It is said that the problem with democracy is
that the people will vote themselves ever-larger government benefits and
bankrupt the society. This is, of course, utterly false. Just look at what is
going on in the United States today: Wall Street is being given trillions of
dollars in subsidies while little people get zero percent interest on their
savings, and pensions and social security are set to be ravaged to help pay for
this largesse to the plutocrats. A mandatory private health system was enacted
that will radically increase the profits of for-profit insurance companies
while the average person faces costs so high that they cannot actually afford
to use their insurance. Trillions of dollars are spent in wars whose only
obvious point is to enrich politically connected defense contractors, while
roads and bridges in this country are allowed to fall apart. The borders are
being thrown open to massive third-world immigration so that wages for the many
can be driven down and profits for the few driven up. None of these things are happening because
the people themselves want them.
No, the problem with democracy is that it is so
easy for the rich to bribe elected representatives, and use the government to
steal from the people. People vote for a candidate who says one thing, and
after being elected, they do what they have secretly promised their wealthy
patrons.
What do I think of direct ‘mob rule’ democracy? I
think that it might be a good thing (Switzerland anyone?). Or at least, not as
bad as rule by kleptocracy masquerading as democracy. (Curiously the elites tend to think of direct
democracy as fascist, and rule by unelected bureaucrats as the only real
democracy. But I digress).
So why do we have a representational democracy? I
think the problem is information. In a large and complex society, it is
impossible for any single private citizen to be up on all the details of all
the issues facing the society (especially if they have a day job. And we like
day jobs). So they have to delegate political power to elected representatives,
and therein begins the rot, because these single individuals can be so easily
bribed… Same with the press: no single human being can evaluate all the
information directly, they must have journalists to research and condense the
issues for them: and these journalists can be, and increasingly are, bought and
paid for.
All politicians will lie, to a greater or lesser
degree. However, if there is a robust
and independent free press, this puts a damper on it. If a politician promises A during the
campaign, then after being elected immediately turns around and does B, in the
past such a politician would be subject to derision and shame, would be
considered a laughingstock, and would lose considerable power and
prestige. This would encourage the
others.
Now, however, the organized corporate press
refuses to hold lying politician’s feet to the metaphorical fire – it is just
culturally accepted. Commenting on the
dishonesty of a political candidate is regarded as being rude and
disrespectful. So increasingly they get
away with it.
However, there is one ray of light. Current presidential candidate Marco Rubio
promised during his senate campaign that he was against amnesty for illegal
immigrants. After getting elected, he
became one of the ‘gang of eight’ senators that wrote and pushed for a bill
that would open the doors of the United States to effectively unlimited illegal
and legal immigration, likely turning the nation into a miserably impoverished
third-world hell-hole within one generation or at most two.
Of course the donor class loves Marco Rubio –
cheap labor uber alles! - but Rubio is having serious problems living down his
past treachery with the voters, who, unlike the press, apparently still have
some sense of memory. Good. If Marco Rubio’s career is ultimately
crippled and destroyed because he said one thing and did another, that will
have a salutary effect on politicians for yeas to come. If only we could apply this to Obama and Hillary
Clinton and John McCain etc., we might really have a semblance of a functional democracy
in this country again…
And of course there is the old system of the
false choice. The oligarchs use their
influence to make sure that both major party candidates are in their
thrall. Hillary vs. Rubio, McCain vs.
Obama, Kerry vs. Bush. Heads they win,
tails we lose.
And then the American people are blamed for their
actions! Ridiculous. Say there are two levers. Pull one lever, and we declare war on Syria. Pull the other lever, and we declare war on
Syria. Pull neither lever, and we
declare war on Syria. There are no other
levers (the rich and powerful have seen to that). So we declare war on Syria. Now “we” in general are responsible, and “we”
(meaning everyone other than the rich who rigged the system in the first place)
must sacrifice in order to accommodate all those refugees fleeing the wars that
“we” started.
Economists often speak of “privatizing profits
and socializing costs.” So if I own a
paper mill plant that dumps toxic waste in a river, I get all the profits from
the paper mill, but the cost of the pollution is born by everyone who lives on
the river. Increasingly our faux
democracy is a system for privatizing power and socializing responsibility: the
rich get to make the decisions, but the people themselves have to take the
blame. Because you see it’s a
‘democracy’ and we can’t blame the elites for what has happened, oh heaven
forbid…
And if I had a good solution for this I'd be
king. I would only say that pretty near
any system can be made to work, sort of, if the elites have a sense of honor
and duty to the nation as a whole. And
there is no system that cannot be corrupted if the elites care only for themselves. Technical democracy is not a panacea and
cannot substitute for a sense of honor and mutual patriotism amongst the
citizens of a nation.
