Criticism of democracy

Criticism of democracy has been a key part of democracy and its functions. Democracy has been criticized both by internal critics (those who call upon the constitutional regime to be true to its own highest principles) and external ones who reject the values embraced and nurtured by constitutional democracy.^[1]

Since classical antiquity and through the modern era, democracy has been associated with "rule by the people", "rule by the majority", and free selection or election, either through direct participation or elected representation, respectively.^[2]

Political thinkers have approached critiques of democratic political systems from different perspectives. Many times it is not necessary to oppose democracy by its simplest definition – "rule by the people" – but, rather, seek to question or expand this popular definition. In their work, they distinguish between democratic principles that are effectively implemented through undemocratic procedures; undemocratic principles that are implemented through democratic procedures; and variations of the same kind. For instance, some critics of democracy would agree with Winston Churchill's famous remark, "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."^[3] Other critics may be more prepared to describe existing democratic regimes as anything but "rule by the people".

Leading contemporary thinkers in critical democratic theory include Jürgen Habermas, Robert A. Dahl, Robert E. Goodin, Bernard Manin, Joseph Schumpeter, James S. Fishkin, Ian Shapiro, Jason Brennan, Hélène Landemore, and Hans-Hermann Hoppe.

Critics of democracy have often tried to highlight democracy's inconsistencies, paradoxes, and limits by contrasting it with other forms of governments such as a less democratic epistocracy or a more democratic lottocracy. They have characterized most modern democracies as democratic polyarchies^[4] and democratic aristocracies;^[5] they have identified fascist moments in modern democracies; they have termed the societies produced by modern democracies as neo-feudal;^[6] while yet others have contrasted democracy with fascism, anarcho-capitalism, theocracy, and absolute monarchy. The most widely known critics of democracy include Plato and the authors of the Federalist Papers, who were interested in establishing a representative democracy in the early United States instead of a direct democracy. The authors of the Federalist papers explained why the Constitution was based on a certain type of democracy, also called an American republic or liberal democracy.

Additional historical figures associated with the critique of democracy include Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, Montesquieu, Thomas Hobbes, James Harrington, Thomas Carlyle, John Ruskin, Martin Heidegger, Hubert Lagardelle, Charles Maurras, Friedrich Nietzsche, Carl Schmitt, Oswald Spengler, Julius Evola, Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, and Nicolás Gómez Dávila.

Some critiques have improved democracy, such as those of Plato and Aristotle, who some scholars believe laid the foundation for modern constitutional democracy.^[7]

Historical debates

Classical antiquity

Plato is considered one of the most important opponents of democratic rule in Ancient Greece.

As Robert Dahl writes, "Although the practices of modern democracy bear only a weak resemblance to the political institutions of classical Greece...Greek democratic ideas have been more influential...[and] what we know of their ideas comes less from the writings and speeches of democratic advocates, of which only fragments survive, than from their critics".^[8]

Aristotle was a mild critic who "disliked the power that he thought the expansion of democracy necessarily gave to the poor".^[8] Plato was an opponent of democracy who advocated for "government by the best qualified".^[8] Modern liberal democracy incorporated some of these critiques.^[7] For example, James Madison "trained rigorously in...ancient learning" as a young man, and the ideas of ancient authors explain a "facet of Madison's recorded attitude on the nature of man".^[9] The influence of the ancient critiques of democracy is seen in how Madison spent the months before the Constitutional Convention "studying many centuries of political philosophy and histories of past attempts at republican forms of government".^[10]

According to Dahl, Aristotle and Plato would agree with most advocates of modern democracy that an aim of society is "to produce good citizens" and "Virtue, justice, and happiness are companions...[in] developing citizens who seek the common good".^[8]

Thucydides, the famous ancient Greek historian of the Peloponnesian War, witnessed the fall of Athenian democracy and applied scientific history in his critique of the democratic government.^[11] At the heart of his critique were how democracy failed "in the search for truth" and how leaders and citizens attempted "to impose their own speech-dependent meanings on reality".^[11] Thucydides blamed "public orators" and demagogues for a failure of epistemic knowledge, allowing most Athenians to "believe silly things about their own past and the institutions of their opponents".^[11]

