As Europe, the United States, and Latin America confront a growing wave of populist discontent and disillusionment with “the system,” fuelled by a widespread perception that democracy has ‘let us down,’ it is worth taking a step back from all the action, to ask: “what exactly were we expecting from our democratic institutions, and was it anything they could actually deliver in the first place?” Even if smart and well-intentioned people got into power, could they realistically make “the system” work for the people?
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According to the standard narrative, at least in Europe and the United States, democracy is a system of government “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” Acting “in the name of the people,” democracy is meant to deliver a series of premium services: first, to give a voice to ordinary people at the highest levels of power; second, to provide a comprehensive and equitable regulatory framework for social life; and third, to deliver a host of public goods, such as security, economic stability, and healthcare.
Admittedly, the details of the package of benefits associated with democracy are hotly contested. The involvement of federal and state governments in healthcare and welfare, for example, is deeply controversial in the United States. Be that as it may, the fact remains that political leaders in the Western world, whether on the “right” or the “left,” promise to fix many of society’s problems by harnessing the resources of representative democracy.
If democracy was actually delivering on these promises, or even came close to doing so, I doubt we could explain phenomena like Trump, Brexit, Meloni in Italy, AfD in Germany, and the Citizen Farmer movement in the Netherlands. The question is, can democracy deliver on its promises? Is it reasonable for us to demand this Christmas wish list from the modern democratic state, or are we effectively setting ourselves up for a recurring cycle of frustration, disillusionment, and populist revolt?
The typical populist response to the failure of democracy to ‘deliver the goods’ has been to point the finger at a corrupt elite or an incompetent administration, and say “they failed you, but if we just put in place the right leaders, and the right policies, we can do so much better.” Let’s “make America great again.” Or “take back Britain from the EU bureacrats.” It is understandable that candidates in popular elections would take this line. Who, after all, would elect someone who says, “the problem is not this government, but the democratic system”?
But can populists succeed where “the system” has failed? Does representative democracy in its current form have the resources to secure a long laundry list of goods that citizens demand, from a meaningful say in the future of their country to a comprehensive welfare system? I seriously doubt it.
Let’s start with the simple idea that national or state-based democracy should give everyone a meaningful say in the future of their country. This is something that I doubt even a very creative fairy-godmother could arrange. The numbers just don’t add up: unless we are talking about a small parish or commune, the only way to run a national democracy is to put a few people in power, put some appropriate checks in place, and hope that they will feel the weight of their responsibility to serve the public interest.
Perhaps they will. And perhaps people will be happy with their performance, and reward them at the polls. But to suggest that ordinary people ‘have a say’ in the way their country is run is being ‘economical with the truth,’ to say the least. Ordinary people have some say in the selection of an elite group to run their country. Elitism with a slightly democratic flavour is exactly how modern democracy works, with or without populism.
Even the name ‘democracy’ is really a misnomer. We live in a mixed political system. It is oligarchic inasmuch as a small group of people govern in their own interests. It is aristocratic inasmuch as elite actors, whether politicians, judges, or civil servants, do sometimes put the public interest ahead of their private interests. And it is democratic inasmuch as we can hold our politicians answerable for some of their deeds by refusing to re-elect them.
And so, we should not delude ourselves into thinking that periodic elections give us a meaningful voice in the routine operations of government. In a large-scale society, the promise to give everyone ‘a say’ in how their country is run is basically a hollow fiction that helps to legitimise a system in which power and capital is heavily concentrated in the hands of certain classes of persons and certain institutions.
The state and its various agencies obviously exercise massive public power, but large corporations, central banks, and financial regulators provide centers of power well able to rival those of the State, as we have seen in the case of Ireland’s so-called ‘bailout,’ in which the Irish government was pressured to make Irish taxpayers pay for the sins of a greedy and reckless banking elite.
Besides pretending to give everyone a voice in government, democracy promises to provide, or at least underwrite, a wide range of public goods. With growing levels of public debt, aging populations in the West, and a world in which economic and regulatory power is increasingly shifting away from the State, the promise of the modern state to provide welfare, pensions, security, and comprehensive public regulation rings very hollow indeed.
If modern democracies can neither give citizens the say in governance that they long for, nor provide them with the wish list of public goods that mant citizens clamour for - at least in the medium to long term - then will our political systems crumble under the weight of unrealistic demands?
That will depend on two things: first, whether citizens are willing to radically re-adjust their expectations and start to draw on resources beyond the State, such as civil society and private business ventures, to find their voice and solve the problems the State can no longer solve for them; and second, whether democratic States are willing to devolve political power to local governments, so that the burden of meeting people’s political demands is dispersed across many local governments rather than unrealistically left on the shoulders of a single central government.
It is theoretically possible that a populist movement could promote decentralised power and more realistic political expectations on the part of citizens. But the dynamic of popular election tends to reward emotive, satisfying, and simplistic forms of discourse, while the whole point of popular elections is to propel this or that party into power. It would take a very brave and self-effacing populist party to effectively dismantle its own power base once it got into power, by devolving power back to local governments.
No industrial, economic or political system can succeed when moral bankruptcy prevails. It’s not a matter of what “-ism” a society chooses, it is the moral, intellectual and spiritual status of the citizens that is the determinant of success. We are seeing political chaos as a consequence of the corruption of morals, the debasement of thinking, and the spiritual emptiness that is so common. A society comprising selfish, unthinking, vain and venal citizens is destined for dark times.
Left vs. Right is a mind prison. Anything going against the system is a good thing but may not be sufficient. Those who are flexing their muscle even in a “useless” way are building up the muscle. The most important thing to do is to unplug from the propaganda matrix and jump start your own independent thinking. If a critical mass of begins to do that changes will begin to happen. Electing the populists will not solve the systemic problem but it can be the first step in a long series of steps.