas, intelligence, wisdom, effort and commitment to governing. Every other form of governance assumes that the abilities of a few, or even of one, will suffice for leadership. Simple arithmetic tells us that the more ability available the better the job we can do. And practice tells us that governing anything well tends to need all the intelligence and wisdom it can get.

And with participation comes commitment. To the degree that people are involved in their governance, that governance belongs to them. They feel a sense of responsibility towards it, a loyalty to it, and a trust in it, that strengthens both governance and society generally. When people in a democratic society lose trust in their government, they may need to look in the mirror and ask if they are doing their share. Are they matching their rights with responsibility?

By calling for the participation of all its citizens, democracy enhances all of them. It challenges, involves, educates and improves them. Sharing in their governance helps citizens develop to their utmost. By developing the art of compromise, they become their most agreeable as social creatures. We may doubt this when we observe incivilities in a legislature or on the hustings, but we might reflect upon alternative incivilities such as those of China or Egypt.

Some critics of democracy have assumed that the people are a rabble, incapable of higher behaviour and responsibilities, and therefore require the leadership of some sort of elite. In fact, people generally live up to the degree of responsibility they are given, and democracy gives them the most. It makes leaders of everyone. As for elites, insofar as people need them they are best able to choose their own.

Democracy best solves the problems of the multiplicity of tribes that exist in a modern society as well as the rights of individuals. Which tribe should rule? In a democracy, all can, proportional to their numbers. And individuals can best pursue their own interests. No one, no group, is omitted or bullied in the ideal democracy. Participation and resources are maximized, hostility is minimized.

Because it includes everyone in its deliberations, a democratic society may seem cumbersome. A dictatorship, with decisions being made by one or a few men (or, infrequently, women), may seem much more efficient—and may be in the short term. But in the long term, quite aside from bringing more ideas, wisdom and intelligence to bear on its decision-making, democracy is also open to analysis and criticism, and thus to constant improvement. Indeed, adaptation and improvement are part of the natural state of democracy. It incorporates the idea of its own imperfections. Regardless of the initial vigour of other forms of government, they resist analysis and criticism, thus their natural state is ultimately stagnation and decline.

Democracy is flexible. If a government isn’t doing a good job, it can be readily changed. Leaders of other forms of government may claim to know what the people want, but only democracy verifies it.

Even when a democratic society doesn’t seem to be working very well, most likely it’s because it isn’t being sufficiently democratic. Somehow the people, in whole or in part, are being excluded from decision-making. Society is not tapping into the hearts and minds of all its citizens. If rapid change is afoot, people may feel that things are out of control. They may feel alienated, begin to lose faith in their institutions, and start to yearn for easy answers and simple solutions. Easy answers, the stock-in-trade of demagogues, will always tempt us—after all, we did not evolve to live in great complexity. But this is panic and desperation, not a real answer. The real answer lies in society pulling up its democratic socks, involving all the people, and allowing them to come up with the solutions. A former governor of New York, Alfred E. Smith, put it nicely, “All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy.”

But the proof of the pudding is in the eating of it. Has democracy provided the best leadership or are we just mouthing theory?

Democracies, at least nominal democracies, have certainly failed large parts of their constituencies in the past. They have allowed groups to exploit and oppress and exclude other groups and individuals. The Athenians, credited with the first democracy, excluded women and slaves, with the result that Greek “democracy” included only a minority of the adult population—a shabby effort by today’s standards. These exclusions were replicated in the modern world. The Constitution of the United States is one of the principal documents of modern democracy, a noble document indeed, yet in its immediate application, Americans, like the Athenians before them, excluded women and slaves from their governance. Other democracies, too, have excluded women and ethnic groups and people without property from full citizenship for much of their histories.

Nonetheless, democracies have recognized their sins, and today all those formerly excluded groups are becoming fully incorporated into the res publica. Furthermore, it is within democracy that their equality has been debated and won, and those countries long-described as democracies have been the leaders in recognizing the rights of all people everywhere.