Confucius greatly influenced East Asian societies over time, and political leaders, such as Lee Kuan Yew, in Singapore and China today often say Confucianism provides a more "coherent ideological basis for a well-ordered Asian society than Western notions of individual liberty".^[12] Nonetheless, East Asian countries employ forms of Democracy and Communism, political systems developed in the West.^{[citation needed]} The notion of "well-ordered Asian" society is more compatible with Communism, employed by China and Vietnam,^{[citation needed]} both rapidly growing and globalized economies in the 21st century, but also in North Korea which follows isolationism which hampers the improvement of lives of average citizens.^{[citation needed]}

Post-classical period

From 500 to 1500 AD, philosophers and political leaders around the world often advocated for traditional systems of governing society, which were critical of democracy.^{[citation needed]}

Italian philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas advocated for "a mixed government combining elements of democracy, aristocracy and kingship...[which] is reminiscent of Aristotle's preference for mixed government over either democracy or oligarchy."^[13] Scholars also consider "the substantial medieval literature in support of the Inquisitions" as opposed to modern ideas of democracy.^[14]

Democracy existed in a few "city-states of medieval Italy...[which] were ultimately submerged in imperial or oligarchic rule."^[8] The idea of "representation was not invented by democrats but developed instead as a medieval institution of monarchical and aristocratic government," and had its beginnings in "assemblies summoned by monarch, or sometimes the nobles themselves, to deal with important matters of state."^[8] The "state of military technology and organization" in medieval Europe was "highly unfavorable in its effects" on democracy.^[8]

Medieval Jewish political philosophy was influenced by Plato, Muslim thought, and halakhic concepts and was "monarchist, and inherently anti-democratic."^[15]

As Amartya Sen wrote about traditional Asian societies, "It is not hard, of course, to find authoritarian writings within the Asian traditions. But neither is it hard to find them in Western classics: One has only to reflect on the writings of Plato or Aquinas to see that devotion to discipline is not a special Asian taste."^[14]

Since the post-classical period, Islam has been an important pillar of society for much of the world, and some critics have defended this tradition from "the secular assumptions of the Enlightenment" and an "uncritical universalism," which "erodes historical continuity and the sense of community that sustains traditional societies."^[16] In many societies today, people of faith challenge the idea of "secularism as the only 'rational' way to deal with the challenges of life."^[16]

Early modern period

Thomas Hobbes, one of the first philosophers of the Enlightenment, published Leviathan in 1651 in defense of "absolute sovereignty" and supporting the royalists in the English Civil War.^[17] Hobbes was a critic of democracy because "the sovereign in a democracy (i.e. the people) can only exercise its power when it is actually assembled together...Only in a monarchy is the capacity to govern always exercised."^[18] Hobbes also thought democracy would lead to instability, conflict, glory seeking, mistrust, and undermining the social contract.^[18] Later Enlightenment thinkers, such as Madison who shared Hobbesian concerns about "the strongest passions and most dangerous weaknesses" of human nature, would use some of these critiques to improve modern democracy.^[19][9]

Romantic era

Romantic critics of democracy include Thomas Carlyle, John Ruskin, Matthew Arnold, James Fitzjames Stephen, Henry Maine, and William Lecky. In his study, Benjamin Evans Lippincott wrote that "they opposed democracy fundamentally for the same reason as Plato—that democracy led to disorder." Their unique historical contribution was to critique democracy under capitalism in modern industrial society. They believed that democracy produced anarchy in society, not simply anarchy within the individual as Plato believed.^[20]

Lippincott proposed that their three leading doctrines were "the common man's inferiority, the title of the few to rule, and authority". The main sources of these ideas were Puritanism, middle-class ideas of power, and the classical education that they received in their youth. The three doctrines were "most perfectly represented in Plato's Republic", while classical history seemed to provide examples of "the common man's inferiority" as in the cases of Athens and Rome, "which showed the populace turning to disorder". The three doctrines were developed during the Reformation and the Enlightenment by writers like John Calvin, Edmund Burke and David Hume.^[21]

Arguments for further democratization

Main pages: Sortition, Deliberative democracy, and DemocratizationThese arguments support more political egalitarianism by improving representative democracy or relying more on mechanisms like citizens' assemblies to delegate power more directly and unfiltered through the election process.

