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A certain blogger mention that Jim Henley quotes me, and says
Henley also quotes another writer as saying that democracy won't last out the century -- but that's a pretty presumptuous statement to make in the year '02 Well, not really. And I'm not saying that as one on whom the Shekhinah rests. I've noted before (and I am far from the only one, in or out of the blogosphere to do so) that rates of participation in politics, both electoral and non-electoral, are falling of among Americans. A lot of people, of all political stripes, think that "voting" is equivalent to "participating in politics". This leaves out the rest of the electoral process -- advocacy, selecting candidates, caucusing (often derided as anti-democratic in this degenerate age), campaigning (no, it doesn't just consist of giving speeches on the rubber-chicken circuit) -- as well as the non-electoral -- in a genuinely democratic republic, the post-electoral -- process of more advocacy, more campaigning, and forging compromises and building coalitions. Many pundits hate having to compromise and build coalitions. Oddly enough, many of them also express a love of parliamentary systems and proportional voting schemes of one sort or another. (I suspect that this is because, deep in what they are pleased to call their minds, they think that among the electorate is a Real People who, once they have thrown off the false consciousness inculcated by the patriarchal-racist-capitalist-'cuda Establishment, will vote those pundits and the puppets into office by ovewhelming majorities). Why do people become disenchanted with politics? I believe that this because they see ever more decision-making concentrated in centralized, unresponsive organs (i.e., bureaucracies). When one is among a few hundred or a few thousand people voting for dogcatcher, and the winning candidate actually goes out and catches dogs, one feels (rightly or wrongly) that one can influence which dogs will be caught and which will be allowed to run free. When one is among a few hundred thousand who votes for one of several hundred Congresscritters, or is among a few hundred million who votes for a President, that influence is felt (again, rightly or wrongly) to be greatly diluted. If it is further perceived that the legislation of Congress or the policies of the President are given to bureaucrats who transfer them from their "IN" boxes to their circular files without reading them, and then go back to doing what they damn well please, it becomes no more than a rational decision to withdraw from politics. (The perceptions may well be wrong; however, in light of those perceptions, it is a rational decision. Moreover, going around saying, "No, you're wrong; this is the way it really is" without proof, smacks too much of certain religious groups going door to door flogging their magazines.) It is also the case that in the past few decades (obviously, this phenomenon is not to be seen as a wave moving smoothly across the face of all social endeavor, everywhere at the same pace) the motivating force has ceased to be promoting policies thought good, and receiving power as a consequence, to promoting policies as a means of gaining power. If Tyler wrote, "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can exist only until the voters discover they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury", it should also be remembered that he followed this by saying, "From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the public treasury". These candidates are by no means helpless puppets, thrown up by the mob to loot the treasury for them. The social space for success narrows by virtue of this. All men can (in principle) be rich, some can be famous, but only one can be emperor (by the time one does become emperor, of course, actual power has been diffused over a bueaucracy, so that the emperor can do little more than write "approved" on bureaucratic memorials that he likes. The history of major "reformers" -- Akh-en-aten, Ashoka, Wang Mang, Commodus, Mohammed IV -- shows that they usually destroy their societies in the attempts to reform them; later "reactionary" rulers are divided into the competent, who try their best to put the pieces back together but never quite manage, and the incompetent, who are interested only in the trappings of power, and are careless of whether the reality continues under their misrule.) So, what of all this maundering? I would assert that the voluntary narrowing of the electorate, and of the involved citizenry, combined with the deliberate manipulation of the remaaining electorate by cyncical politicians and the increasing diffusion of real power into an irresponsible (in the parliamentary sense) bureaucracy, presages the end of genuine democracy. Elections as solemn ritual may well continue for centuries, but the outcome will be what the emperor ordains (it should be understood that I am using the word "emperor" to mean "person at the head of the universal state, mlitary, and bureaucracy", not "man who sits on a throne with crown, scepter, and orb"). We need only look at the Principate (or political machines in America) to understand how this works. I do not see this as an unmasterable slippery slope inevitably leading to world empire. I do believe that traction is low on this slope, and that a deliberate effort must be made to climb back to the heights. I do not see that effort being made. John "Akatsukami" Braue Thursday, June 27, 2002 |
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