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What's So Clever About Democracy?Ricardo Blaug[EDITOR'S NOTE]. In order to justify the critical stance we take on the current state of modern "democracies", it is necessary to discuss that ubiquitous term in certain ways. Few ideas are so abused, having been put to the service of almost all political ideologies at some point in history. Simultaneously, no political idea is so powerful when boiled down to its essential point: self-rule (the literal translation of the Greek autonomia, or autonomy). In this essay, Ricardo Blaug explores the deeper meaning of "democracy", asking why the term retains its potential to be used critically, despite so many attempts to subvert it to the service of established elites. The key points to take from this essay in relation to the feature essay are: the importance of deliberation and debate to a truly active democratic sphere; the very real threat posed by considerations of "efficiency" and/or "technical fixes" for such practices; but also that these threats are not unopposable. Finally that "democracy" can mean many things, and some are occasionally in direct opposition to one another. Page 1 ¦ Page 2 ¦ Page 3 ¦ Page 4 ¦ Printer-friendly version Nowadays, everyone's a democrat. Everyone believes that authority rests on the consent of the governed. Even Saddam Hussein held referenda, and claimed he represented the will of the people. What democracy boasts, though, is not just a claim to be right. It also claims a unique performance. As the safest, most decent and most efficient political form, democracy has at last triumphed over its enemies, and is now touted as the only legitimate and viable form of government. This has been a remarkable rehabilitation. For most of its history, democracy was seen as a degenerate political form, much feared for its reliance on a populace seen as foolish and volatile. Yet since the adoption and justification of representation in the Eighteenth Century, we have laid to rest those dangerous images of noisy and volatile mobs, constant mass assemblies and endless inefficient talk. With the people being ruled by proxy, and periodically consenting in elections, we have found a way to combine legitimacy with decency and viability. Now, in its modern representative form, what's so clever about democracy is that it provides enough participatory input to be legitimate, yet not so much as to damage its viability. As such, it's easy to see why the democratic club is one that everyone wants to join. Yet those who have recently joined this club, such as the peoples of South Africa, Chile, the Czech Republic etc., while having made significant improvements on their previous regimes, now sense a growing disappointment. This disappointment is not only due to the increasingly apparent costs of a free market. It is also caused by the realisation that the transition from mass action against authoritarianism to the settled structures of elections and parties involves a significant reduction in political activity. In rising against their masters, such people participated in noisy debate and spontaneous action. Now, though, their politics is conducted by proxy, and they have become mere spectators of a corrupt and elitist game. Having won the ultimate prize, they feel that something has been lost. In 1994, the Zapatistas appealed to them in the following way: "Why is it so quiet here?" they asked. "Is this the democracy you wanted?" There is trouble also within the established democracies. For here we struggle with the inescapable fact that participation is a sham. Our elected representatives are self-serving and self-obsessed, and we all know they lie and favour their corporate friends. Elected by a small percentage of the vote, and even this won by bribery and the distortion of information, they unfailingly pursue their corrupt ways. Though they say they act with the consent of the people, whole sections of the populace have become superfluous. Not only is their participation no longer required, but they are also denied work, resources, public services and even protection. The defining image of the established democracies is, therefore, the fence. Increasingly, the power of the state, its police and judicial system, becomes dedicated to maintaining this barrier, which separates one half of the nation from the other. For many, democracy now appears too clever. For it is a political form which at once claims to represent the will of the people, and at the same time, works to systematically exclude them from politics. Indeed, liberal democracy seems quite happy to operate without, and even in spite of, the people. Yet behind the fence, new forms of political activity are mushrooming. In small groups, associations and new social movements, people are learning. They are trying out new ways of taking decisions which use real participation, which involve fair debate and which bypass the traditional political system. Indeed, our understanding of what it means to really consent is growing so fast that such experimentation is now occurring in the voluntary sector, in public administration and in business management itself. At the same time, an extraordinary rush of new political theory is currently seeking ways to deepen democracy. Communitarians, Habermasians, Feminists and Postmodernists all draw our attention to the nature of consent required if an authority is to claim that it is morally right. According to these accounts, meaningful participation is not just a question of occasionally placing a cross in a box beside a person's name. Rather, what becomes of central importance is the process of forming and informing that act of choice. In this way, they draw our attention to the openness of debate which precedes the act of consent and the quality of information actually available to political participants. What emerges from this work is a new understanding of the basic building block of democracy. Only when people have engaged in fair face-to-face deliberation can their consent be seen to confer legitimacy. Only by piling up such blocks, first to the associations and voluntary groups of civil society, and then to parliamentary structures themselves, might democratic states claim to be legitimate. | |