Democracy, Part 2. Way to the top (The Onion): worked-way-up-from-son-of-ceo,34331

Democracy, Part 2

Way to the top (The Onion): http://www.theonion.com/articles/ceo-wor

ked-way-up-from-son-of-ceo,34331/

In the 21st century, formal democracy is regarded as a normal method to create a government

But, governments created by the democratic method show their deficiency in a number of important areas, including:

Declining ability to manage economies

Growth of social inequality

The environmental crisis

Continuing ethnic and religious conflicts

Continuing practices of mass violence (wars, terrorism, arms races)

Liberal Democracy: Main Principles

Individualism

Society is composed of individuals.

The individual is sovereign: individual rights are privileged over rights of groups and society

Equality: All individuals have equal rights

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” –

The American Declaration of Independence

Reason

People are capable of making rational decisions about anything

They can change the institutions of society they live in

Rights

Society must recognize certain individual liberties and claims as givens

The list of rights has expanded in the past two centuries, especially since the establishment of the United Nations Organization:

http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CoreInstruments.aspx

Protection of private property

A key duty of the state, as part of its obligation to protect individual rights and the private sphere

Freedom

Individuals’ ability to act without interference by the state or other citizens

Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Adopted in 1982 as part of the Constitution Act:

http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/const/page-15.html

LD is ambivalent about the role of the state:

The state as the provider of public goods

vs.

The state as a source of dangers to private interests

LD seeks to make the state strong and capable by making it legitimate through the democratic method (democracy makes state power rightful and just, enables the state to rule)

And – it seeks to limit state authority over society through separation of powers, rule of law, constitutionalism

Key principle of LD: distinction between

--the private sphere (personal life of individuals, the family, civil society autonomous from the state, religion, the market economy) and

--the public sphere (political society, the state, government policies)

LD insists that activities of the state should be confined to the public sphere

The public sphere should not be too large

The private sphere should be autonomous from the state and protected from the state’s encroachments

Liberal concern: democracy, understood in the broad, classical sense, may easily lead to the violation of society’s autonomy.

Majority rule always contains the danger of suppression of minorities – in the name of democracy. “Tyranny of the majority” – Alexis de Tocqueville

Democracy may undermine and even destroy liberty

Liberty is enhanced by democracy – but it must be protected from democracy

“Illiberal democracy” vs liberal democracy

This ambivalence is a source of LD’s strength and durability

The concern for individual rights

The emphasis on the autonomy of society from the state

The emphasis on pluralism

are very important political values

But the compromise at the core of LD also makes it vulnerable to challenges:

Both from the Right and from the Left

From the Right: LD fragments society and the state, it makes for disorder, it weakens the state. It is too much democracy

From the Left: LD secures privileges of the elites – both private elites and state elites. This democracy is too limited

In the history of liberal democracy, liberalism precedes democracy

When liberal principles become accepted in the practice of more and more Western states (18th-19th centuries), the exercise of political rights and freedoms is limited

Classical, laissez-faire liberalism is concerned primarily about limiting state power and protecting the private sphere – the market economy in the first place

In the 20th century, the extension of political rights to all adults was accompanied by the expansion of the activities of the state

The balance between the private and public spheres shifted in favour of the public sphere, as the liberal-democratic state, under the pressure of majorities, widens the scope of its activities, recognizes a wider range of rights, including labour’s right of collective bargaining

Welfare-state liberalism emphasized the role of the state as provider of public goods

In the last 40 years – movement in the opposite direction

Conservative, or neoliberal, forces gained political dominance in the West (led by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in UK, President Ronald Reagan in the US)

The Trilateral Commission and the idea of “The Crisis of Democracy” (1975):

There is too much democracy in the West Democracy is becoming “ungovernable”

“Recent years in the Trilateral countries have seen the expansion of the demands on government from individuals and groups. The expansion takes the form of:

( I ) the involvement of an increasing proportion of the population in political activity;

(2) the development of new groups and of new consciousness on the part of old groups, including youth, regional groups, and ethnic minorities;

(3) the diversification of the political means and tactics which groups use to secure their ends;

(4) an increasing expectation on the part of groups that government has the responsibility to meet their needs; and

(5) an escalation in what they conceive those needs to be.”

(Continued on next page) 

“The result is an "overload" on government and the expansion of the role of government in the economy and society. During the 1960s governmental expenditures, as a proportion of GNP, increased significantly in all the principal Trilateral countries, except for Japan. This expansion of governmental activity was attributed not so much to the strength of government as to its weakness and the inability and unwillingness of central political leaders to reject the demands made upon them by numerically and functionally important groups in their society.

