Number 93 : July 1998 |
Theo, I copy herewith a comment on Democracy. I acknowledge that the substance came from an article in the Spectator some time ago by Peter Jones. I have lost the original and only have my notes to go on.
"We do not live in a Democracy. The Athenian Cleisthenes invented democracy in 508 BC. It continued until 322BC and has never been repeated. It meant, literally, "Power of the Citizens".
Citizens were all Athenian males over the age of 18 without respect for position or wealth. They met every 9 days in the Assembly to discuss and decide public policy. The assembly was totally in power. It's decisions were final. If some people like Pericles had influence in the Assembly it was because the citizens liked what they said. Nobody had constitutional power. The Assembly also elected executives, men of more than 30 years of age, to enforce their decisions. They were responsible to the Assembly and carried out the orders of the Assembly. They were nominated for one year, normally by lot, and at the end of their time their actions were examined. If the Assembly did not like their actions they could be punished at least by fines, at worst with death. That was democracy. Our system is not democracy, it is an elective oligarchy because we elect a small number of representatives to govern us for a certain number of years."
Given that this is true, the question of Alan Carr / yourself (C92/26-27)about the rights of a majority overriding the rights of a significant minority has to be examined in light of the status quo.
If we give the power to govern us to a small number of people then it must be that the rights of a majority of those that rule [I’ve just noticed that something seems to be missing from this sentence, Ed]. So then it is much more subjective and becomes a question of the conscience and prejudices of that small number and the influences that powerful people or groups can bring to bear. Hence we have whips and lobbyists and the like all trying to influence a small number of elected representatives. I presume that in a real democracy with a large number of deciders that effect would be sufficiently watered down as to become almost ineffective.
The problem, as I see it, is that not enough people recognise our system of government for what it is and, of course, it is in the politicians' interests to keep it that way. So they will always talk about democracy and the rights of the majority and so on. This is also why they don't like using referenda to decide issues as it is diluting their power. It is also why we have dictators, corrupt governments and presidents with vetoes and so on.
However I can't see how real democracy could work in this day because of sheer volume of numbers. Can you imagine the logistical problems of getting all British males over 18 to assemble in one place at one time and the bear garden that it would turn out to be even if you were successful ? Maybe a form of regionalisation would be a good compromise with local assemblies sending representatives to the general Assembly at certain intervals. Those representatives to be under the same restraints as the Athenians were. The various Ministers could then be elected by all the representatives instead of being appointed by the party bosses. That way they would be responsible more to the nation than to the party policy. I'm not sure whether we should execute them if they did a bad job ....... But, on the other hand.... ;-)
John Neary
John : many good points here. Maybe it’s because we live in an elective oligarchy, rather than a true democracy, that we can allow the "rights" of minorities to be taken into account ? In a true democracy, everyone in the assembly is voting for himself, whereas in an elective oligarchy, voting is on behalf of others, for causes the voter may not privately support but has to publicly support for the political reason of remaining electable.
Theo