Not democratic enough

Robert A. Dahl defines democracies as systems of government that respond nearly fully to each and every one of their citizens. He then poses that no such, fully responsive system exists today.^[4] However, this does not mean that partially democratic regimes do not exist—they do. Thus, Dahl rejects a democracy dichotomy in favor of a democratization spectrum. To Dahl, the question is not whether a country is a democracy or not. The question is to what extent a country is experiencing democratization at a national level. Dahl measures this democratization in terms of the country's endorsement and reception of public contestation. And polyarchy, or "rule of the many people", is the only existing form of democratizable government; that is, it is within polyarchies that democratization can flourish. Countries do not immediately transform from hegemonies and competitive oligarchies into democracies. Instead, a country that adopts democracy as its form of government can only claim to have switched to polyarchy, which is conducive to, but does not guarantee, democratization. Dahl's polyarchy spectrum ends at the point in which a country becomes a full polyarchy at the national level and begins to democratize at the subnational level, among its social and private affairs. Dahl is not deeply concerned about the limits of his polyarchy spectrum because he believes that most countries today still have a long way before they reach full polyarchy status.^[22] For Dahl, whatever lies beyond full polyarchy is only possible, and thus only a concern, for advanced countries like those of Western Europe.^{[citation needed]}

According to Boaventura de Sousa Santos, "democracy is being so emptied of content that it can be instrumentally defended by those who use it in order to destroy it", saying that individuals calling for increased democratization and protection from fascism are labelled as leftists.^[23] De Sousa Santos says that while the Western world displays its support for democracy, its approval of governments being overthrown is a double standard.^[23]

Elections give oligarchs too much power

Manin

Bernard Manin believes that both representative and direct democracy promote "rule of the people", but that elections lead to "rule of the aristocratic". Manin explains that in direct democracies, virtually every citizen has the chance to be selected (sometimes at random) to populate the government but in modern republics, only elites have the chance of being elected.

Manin draws from James Harrington, Montesquieu, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau to suggest that the dominant form of government, representative as opposed to direct, is effectively aristocratic.^[5] He says that modern representative governments exercise political power through aristocratic elections which, in turn, contradicts "rule of the people". As far as Montesquieu is concerned, elections favor the "best" citizens who Manin notes tend to be wealthy and upper-class. As far as Rousseau is concerned, elections favor the incumbent government officials or the citizens with the strongest personalities, which results in hereditary aristocracy. Manin further evinces the aristocratic nature of representative governments by contrasting them with the ancient style of selection by lot. Manin notes that Montesquieu believed that lotteries prevent jealousy and distribute offices equally (among citizens from different ranks), while Rousseau believed that lotteries choose indifferently, preventing self-interest and partiality from polluting the citizen's choice (and thus prevent hereditary aristocracy).

However, Manin also provides criticism of the Athenians' experiment with direct democracy, or selection by lot.^[5] Manin reflects on Montesquieu's interrogation of the extent to which Athenian direct democracy was truly direct. Montesquieu finds that citizens who had reason to believe they would be accused as "unworthy of selection" commonly withheld their names from the lottery, thereby making selection by lot vulnerable to self-selection bias and, thus, aristocratic in nature. Manin does not dwell on direct democracy's potentially aristocratic elements, perhaps because he shares Montesquieu's belief that there is nothing alarming about the exclusion of citizens who may be incompetent; this exclusion may be inevitable in any method of selection.