(Continued on the next page)

The impetus to respond to the demands which groups made on government is deeply rooted in both the attitudinal and structural features of a democratic society. The democratic idea that government should be responsive to the people creates the expectation that government should meet the needs and correct the evils affecting particular groups in society. Confronted with the structural imperative of competitive elections every few years, political leaders can hardly do anything else.”* *Michel Crozier, Samuel Huntington, Joji Watanuki. The Crisis of Democracy. Report on the Governability of Democracies to the Trilateral Commission. New York: New York University Press, 1975, pp.163-164

The “conservative revolution”, launched by Thatcher and Reagan, began to dismantle the welfare state in the name of individual freedom and market autonomy.

As electoral democracy marched forward, expanding territorially around the globe,

the ability and willingness of the democratic states to satisfy social demands declined.

Liberal democracy is tailored to the needs of capitalism

But at the same time, there is a conflict between the logic of democracy and the logic of capitalism

In the market economy, people are formally equal free agents, each after his/her own interests

But in reality, they have vastly different amounts of social power

The market system, in and by itself, does not reduce those differences. On the contrary, it increases existing inequalities – both within societies and between societies.

Democracy, on the other hand, is rooted in the idea of equality. Vigorous practice of democracy in society does lead to lessening of social inequalities.

Another contradiction: in a democracy, citizens work together to achieve common goals

In a market economy, people compete, trying to gain advantage over each other – “survival of the fittest” (Herbert Spencer)

Can the contradictions between: socioeconomic inequality and political equality, and between cooperation and competition –

be kept under control?

Explosive growth of income inequality in America: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM

Growth of pay gap between top managers and workers, USA: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/04/whats-behind-the-huge-and-growing-ceo-worker-pay-gap/275435/

Income inequality has grown in Canada, too:

https://www.policyalternatives.ca/ceo

And – worldwide:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWSxzjyMNpU

UN Human Development Report 2002:“Economically, politically and technologically, the world has

never seemed more free – or more unjust” “Advancing human development requires governance that is

democratic both in form and in substance” 

Why democracy is key to development:1/ Participating in decision-making is a fundamental human

right 2/ Democracy protects people from political and economic

catastrophes – famines, wars (governments are more circumspect, attentive to public needs)

  -Since 1995, 10% of population of North Korea died of famine-In 1958-61, 30 mln. died of famine in China-In India, there has not been a single famine since 1947,

despite crop failures 3/”Democratic governance can trigger a virtuous cycle of

development – as political freedom empowers people to press for policies that expand social and economic opportunities, and as open debates help communities shape their priorities”

BUT:“The links between democracy and human development

are not automatic: when a small elite dominates economic and political decisions, the link between democracy and equity can be broken” (p.4)

At issue:WHO CONTROLS THE STATE? WHOSE INTERESTS DOES THE STATE SERVE? Can an egalitarian political system coexist long

with massive and growing socioeconomic inequality? Can concentration of economic power in the hands of a

few be reconciled with political pluralism?

Globalization vs. democracyEberhard Kienle, research professor at CNRS in Paris and

Grenoble:“Today one of the major challenges to liberal democracy

arises out of the turn taken by liberal economies since the late 1970s. Defined as a form of government that combines the election of the rulers by the ruled with effective guarantees for the liberties of all, liberal democracy is eroded by transformations changing the very type of economy that is frequently considered its natural counterpart or historic birthplace.”

http://www.opendemocracy.net/global-competitiveness-erosion-of-checks-and-balances-and-demise-of-liberal-democracy

How these contradictions can be resolved:

1. At democracy’s expense:

--limit democracy by manipulating its workings - --limit democracy by strengthening coercive powers of the

state- --mobilize the nation to unite, despite the inequalities – to

defend itself against an external enemy, or to conquer other nations

- --foster racial and ethnic divisions, mobilize majorities against minorities

- --opt for full-fledged fascism

2. In favour of democracy:

--Widen the channels through which citizens can effectively participate in politics

--Use new information technologies, network-type forms of political organizing

--Extend democracy into the workplace (employee ownership)

--Reduce the influence of big money on political systems--Increase the state’s ability to control economic elites--Create new forms of regulation of market economies both at

the national and the global scale--Develop effective social policies

Global public support for increased government spending and regulation:

http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/btglobalizationtradera/637.php?lb=brglm&pnt=637&nid=&id=

Americans reject use of military force to promote democracy: http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/brunitedstatescanadara/77.php?lb=brusc&pnt=77&nid=&id=