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SPEAKING
FREELY
If
democracy worked, there'd be no
king
By Toni Momiroski
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please click here
if you are interested in
contributing.
Speaking at the
White House Rose Garden after the new Iraqi
parliament's second session ended in chaos, US
President George W Bush spoke about democracy at
length. He argued that he and the United States
were "confident that this new government will be
inclusive, will respect human rights and will
uphold fundamental freedoms for all Iraqis". He
seemed to hope that in "a democratic Iraq, these
differences will be resolved through debate and
persuasion instead of force and intimidation". And
he lectured on democratic ideals with these words:
"In a democracy, the government must uphold the
will of the majority while respecting the rights
of minorities."
But a note of caution is
prescribed for Bush and his speechwriters and all
those who would put forward democracy as the ideal
mode of conduct for society without reservation.
The following questions stand out for attention:
If democracy pure and simple works, why does it
not feature in the most important and key
institutions in society? Why is there no democracy
in the armed services. There is no democracy in
the president's office. There is no democracy in
business. There is no democracy at the United
Nations. There is not even democracy in elections.
In each of the above, corporate and institutional
Darwinism is rampant and the "cult of leadership"
reigns supreme. We don't follow democracy per se
in the West, yet we continue to force it on others
without question, as though the rules themselves,
whatever they might be, are sacred and were
dictated by God himself.
In the armed
service we celebrate the cult of leadership in the
chain of command and we obey orders as though they
were law. To do otherwise would render orders
meaningless and throw into confusion and chaos the
art of war itself. Similarly, there is no
democracy in the Oval Office. Who can imagine a
scenario where the orders from the supreme
commander in chief of the US were put up for
scrutiny and open to debate when hard decisions
and actions were required immediately? In
business, who can conceive a situation where the
chief executive office was put on notice by his
junior staff about any direction coming down the
chain of command?
And so far as the UN is
concerned, a small group of favored parties (the
victors of the last war) are not subject to
popular vote and they exercise their power of veto
and the privilege to abstain, as the emperors did
in days long past. As for democracy in elections
in the West, we don't have it. What we have is
representative democracy, where a few who are
motivated to vote do so, and the victor is deemed
to have received a mandate on behalf of all.
This mandate is a pliable tool in the
hands of the president or prime minister to exact
his will against the wishes of the population.
Clearly then, democracy is a delicate clay
to be molded and shaped by the whims of all those
who would want to rule and impose their will on
others despite resistance. Democracy as we have
understood it today and as we have witnessed it
recently in the West is a fiction. This cruel joke
termed "democracy" parades as popular will in the
guise of "patriotism" and is meted out against all
who dare not conform. It is important to note here
that democracy, like all previous modes of rule,
is just another point in civilization on the path
to some other place, just as feudalism and
slavery, among others, were in the past. To
understand democracy proper it is important to go
back to the source. To do so requires a second
look at Plato.
Plato has been variously
interpreted. Many have conceded with alarm that
Plato ushered
in the failure of democracy. But this is not a true
rendering of Plato. Plato wished to offer a
warning to future champions of democracy.
Plato's words have been interpreted by
some as scandalizing political philosophy. To
others, his words are a commentary of past
formulations on democracy. However, while Plato's
texts need to be viewed in the context of their
time, they have important things to say about the
juncture at which we are at present, that is,
democracy doesn't work according to current
configurations and, bluntly speaking, we simply do
not have democracy as we conceive it and argue for
it anywhere in the world.
By way of
background, Plato was Socrates' most illustrious
student. Socrates was executed in 399 BC, and
after this, Plato around 388 BC founded what later
was described as the first European university,
named the Academy. His particular interest at the
time was in political philosophy, and his first
book on the subject, the Republic, is
arguably his most important and comprehensive
work.
Democracy at its birth, just as
today, did not mean "one person, one vote". In
Plato's world, democracy excluded all women, all
slaves, all resident aliens, and all persons who
had at least one parent who was not a native
Athenian. The quorum in the Assembly of Plato's
Athenian state was constituted of the oligarchs,
an informal alliance of upper-class citizens, and
the democrats, the leaders, champions, and
representatives of the lower classes. Clearly,
this was popular will dictated by the privileged
members of Athenian contemporary society.
Plato's philosophy looked for ways in
which wars and civil strife could be prevented. He
tended to have little faith in the rule of the
rich, nor any confidence in the ability of the
common people to run a city like Athens.
Consequently, Plato looked for alternatives to
oligarchy and democracy as ways to manage social
interaction. This is the main theme of the
Republic.
Another major theme of
the Republic is justice. By justice Plato
meant social fairness and personal integrity. He
stressed that for a society to be just, there must
be harmony. Every social class had to fulfill its
proper function, and no one part of society could
be permitted to speak for all the others.
Plato's solution was an educational system
that systematically singled out the most
intelligent, talented, industrious, and
self-disciplined individuals for years of
intensive study and training. For them was
prescribed a lifestyle that guarded against
personal motivations and ambitions toward
self-enrichment. Plato prioritized government, but
a government of educated people who were forbidden
to own private property, or have allegiance to
their own families.
Plato's ideal
democracy was one that stressed separation from
worldly pleasures and gains. In his democracy,
members of the ruling council were to live in a
sort of commune where they would eat, exercise and
study together as a group, without the
distractions that administering personal estates
and running private households would entail. He
prioritized a democracy in which women would have
exactly the same rights and obligations as men. He
argued for insurance against abuses of power. In
this ideal, philosophers would rule only because
the law required them to do so as a civic duty,
and because as thoughtful individuals they could
see that there was no other way to ensure the rule
of reason in a society that was to be stable and
peaceful.
Plato considered five possible
types of government in the Republic: Rule
by the lovers of wisdom, rule by the lovers of
honor (a military aristocracy), rule by the rich
(oligarchy), rule by the many (democracy), and
rule by a single tyrant.
Plato's value
system considered these five pure types in terms
of their value to society, and he prioritized
them. He did so in descending order, with the rule
by a council of philosophers being the best, and
rule by a single dictator the worst.
There
are many criticisms that can be leveled at Plato.
He was an aristocrat by birth, and his world view
was colored by this position and status in
Athenian life. However, his contribution to the
democratic debate is best illustrated by his views
on leadership.
For Plato, the state was
best illustrated by the metaphor of a ship. A
ship, he argued, needs an expert navigator at the
helm. And it is in the role of leader that the
shortcomings of democracy are to be found. Leaders
can become influenced by their own personal
desires and in time can become corrupt. Plato did
not trust in the cult of leadership. He wished for
something completely new. He argued for rule by
highly educated experts who conduct a dictatorship
of reason.
As Jose Ortega y Gasset argues
in Revolt of the Masses, democracy or
universal suffrage is purely and simply where "the
masses do not decide, their role consists in
supporting the decision of one minority or other".
This, then, according to Plato and Gasset,
is the central failure of democracy as we have
seen it, lived through it, attempted to impose it
on others and falsely understood it today: it is
not democratic.
Toni Momiroski
is associate professor at Jiaotong University
specializing in social theory and English. The
university does not endorse the above views; they
are the opinions of the writer, whose website is
at http://www.momiroski.com/.
(Copyright 2005 Toni Momiroski.)
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please click here
if you are interested in
contributing. |
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