Additionally, Manin is interested in explaining the discrepancy between 18th century American and French revolutionaries' declaration of the "equality of all citizens" and their enactment of (aristocratic) elections in their respective democratic experiments.^[5] Manin suggests that the discrepancy is explained by the revolutionaries' contemporary preoccupation with one form of equality over another. The revolutionaries prioritized gaining the equal right to consent to their choice of government (even a potentially aristocratic democracy), at the expense of seeking the equal right to be face of that democracy. And it is elections, not lots, that provide citizens with more opportunities to consent. In elections, citizens consent both to the procedure of elections and to the product of the elections (even if they produce the election of elites). In lotteries, citizens consent only to the procedure of lots, but not to the product of the lots (even if they produce election of the average person). That is, if the revolutionaries prioritized consent to be governed over equal opportunity to serve as the government, then their choice of elections over lotteries makes sense.

Michels

A major scholarly attack on the basis of democracy was made by German-Italian political scientist Robert Michels who developed the mainstream political science theory of the iron law of oligarchy in 1911.^[24] Michels argued that oligarchy is inevitable as an "iron law" within any organization as part of the "tactical and technical necessities" of organization and on the topic of democracy, Michels stated: "It is organization which gives birth to the dominion of the elected over the electors, of the mandataries over the mandators, of the delegates over the delegators. Who says organization, says oligarchy" and went on to state "Historical evolution mocks all the prophylactic measures that have been adopted for the prevention of oligarchy".^[24] Michels stated that the official goal of democracy of eliminating elite rule was impossible, that democracy is a façade legitimizing the rule of a particular elite, and that elite rule, that he refers to as oligarchy, is inevitable.^[24] Michels had formerly been a Marxist but became drawn to the syndicalism of Sorel, Eduoard Berth, Arturo Labriola, and Enrico Leone and had become strongly opposed parliamentarian, legalistic, and bureaucratic socialism of social democracy and in contrast supported an activist, voluntarist, anti-parliamentarian socialism.^[25] Michels would later become a supporter of fascism upon Mussolini's rise to power in 1922, viewing fascism's goal to destroy liberal democracy in a sympathetic manner.^[26]

Lagardelle

French revolutionary syndicalist Hubert Lagardelle claimed that French revolutionary syndicalism came to being as the result of "the reaction of the proletariat against idiotic democracy", which he claimed was "the popular form of bourgeois dominance". Lagardelle opposed democracy for its universalism, and believed in the necessity of class separation of the proletariat from the bourgeoisie, as democracy did not recognize the social differences between them.

Van Reybrouck

David Van Reybrouck, the author of Against Elections: The Case for Democracy, argues that allocating power through sortition, such as in citizens' assemblies, fixes many of the shortcomings of representative democracy. "Democracy is not government by the best in our society, because such a thing is called an aristocracy, elected or not...Democracy, by contrast, flourishes precisely by allowing a diversity of voices to be heard. It's all about having an equal say, an equal right to determine what political action is taken."^[27]

Arguments for full democratization

Corruption

The inability of governments around the world to successfully deal with corruption is causing a global crisis of democracy.^[28] Whilst countries that have high levels of democracy tend to have low levels of different forms of corruption, it is also clear that countries with moderate levels of democracy have high corruption, as well as countries with no democracy having very little corruption.^[29] Varying types of democratic policies reduce corruption, but only high levels of, and multiple kinds of democratic institutions, such as open and free elections combined with judicial and legislative constraints, will effectively reduce corruption. One important internal element of democracy is the electoral process which can be considered easily corruptible. For example, it is not inevitable in a democracy that elections will be free and fair. The giving and receiving of bribes, the threat or use of violence, treatment and impersonation are common ways that the electoral process can be corrupted,^[30] meaning that democracy is not impenetrable from external problems and can be criticised for allowing it to take place.

