The idea of democracy is inherently flawed, and only experts can save us
Very few ideas are more highly revered in our society than Democracy — it is a universal ideal of governance everywhere, and if a nation doesn’t have it, then the citizens fight for it. Rule by the People and for the People is a sacred value since at least the French Revolution.
But where I live in the US, our government is completely dysfunctional. Everyone knows this and there should be no need to go into detail. It is commonly assumed that the problems are due to insufficient democracy. If we were simply able to remove the corrupt [insert opposing party here] who are subverting our democracy to benefit their elite friends and cronies, perhaps get rid of anti-democratic procedures such as the electoral college and gerrymandering, we could let the Will of the People rule. And naturally, of course, the people will support the kinds of things that I support based on my ideology. If any of them oppose it, well they aren’t really the People, they’re just brainwashed stooges for the elite.
I can grant that the electoral college, gerrymandering, voter suppression are all BS: they introduce distortions in democracy for no apparent reason, other than that some people benefit from them who perhaps would lose otherwise. If you’re going to have democracy, you should do democracy right.
However, I believe that the operating principle and belief that our problems would go away, were real democracy to be installed, is not true, and in fact the fetishization of democracy for its own sake is disingenuous because it is conditional on the assumption that democracy would lead to the kinds of values you favor for society. It is a kind of motte-and-bailey argument where if democracy doesn’t work because people voted for the wrong thing, then those people don’t really count because they were deluded by anti-democratic forces.
Democracy is also nothing more than a process. It is devoid of content as to what kind of society we should strive for through that process. As a result, you can see that in the democratic uprisings of Arab Spring, where the democratic forces were victorious and they gained power, they had no idea what do with it and for example in Egypt the Muslim Brotherhood took over.
However true it might be that Trump lost the popular vote and therefore wouldn’t have won were we to have true democracy, you can also look at this the other way: this person who has no competency for governance whatsoever and uses the office in an anti-democratic way to enrich himself and his cronies, came within 3 million votes (a couple percentage points) of winning the popular vote? And suppose there were no electoral college and Hillary won instead by 3 million votes. This person who stood for nothing except the status quo, felt personally entitled to the office (“It’s her turn”), and sneered at the dumb masses in private meetings with banks and large corporations (as revealed by Wikileaks), this is the person who would have fixed all the problems with our system?
It should go without saying that democracy is ultimately kind of pointless unless the thing we are voting for represents a meaningful positive change. We are trapped in “lesser of two evil” logic, and however valid that may be to keep the guy we consider worse out of office, it is not a long term solution to the system that presented us with this false choice in the first place.
Instead of the People versus the Elite, the “People” are divided down the middle fighting each other, and so is the “Elite” for that matter. Maybe instead of each side claiming to be the “True” representatives of the People’s Will, we should be talking about designing a system that doesn’t lead to the situation of complete dysfunction.
And I don’t think the idea of democracy can totally escape the blame for dysfunction. Have elites been gaming the system at the expense of the masses since the beginning? Absolutely. However, in most cases, these politicians in bed with the elite didn’t appear there by magic. They were elected, and people voted for them. In an important sense, “we get the government we deserve.” America’s dysfunction is just as much a reflection of the American people’s dysfunction, who have retreated into separate ideological enclaves hurling hatred and invective at each other. The good citizens of democracy do not spend their time coming up with practical systemic solutions, but instead fantasizing that if the other half of America were to just “disappear” then our problems would disappear as well.
I don’t entirely blame them. We Americans are busy and stressed out working all day at jobs that don’t pay us enough to ensure a decent living for our families. We’re bombarded with media propaganda often funded by elites trying to get us to hate each other even more. We’re addicted to social media that is specifically designed to hijack our brains’ reward systems. But it is also true that we have plenty of time — even more now with quarantine — which we could be using to collectively solve our problems. We aren’t doing that. Instead, some of us are totally detaching from reality (Q-Anon) and others are toppling statues of Abe Lincoln in a purely symbolic and ultimately counterproductive gesture of rebellion. The rest of us just want the insanity to stop.
But I believe it is time to put the myth of the Responsible Informed Citizen to rest. This figure was supposed to keep all the potential problems with democracy at bay through reasoned debate and education on the issues. They don’t exist. Even those who think they fit this category are most likely on the peak of the Dunning-Kruger curve, have gained just enough knowledge to think they know better than everybody, when they really don’t.
This is what I propose: A tripartite government, consisting of three branches: one will be composed of academic experts in all fields from astronomy to environmental science to philosophy to history. They will consolidate their collectively vast knowledge to craft policy recommendations which are exponentially superior to the legislation that currently makes it through both houses of Congress, which by the time it passes is loaded with so much pork barrel and irrelevant riders that it basically accomplishes nothing. If it even passes at all and is not just shot down by opposing partisans.
A second branch will consist of bureaucrats and technocrats, who — being independent of whichever party happens to be in power — can utilize their time to expertly figure out how to implement policies in the most efficient and practical ways, instead of being appointed purely out of loyalty to an elected politician despite having no qualifications.
Only the third branch will be democratic. It will be designed to adhere as closely to the ideals of democracy as possible, utilizing mathematical algorithms to determine optimal districting which is unbiased. It will have veto power over the policies proposed by the academic branch, and audit power over the technocratic branch to ensure they are doing their job properly and working towards the benefit of all. They are also able to propose their own policies, and submit items up for direct vote for the American people, such as legalization of marijuana or universal health care. Proportional representation will ensure that small parties can gain a foothold and represent minorities who are currently unrepresented in our majority-take-all system.
Of course there will still be the Judicial and Executive branches as well. So maybe more like 5 total branches — is “Quinpartite” a word? The Judicial should not be appointed by the executive, but will have more internal power to select the most neutral and objective judges. The Execute branch will not waste all of our time with national elections that suck up our attention constantly in what has become a reality TV game show with dire consequences, but instead will be randomly chosen by lottery from among democratically elected local mayors and governors, ensuring a qualified pool of candidates with leadership in a governmental capacity, and fairly giving all geographic areas a chance to be represented and not overpowered by vast metropolises or large swaths of rural sparsely populated areas.
In order to save our democracy, we must limit it. Understand our own limitations as people with jobs to do and lives to live which leaves us no time or inclination to become experts on political philosophy and governmental science. The ideal government is one that operates in the background that we don’t have to think about. You wouldn’t let a whole crowd of people into an operating room and give them scalpels, expecting them to save the patient, would you? Why do you expect that giving everyone a ballot is going to save America, which is currently on the table and bleeding from several metaphorical gunshot wounds?
I don’t mean this at all as a discouragement for anyone to vote. I actively encourage it and hope everyone does. In the short term the outcome of the upcoming election means a great deal and has serious consequences.
All I’m saying is that in the long term it really solves nothing, and we need to get serious about deep structural reform of our system. Maybe if my particular ideal of government doesn’t suit you, fine, but this is the kind of thing we need to be discussing. Not the latest Trump Tweet from 3am which he composed on his toilet, or the craziest new gender identity where someone identifies as all 372 genders simultaneously.
If we do not figure out how to bring about this radical structural change in a rational and measured way, then I guarantee you that far right and far left forces will keep growing stronger and destabilizing our society, because they DO have answers for what changes are needed. If you don’t like those answers, then it is incumbent on you to not merely react to the tantalizing drama in the news day to day, but to do nothing less than devise and entirely new form of government and organize enough people to make it a reality. You know, democratically.
