Democracy

A Reader

Ricardo Blaug

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9780231539500
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Philosophy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Democracy is an essential collection of source texts by major historical figures on the value of democracy, key concepts and practices, theoretical perspectives, and contemporary challenges. The volume includes reflections on democracy by Machiavelli, Hobbes, Madison, Mill, Lincoln, and Paine. It features Rousseau and Kant on freedom and autonomy; Locke on equality; Burke and Bakunin on representation; Wollheim and Tocqueville on majority rule; and Crick on citizenship. Conservative, Marxist, socialist, and feminist critiques are followed by new sections on the market, civil society, participation, the Internet, nationalism, religion, multiculturalism, cosmopolitan democracy, and violence. Perfect for course use, the book provides an unparalleled introduction to standard articulations of democracy and its multiple manifestations in our interconnected, conflict-ridden world.

PART ONE

TRADITIONAL AFFIRMATIONS OF DEMOCRACY

TRADITIONAL AFFIRMATIONS OF DEMOCRACY: INTRODUCTION

We have called this section ‘traditional affirmations of democracy’, although such a title is itself problematic. It is designed to offer selections from the classic discussions of democracy through the canon of political theory, starting in the times of the ancient Greek polis. However, some of the extracts offer questionings rather than straightforward affirmations and celebrations of democracy. The purpose of this selection of extracts is to show how central figures in the history of political theory have analysed the nature and problematic workings of the democratic ideal.

The extract from Pericles’ speech to his Athenian fellow-citizens, as reconstructed by the ancient historian Thucydides, is classic in two senses. First, it affirms the democratic ideals of the classic Greek city-state, or polis, and second, it draws attention to central features of democracy which have remained the objects of debate and criticism, as well as praise, down to our own day. Pericles acclaims democracy as being the rule of the whole people. The democracy of ancient Athens, he affirms, involves equality before the law, the choosing of people for office on grounds of ability, and tolerance for the differences of citizens in their private life. Above all, Athenian democracy involved an ideal of civic virtue. Those who were not interested in politics had no right to call themselves citizens. Conversely, the citizens of ancient Athens were distinguished by their knowledge and interest in politics. Hence they were ready to devote themselves to securing the defence of the polis when it came under attack. Pericles contrasts this civic virtue with the ‘laborious training’ and ‘state-induced courage’ of Sparta, Athens’ more militaristic rival. Finally, Pericles sounded the theme of autonomy, a central strand of democratic theory: each citizen of the polis could ‘show himself the rightful lord and owner of his own person’.

However, as the next extract shows, from its very beginnings in the Greek polis democracy was faced with more sceptical analyses of its nature and implications. Aristotle noted what we would now call the social bases of democracy. Democracy meant the rule of the poor and free-born, as opposed to the domination of the wealthy. The rule of the poor majority, the ‘demos’, could easily degenerate into a form of autocracy, where the popular majority ignored the limits of laws and imposed its will regardless. The power of the masses could be whipped up by unscrupulous demagogues. This fear of the degeneration of democracy into despotism was to be echoed by many later theorists of democracy, including Alexis de Tocqueville with his fears of ‘the tyranny of the majority’. Thus right from the beginning we note that political theorists have pointed out the possible corruption of democracy: rule of the people could depart from a law-governed and rational system of government into the exercise of arbitrary power.

For the period of early and later modern political theory, two antitheses dominated the debate on democracy: that between republic and monarchy, and that between liberalism, or liberal-democracy, and more participatory or direct forms of democratic politics. The extracts from Machiavelli and Hobbes illustrate the former: the selection from Machiavelli’s Discourses reveals a belief in the superiority of popular rule over that of a monarch. Public opinion is less erratic and more reliable, especially in foreign policy, than policy made by a single person. Democracy can take the form of a republic ruled by law, which Machiavelli singles out as the best possible political form. By contrast, Hobbes argues for the exercise of power by a single ruler (monarch) as opposed to that of an assembly. To escape from the state of nature, and its ‘war of all against all’, sovereignty has to be located in one single locus, either that of one person (monarchy) or that of an assembly (democracy). In a passage which is astonishingly prescient and modern, Hobbes suggests that the possibility of faction, corruption and division is much greater in an assembly than in a monarchy. It is only in the latter that the public interest of the society is likely to be strong, because it is bound up with the personal interest of the ruler. Where the sovereign power is located in an assembly, by contrast, its members ‘are as subject to evill Counsell, and to be seduced by Orators, as a Monarch by Flatterers; and becoming one anothers Flatterers, serve one anothers Covetousnesse and Ambition by turns’. Hobbes’ analysis seems very topical in an age of parliamentary corruption, log-rolling and growing scepticism of the virtues of political representatives.