M. S. Golwalkar, in his book Bunch of Thoughts, describes democracy as, "is to a very large extent only a myth in practice...The high-sounding concept of 'individual freedom' only meant the freedom of those talented few to exploit the rest".^{[citation needed]}

Voter turnout

Voter turnout being lower than desired in some democracies has been attributed to a number of causes, with examples including reduced trust in democratic processes, lack of compulsory voting, political efficacy, include wasted votes,^[31] gridlock and high barriers to entry for new political movements.^[32]

Coase theorem

Daron Acemoglu argues that the Coase theorem is only valid in politics while there are "rules of the game", so to speak, that are being enforced by the government. But when there is nobody there to enforce the rules for the government itself, there is no way to guarantee that low transaction costs will lead to an efficient outcome in democracies.^[33]

Anthony Downs argued that the political market works much the same way as the economic market and that there could potentially be an equilibrium in the system because of the democratic process.^[34] However, he argued that imperfect knowledge in politicians and voters prevented the full realization of that equilibrium.^[34]

Manipulation of the opposition

Various reasons can be found for eliminating or suppressing political opponents. Methods such as false flags, counterterrorism-laws,^[35] planting or creating compromising material and perpetuation of public fear may be used to suppress dissent. After a failed coup d'état over 110,000 people have been purged and nearly 40,000 have been imprisoned in Turkey, which is or was considered to be a democratic nation, during the 2016 Turkish purges.^[36][37]

Fake parties, phantom political rivals and "scarecrow" opponents may be used to undermine the opposition.^[38]

Arguments against individual types of democracy

Arguments against majority rule

The will of the majority rule may not always be in the best interest of all citizens. Fierlbeck (1998) points out that such a majority rule result is not necessarily due to a failing in the democratic process, but rather, "because democracy is responsive to the desires of a large middle class increasingly willing to disregard the muted voices of economically marginalized groups within its own borders".^[39]

Arguments against two-party systems

By the median voter theorem, only a few people actually hold the balance of power in an two-party system, and many may be unhappy with their decisions. In this way, they argue, Two-party democracies are inefficient.^[40] Such a system could result in a wealth disparity or racial discrimination.

Arguments against voting systems with voting paradoxes

For several centuries, scholars have studied voting inconsistencies, also called voting paradoxes. Arrow's impossibility theorem suggests that single-winner democracy is logically incoherent. This is based on a certain set of criteria for democratic decision-making being inherently conflicting. This situation was metaphorically characterized by Charles Plott:

The subject began with what seemed to be a minor problem with majority rule. "It is just a mathematical curiosity," said some...But intrigued and curious about this little hole, researchers, not deterred by the possibly irrelevant, began digging in the ground nearby...What they now appear to have been uncovering is a gigantic cavern into which fall almost all of our ideas about social actions. Almost anything we say and/or anyone has ever said about what society wants or should get is threatened with internal inconsistency. It is as though people have been talking for years about a thing that cannot, "in principle", exist, and a major effort now is needed to see what objectively remains from the conversations.

—Charles Plott (1976) Axiomatic social choice theory, p. 511^[41]

Similarly, apportionment paradoxes of different size can occur for different apportionment methods.

Arguments against democracy systems with excessive reliance on procedural formalities

The Chinese Communist Party political concept of whole process people's democracy criticizes liberal democracy for excessively relying on procedural formalities or rule of law without genuinely reflecting the interests of the people.^[42] Under this primarily consequentialist concept, the most important criteria for a democracy is whether it can "solve the people's real problems", while a system in which "the people are awakened only for voting" is not truly democratic.^[42] For example, the Chinese government's 2021 white paper China: Democracy that Works criticizes liberal democracy's shortcoming based on principles of whole process people's democracy.^[43]

Arguments against democracy systems with short-termism

Different voting systems lead to different levels of short-termism in politics.^[44] Chinese Communist Party policymakers view policy under democratic systems as largely restricted to ad hoc interventions which leaves social development vulnerable to blind market forces.^[45](p144) In this view, the short-term policy interventions available under democratic systems are not equipped to address long-term issues such as environmental degradation, dysfunction in capital markets, or population change.^{[45](pp144-145)} Consensus democracy

