As Stephen Colbert has said: “My country ’tis of me, sweet man of liberty!”
Actually he was right. I’ve argued that the idea of democracy – the idea of self-government, of the people ruling themselves – logically leads to the idea of individual self-government, to anarchy; that mere majority rule, the government of the many over the few, is precisely not any form of self-government and does not deserve the term “democracy.”
In the following passage Mark Twain seems to be working his way toward the same idea:
For in a republic, who is “the Country”? Is it the Government which is for the moment in the saddle? Why, the Government is merely a servant – merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn’t. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.
Who, then, is “the Country”? Is it the newspaper? is it the pulpit? is it the school superintendent? Why, these are mere parts of the country, not the whole of it; they have not command, they have only their little share in the command. They are but one in the thousand; it is in the thousand that command is lodged; they must determine what is right and what is wrong; they must decide who is a patriot and who isn’t.
Who are the thousand – that is to say, who are “the Country”? In a monarchy, the king and his family are the country; in a republic it is the common voice of the people. Each of you, for himself, by himself and on his own responsibility, must speak. And it is a solemn and weighty responsibility, and not lightly to be flung aside at the bullying of pulpit, press, government, or the empty catch-phrases of politicians. Each must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, and which course is patriotic and which isn’t. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide it against your convictions is to be an unqualified and inexcusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may. If you alone of all the nation shall decide one way, and that way be the right way according to your convictions of the right, you have done your duty by yourself and by your country – hold up your head! You have nothing to be ashamed of.
(Mark Twain, Papers of the Adam Family.)
(Conical hat tip to J. Michael Straczynski, in the latest issue of Amazing Spider-man – though I then looked it up to make sure it was a genuine quotation.)
No, Twain hadn’t gotten all the way yet. Individual self-government and collective self-government were still blurred together in his mind. But the seeds were there.
Seed’s schmeeds, is the seed there when Rush Limbaugh says “It’s your money, not the government’s”?
And how is democracy not collectivist? It means rule of the people, not self rule.
It means the people being ruled by themselves rather than by someone else. That’s ambiguous between individual and collective self-government, and democratic ideology has traditionally shifted back and forth betwene both (since Athens on). Very few democratic theorists have ever favoured strict majority rule.
Anarchy is the perfection of democracy in which the people rule without any external overlap, IMO.
As far as I’m concerned the problem with “democracy” as we have come to know it is that it is not democratic enough! Direct plebescite seems preferable to representative republics, for instance. Republicanism (in the older sense) is a means of streamlining the plebescite. But to me the more “democratic” means of doing so would be through decentralization.
I think the founders of the USA would agree with me on my positive definitions, but disagree on the normative worth. But this, I think, is because they came from aristocratic and/or mercantilist roots (the Aristocracy vs the Mercantilists was the basic political division in England in the 18th century, AFAIK).
What Spiderman issue number was that from? Is it worth checking out?
“Very few democratic theorists have ever favoured strict majority rule.”
The Founding Fathers were against it. Imagine my relief to learn that they did not institute collective rule.
“That’s ambiguous between individual and collective self-government, and democratic ideology has traditionally shifted back and forth between both (since Athens on).
Originally you said majority rule is precisely not any form of self-government and does not deserve the term “democracy.” Why doesn’t it qualify as collective self-government the way you’re using the terms?
Tim: it’s the current issue on the stands, don’t recall the number. It’s a decent issue, but there have been better in the Civil War arc lately.
John: I think collective self-government is self-government in the same way that counterfeit money is money or decoy ducks are ducks. My point was that most democratic theorists, in their attempt to build in institutional constraints to prevent pure majority rule, were on their way toward individual self-government without realising it.
So the word democracy means not what people throughout history have intended it to mean (collective rule) but rather what you think it ought to mean?
So the word democracy means not what people throughout history have intended it to mean (collective rule) but rather what you think it ought to mean?
No, what I’m saying is that the term “democracy” has traditionally not been used/meant/intended in solely a collective-rule sense, that a strong individual-self-rule component has been present since the beginning (see what the Greeks wrote about demokratia, for example), that the two strands have long been intermingled and that the internal logic of the concept favours the individual strand.
I happen to have been thinking about this lately. It occurred to me that the word democracy, used in the modern context, tends strongly to conflate two ideas: one, the sort of governing mechanism prevailing in the United States since the 1770s or so, and since then in some other parts of the world (I refer to this as polyarchy, following Robert Dahl); two, the outcome this is popularly assumed to have, which is considered desireable by libertarians (I refer to this as “free self-rule”). The libertarian critique of “democracy”, then, is the assertion that polyarchy does not produce free self-rule.
Personally, I prefer to avoid the word “democracy” in general, since it is strongly associated with both a desireable end and an undesireable means, so much so that most people can’t even tell the difference between them. However, since the word has so many positive connotations, I can’t really blame proponents of polyarchy or of free self-rule for trying it to salvage for use in discussing one or the other.