It is generally believed by proponents of a representative democracy that the voter elects political agents who will decide policies that represent the will of their principals. As these principals all have different values, the political agent is therefore seen as the unifying force of the pluralistic society.
I do, however, believe that representative democracies are very poor in dealing with societies where each one of us holds different political and social values.
1. A society ruled by public opinion seldom leads to justice
Attributing to the voice of the people a kind of final authority and unlimited wisdom is extremely dangerous. This attitude can easily slip into a tyranny of the majority. Socrates, for example, was unfairly sentenced to death by the dikasts who were meant to represent the Athenian public.
2. Public choice theory tells us that political agents cannot possibly truly represent their constituencies
Public choice theory maintains that politics is ruled by clashing opinions among policy makers and clashing opinions among members of the constituency. Members of a society have different values, and hold different interests. Person A may for example desire to raise public funds in order to build new roads and schools, whereas Person B would like to use the money to modernize the military and defence, and Person C would like to spend more on social welfare etc.
In addition, special minority interest groups may have incentives to organize themselves in order to influence public policies through lobbying whereas large interest groups – such as taxpayers in general – have fewer incentives. When the expected gain of lobbying of such minority interest groups is greater than the cost of lobbying efforts, they are more willing to actively influence legislators. The benefits of the general taxpaying class is much less, and therefore the costs of lobbying is relatively too expensive. When the principal believes that the cost of being politically active – keeping oneself up-to-date with political actualities and being involved with political campaigns – is not worth the benefits, the principal may become ‘rationally ignorant’ of politics. This, in turn, gives representatives less incentives to pay attention to the public interests.
3. Rational ignorant principals don’t even know who their representatives are
This, of course, consequently discourages the politicians’ feeling of accountability for their actions. It even encourages them to sell themselves to donors and to pursue personal agendas that don’t benefit the general populace.
4. Political agents in a democracy have greater incentives to waste public funds
Since political agents do not own public resources, but are only allowed to make use of it for a limited time, they are encouraged to exploit the resources as much as possible for the time they have access to it. Therefore, they will not take the long-term perspective to put the resources to good use for the benefits of future generations.
5. There’s nothing that can be represented
Imagine that there is a piece of legislation that our representatives can either pass or not with 35 per cent of the public in favour of the legislation and 65 per cent who oppose it. If our representatives pass the legislation, they will represent the 35 per cent and ignore the interests of the 65 per cent. If they do not pass the legislation, they will represent the 65 per cent and cease to represent the interests of the 35 per cent. In this very normal political scenario, it is not that it is difficult to represent a constituency – it is rather that it is impossible.
6. Democracy is inherently violent
Democracy divides people along the lines of their comprehensive doctrines. People with similar political thoughts organize themselves into groups to campaign against people who hold conflicting ideas. In a democracy, these people then vote for their preferred ruler to rule over people who may have contrasting views or who may be indifferent to political issues at all. It has never happened that the turnout at elections is 100 per cent. The average turnout rate in Europe is around 43 per cent. Nonetheless, the 43 per cent are choosing political agents who are expected to represent the 57 per cent of the non-voting constituency.
The violent nature of democracy is that with every vote the voter attempts to enforce their preferred rulers or legislation unto others. This basically makes it a system in which people lose their political autonomy to other voters.
Conclusion
I believe that we have to look for political possibilities that lie beyond a representative democracy. A democracy should not be considered as the end of all forms of social organization. One way we could organize our society is by looking at it from a metasystem level perspective and install something like a liberal archipelago.
What this means will be discussed in one of my later Philosophy 101 posts.
References
Caplan, B. (2007). The Myth of The Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies.
Casey, G. (2012). Libertarian Anarchy: against the state.
Hoppe, H.H. (2001). Democracy the God that failed: the economics and politics of monarchy, democracy, and natural order.