Is democracy a system meant to safeguard individual rights, above all the right of private property? Or is it a system in which individuals become, and are aware of themselves as becoming, parts of a wider collective body in which the common interest prevails over their particular interests? These themes emerge from the extracts from Madison and Rousseau which follow.

Madison envisages a democracy that is pluralist and diverse. Factions are an expression of this diversity and cannot be done away with. Yet the dangers of factions are equally real: they could threaten the realisation of the common good and endanger private property. The remedy lay in the creation of a republic, distinguished from a ‘pure democracy’ through its large size and the device of representation. The representatives in a large-scale society would be more likely to be responsive to a wide range of concerns and interests, and less inclined to support what Madison candidly calls ‘an equal division of property, or…any other improper or wicked project’. What is envisaged by Locke and Madison is therefore a liberal democracy, based on private property, individual rights and a multiplicity of interests.

The perspective which emerges from the extracts from Rousseau is different: he depicts a democracy in which a new collective body is created, the democratic sovereign. Like Pericles, he invokes the idea of autonomy, of being bound by laws which we ourselves have made. Government, or the executive, is or should be the servant of the democratic sovereign, applying the law to particular cases. The often-quoted words that those who do not obey the general will should be ‘forced to be free’ have been seen by some as suggesting the emergence of an all-powerful totally sovereign body bound by no limits, and potentially overriding the particular interests of the individual. This was to be, as we shall see, the fear of liberals in the age of mass democracy. Clearly, the thought of Rousseau envisages, at least potentially, a form of democracy different from the liberal-democracy theorised by Locke and Madison. This debate about different forms of democracy, the tensions between liberalism and democracy, is central to the history of democratic theory and to democracy itself.

It is illustrated in our selections by the extracts from John Stuart Mill and de Tocqueville, extracts which exemplify the ambivalent attitude of liberals towards democracy. Both Mill and de Tocqueville see democracy as the epitome of modernity, as providing means for the development of its citizens. For Mill, extending the suffrage was a ‘potent means of mental improvement’. He defends democracy on two grounds: first, an anti-paternalist argument. Each individual is the best defender of his or her interest. We cannot rely on anyone else to speak for us. Second, Mill suggests that a democratic regime creates, and is at the same time dependent on, a particular type of character. He opposes the ‘passive type of character’ to the ‘active self-helping type’, and it is the latter which is engendered by a democratic system. Hence Mill suggests that a democratic regime is best suited to lead to intellectual and moral progress.

Yet, like Aristotle many centuries before, both Mill and de Tocqueville were concerned with the possible degeneration of democracy. They feared its perversion into democratic despotism and majority tyranny, and were apprehensive that democracy could stifle individualism and diversity. Democracy might breed an intolerant system in which minorities and dissident individuals were oppressed by the conformism and mediocrity of democracy. These concerns remain relevant in an age of mass democracy, as later selections in this Reader reveal.

These liberal thinkers, especially de Tocqueville, feared the association of democracy and revolution. We reproduce in this section democratic statements emerging from the English Revolution of the seventeenth century, the French Revolution of 1789 and Paine’s Rights of Man, a text written by a participant in both the American and French Revolutions. The text from the Putney debates of 1649 reveals the debate between those who saw democracy as involving ‘the poorest he as well as the richest he’, and, on the other hand, those who took a more liberal view that the purpose of the English Revolution had been to secure property rights and the rule of law. The French Revolutionary Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen invokes the connection of democracy and the nation (Article III) and the participation of all citizens, directly or indirectly, in making the law (Article VI). Similarly, both the statements of Paine and Abraham Lincoln affirm the central value of democracy as being that of popular sovereignty, an association of which, as Paine says, every citizen is a member ‘and as such, can acknowledge no personal subjection; and his obedience can be only to the laws’.