Arguments against voting system vulnerable to strategic voting

Strategic voting incentivizes voters not to vote according to their preferences. Additionally, strategic voting can be manipulated by inaccurate opinion polls before the election.^[46][47]

Arguments against democracy without free press and accurate mass media

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Malleability of public opinion is cited by Schumpeter as a reason to prefer technocracy to democracy, while others concerned about the sway of the public argue for limiting the ability of money to play a role in democracy.^[48][49] Critics claim that mass media actually shapes public opinion, and can therefore be used to "control" democracy. Furthermore, the disclosure of reputation-damaging material shortly before elections may be used to significantly manipulate public opinion. In the United States the FBI was criticized for announcing that the agency would examine potentially incriminating evidence against Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server just 11 days before the election.^[50] It has been said that misinformation − such as fake news − has become central to elections around the world.^[50] In December 2016 United States' intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia worked "to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary [Hillary] Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency" − including passing material against the Democrats to WikiLeaks to discredit the election and favor Donald Trump.^[50] Social bots^[51] and other forms of online propaganda as well as search engine result algorithms^[52] may be used to alter the perception and opinion of voters. In 2016 Andrés Sepúlveda disclosed that he manipulated public opinion to rig elections in Latin America. According to him, with a budget of $600,000, he led a team of hackers that stole campaign strategies, manipulated social media to create false waves of enthusiasm and derision, and installed spyware in opposition offices to help Enrique Peña Nieto, a right-of-center candidate, win the election.^[53][54]

Arguments for autocratization

See also: AutocratizationThese critiques largely see people as incapable of self-rule, preferring the empowerment of elites.

'Unnatural'

Charles Maurras, an FRS member of the Action Française movement and supporter of the Vichy regime, stated in a famous dictum "Democracy is evil, democracy is death". Maurras' concept of politique naturelle declared recognition of inescapable biological inequality and thereby natural hierarchies, and claimed that the individual is naturally subordinated to social collectivities such as the family, the society, and the state, which he claims are doomed to fail if based upon the "myth of equality" or "abstract liberty". Maurras criticized democracy as being a "government by numbers" in which quantity matters more over quality and prefers the worst over the best. Maurras denounced the principles of liberalism as described in The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and in Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen as based upon the false assumption of liberty and the false assumption of equality. He claimed that the parliamentary system subordinates the national interest, or common good, to private interests of a parliament's representatives where only short-sighted interests of individuals prevail.

Religion

Salafism (Islam)

The practice of orthodox Islam in the form of Salafism can clash with a democratic system. The core precept of Islam, that of "tawheed" (the "oneness of God"), can be interpreted by fundamentalists to mean, among other things, that democracy as a political system is incompatible with the purported notion that laws not handed down by God should not be recognized.^[55]

Imperfect information

Plato believed it's reckless to allow common men to vote because the vote of an expert has equal value to the vote of 'an incompetent'.^[56] Jason Brennan believes that voter ignorance is a major problem in America and is the main objection to democracies in general. Brennan claims that "the democratic system incentivizes them [voting aged citizens] to be ignorant (or more precisely, fails to incentivize them [voting aged citizens] to be informed)".^[57] Brennan cites a study where less than 30% of Americans can name two or more of the rights listed in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights".^[57] To be an informed voter one must have extensive knowledge of the candidate's current and previous political beliefs/tendencies, according to Brennan. The standard in which Brennan places on voters is significantly high. Brennan proposes an alternative form of government known as an epistocracy. Instead of giving everyone the right to vote, an epistocratic system would only give a vote to those with an elite political understanding. Brennan argues that the cost/benefit analysis of voting leads some voters to rationally conclude that it's not worth the time and effort to become informed, especially when it means doing the hard work of challenging cognitive biases.^[57]

A deluge of information through newspapers, daily television, social media and various other forms, can result in information overload for voters. This creates a situation in democracies where voters are too fatigued to process all this information intelligently.^{[citation needed]}

See also

References

Further reading

Other

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