Finally, this selection of traditional affirmations ends with a twentieth-century classic statement, or perhaps better a revision, of democratic ideals. In his book Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy the economist and social philosopher Joseph Schumpeter gives a critique of what he calls the classic idea of democracy, in which decisions and policies emerge from the people. For Schumpeter, the task of the people was not to decide on issues but to select a government through processes of electoral competition, and leave leadership to them. This view of democracy contrasts totally with the affirmation of civic virtue, political interest and autonomy proclaimed by Pericles in ancient Athens. Do Schumpeter’s words suggest a realistic mature adaptation of democratic theory to the realities of modern mass society? Or do they represent an abandonment of the very essence of democratic politics as enunciated by Pericles and later by Rousseau?

1

FUNERAL ORATION

Pericles

Let me say that our system of government does not copy the institutions of our neighbours. It is more the case of our being a model to others, than of our imitating anyone else. Our constitution is called a democracy because power is in the hands not of a minority but of the whole people. When it is a question of settling private disputes, everyone is equal before the law; when it is a question of putting one person before another in positions of public responsibility, what counts is not membership of a particular class, but the actual ability which the man possesses. No one, so long as he has it in him to be of service to the state, is kept in political obscurity because of poverty. And, just as our political life is free and open, so is our day-to-day life in our relations with each other. We do not get into a state with our next-door neighbour if he enjoys himself in his own way, nor do we give him the kind of black looks which, though they do no real harm, still do hurt people’s feelings. We are free and tolerant in our private lives; but in public affairs we keep to the law. This is because it commands our deep respect.

We give our obedience to those whom we put in positions of authority, and we obey the laws themselves, especially those which are for the protection of the oppressed, and those unwritten laws which it is an acknowledged shame to break.

And here is another point. When our work is over, we are in a position to enjoy all kinds of recreation for our spirits. There are various kinds of contests and sacrifices regularly throughout the year; in our own homes we find a beauty and a good taste which delight us every day and which drive away our cares. Then the greatness of our city brings it about that all the good things from all over the world flow in to us, so that to us it seems just as natural to enjoy foreign goods as our own local products.

Then there is a great difference between us and our opponents, in our attitude towards military security. Here are some examples: Our city is open to the world, and we have no periodical deportations in order to prevent people observing or finding out secrets which might be of military advantage to the enemy. This is because we rely, not on secret weapons, but on our own real courage and loyalty. There is a difference, too, in our educational systems. The Spartans, from their earliest boyhood, are submitted to the most laborious training in courage; we pass our lives without all these restrictions, and yet are just as ready to face the same dangers as they are. Here is a proof of this: When the Spartans invade our land, they do not come by themselves, but bring all their allies with them; whereas we, when we launch an attack abroad, do the job by ourselves, and, though fighting on foreign soil, do not often fail to defeat opponents who are fighting for their own hearths and homes. As a matter of fact none of our enemies has ever yet been confronted with our total strength, because we have to divide our attention between our navy and the many missions on which our troops are sent on land. Yet, if our enemies engage a detachment of our forces and defeat it, they give themselves credit for having thrown back our entire army; or, if they lose, they claim that they were beaten by us in full strength. There are certain advantages, I think, in our way of meeting danger voluntarily, with an easy mind, instead of with a laborious training, with natural rather than with state-induced courage. We do not have to spend our time practising to meet sufferings which are still in the future; and when they are actually upon us we show ourselves just as brave as these others who are always in strict training. This is one point in which, I think, our city deserves to be admired. There are also others:

Our love of what is beautiful does not lead to extravagance; our love of the things of the mind does not make us soft. We regard wealth as something to be properly used, rather than as something to boast about. As for poverty, no one need be ashamed to admit it: the real shame is in not taking practical measures to escape from it. Here each individual is interested not only in his own affairs but in the affairs of the state as well: even those who are mostly occupied with their own business are extremely well-informed on general politics – this is a peculiarity of ours: we do not say that a man who takes no interest in politics is a man who minds his own business; we say that he has no business here at all. We Athenians, in our own persons, take our decisions on policy or submit them to proper discussions: for we do not think that there is an incompatibility between words and deeds; the worst thing is to rush into action before the consequences have been properly debated. And this is another point where we differ from other people. We are capable at the same time of taking risks and of estimating them beforehand. Others are brave out of ignorance; and, when they stop to think, they begin to fear. But the man who can most truly be accounted brave is he who best knows the meaning of what is sweet in life and of what is terrible, and then goes out undeterred to meet what is to come.

Again, in questions of general good feeling there is a great contrast between us and most other people. We make friends by doing good to others, not by receiving good from them. This makes our friendship all the more reliable, since we want to keep alive the gratitude of those who are in our debt by showing continued goodwill to them: whereas the feelings of one who owes us something lack the same enthusiasm, since he knows that, when he repays our kindness, it will be more like paying back a debt than giving something spontaneously. We are unique in this. When we do kindnesses to others, we do not do them out of any calculations of profit or loss: we do them without afterthought, relying on our free liberality. Taking everything together then, I declare that our city is an education to Greece, and I declare that in my opinion each single one of our citizens, in all the manifold aspects of life, is able to show himself the rightful lord and owner of his own person, and do this, moreover, with exceptional grace and exceptional versatility.

[…]

From Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War, trans. Rex Warner, introduction and notes M. I. Finlay (Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1972), pp. 143–9. Originally written ca. 400 BC.

2

THE POLITICS

Aristotle

§ 1. It ought not to be assumed, as some thinkers are nowadays in the habit of doing, that democracy can be defined off-hand, without any qualification, as a form of constitution in which the greater number are sovereign. Even in oligarchies – and indeed in all constitutions – the majority [i.e. the majority of those who enjoy constitutional rights] is sovereign. Similarly, oligarchy cannot be simply defined as a form in which a few persons are the constitutional sovereign. § 2. Assume a total population of 1,300: assume that 1,000 of the 1,300 are wealthy; assume that these 1,000 assign no share in office to the remaining 300 poor, although they are men of free birth and their peers in other respects. Nobody will say that here there is a democracy. § 3. Or assume, again, that there are only a few poor men, but that they are stronger than the rich men who form the majority [and are therefore sovereign]. Nobody would term such a constitution an oligarchy, when no share in honours and office is given to the majority who possess riches. It is better, therefore, to say that democracy exists wherever the free-born are sovereign, and oligarchy wherever the rich are in control. § 4. As things go, the former are many, and the latter few: there are many who are free-born, but few who are rich. [The essence, however, in either case is not the factor of number, but the factor of social position.] Otherwise [i.e. if number alone were the essence] we should have an oligarchy if offices were distributed on the basis of stature (as they are said to be in Ethiopia), or on the basis of looks; for the number of tall or good-looking men must always be small. § 5. Yet it is not sufficient to distinguish democracy and oligarchy merely by the criterion of poverty and wealth, any more than it is to do so merely by that of number. We have to remember that the democratic and the oligarchical state both contain a number of parts; and we must therefore use additional criteria to distinguish them properly. We cannot, for example, apply the term democracy to a constitution under which a few free-born persons rule a majority who are not free-born [as if birth were the one and only criterion]. (A system of this sort once existed at Apollonia, on the Ionian Gulf, and at Thera. In both of these states honours and offices were reserved for those who were of the best birth – in the sense of being the descendants of the original settlers – though they were only a handful of the whole population.) Nor can we apply the term oligarchy to a constitution under which the rich are sovereign simply because they are more numerous than the poor [as if number were the one criteri...

Table of contents

• Cover 
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents 
• Preface to the Second Edition
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Democracy – Triumph or Crisis?
• Part One: Traditional Affirmations of Democracy
• Part Two: Key Concepts
• Part Three: Critiques of Democracy
• Part Four: Contemporary Issues
• Bibliography
• Index