Is the word “democracy” the most popular one in the last six years? Most likely yes. The phrase has been so overused that I question whether anyone still knows what it means. After all India( my country) is a Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic. The US? A constitutional republic, North Korea, Socialist democratic people’s republic. Isn’t it worth exploring what these words mean? I think so.
What is the Republic? Where does this idea originate from? What does it mean and what does it represent?
The English word republic comes from the Latin phrase ‘res publica’ means public affair and was simply the phrase used by Romans to describe government. A republic is a form of government in which the country is considered a public matter. The best way to describe what a republic was is to go back to ‘Polybius’, a Greek historian who lived in the 2nd century B.C Rome so he got to see how the roman republic went to acquire an empire. That was the fundamental question he was trying to answer. His answer to the question was because they had this wonderful constitution.
Polybius believed that there were three simple forms of government; Monarchy, Aristocracy, and Democracy. Monarchy is the rule of the king, Aristocracy rule of the wealthy or the property class, and Democracy rule of the people. But none came without their flaws. He believed they all had their evil twins.
That a well-governed Monarchy could turn into a Tyranny down a couple of generations. Now Tyranny causes the wealthy to rise against it and form an Aristocracy but it’s not stable by itself because of the tension that would rise inside it which would give rise to oligarchy which is the rule of the few and that turns into its form of tyranny and people rise against it and form a democracy. But Polybius believed that democracy is the least stable form of government because there’s no way that people by themselves establish the institutions that are necessary to keep everyone in check. So democracy naturally devolves into ochlocracy or mob rule or even anarchy. Then there’s this natural desire to find this one person who would restore order and then you have monarchy all over again and the cycle would continue. So Polybius believed the only way to have stability or a form of government that combined these three elements and if you have these three in perfect balance, then you have stability. This is what he observed from Rome.
Now Democracy is a problematic word. The one we are accustomed to is indirect democracy or representative democracy. Direct democracy is nothing but mob rule and impossible in the current state of nations. Can you imagine 1.3 billion people going to Delhi every day making decisions, making laws, and implementing executive action? Yeah, me neither. Socrates, the Greek philosopher and one of the founders of western philosophy hated democracy stating that voting in an election is a skill, not a random intuition. Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers of the USA, described democracy as two wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for dinner. That’s why we have a representative democracy where we elect people on our behalf to make decisions and this is the point where the ideas of a Republic and a Democracy collide.
- Having an elected Representative
- Principle of Accountability
You see, pure democracy is the rule of the majority and it doesn’t offer any kind of safeguards to minorities. So in a pure democracy, the majority can show the finger and do whatever they want to do. That brings up an interesting question, Are these populist leaders the most democratic? What’s stopping the majority from implementing discriminatory laws? After all, we all live in democracies, don’t we? Well, they can’t because governments are subjected to rule of law and that’s exactly what a republic is. We exercise the features of a republic within the frameworks of representational democracy. But the democracy we all talk about and love to preach about is not this representational democracy, it’s liberal democracy or also known as a western democracy. It’s a form of government in which representative democracy operates under the principles of liberalism. It is characterized by-elections between multiple distinct political parties, a separation of powers into different branches of government, the rule of law in everyday life as part of an open society, a market economy with private property, and the equal protection of human rights, civil rights, civil liberties and political freedoms for all people.
Are democracies self-sustaining? We often hear that if we don’t maintain it, it will perish and we will be left with mob rule that it’s every citizen’s job to maintain a healthy democracy. Before we burden a commoner with these duties of maintaining a healthy society we should ask ourselves are they equipped to do it? After all, in a democracy, the people have the power to select their government, and power entails accountability and duty. Yes, it’s a hefty ask, and if people lack the necessary skills to handle the job, they will fail terribly. To answer this question, we have to take a look at the criticisms of democracy and since we all live under liberal democracies we should also know the father of liberalism, John Locke. Because I believe an understanding of both these subjects is vital in conducting ourselves as citizens of Democratic Republics.
“Democracy is the most difficult of all forms of government since it requires the widest spread of intelligence, and we forgot to make ourselves intelligent when we made ourselves sovereign.”
— Will & Ariel Durant (The Lessons of History)
Considering the criticism, Socrates is portrayed in the dialogues of Plato as very pessimistic about the whole business of democracy. In the book ‘Republic’ Plato describes the conversation between Socrates and a person named Adeimantus. He compared society to a ship. If it were going out a journey in the sea who should choose the person in charge? Just anyone or people who know seafaring ? “the latter,” said Adeimantus. Then why should any person be fit to judge who should be a ruler of a country, said Socrates.
His point is that voting is a skill and like any other skill it needs to be taught systematically to people and letting the citizenry vote without an education is as irresponsible as putting them in charge of the ship.
We have forgotten the distinction between an intellectual democracy and a democracy by birthright. We have given the vote to all without connecting it to wisdom and that would lead to a system of demagoguery, a political system that seeks support by appealing to the desires and prejudices of the masses leaving out rational argument.
Does this mean only the select few should vote? No… that’s elitism, and if we know anything about it that it looks down on common people with nothing but utter contempt. We have preferred to think of democracy as an unambiguous good, rather than as something that is only ever as effective as the education system surrounds it. This lack of education or the lack of trying to get the masses educated undermines democracy itself. Because without knowing the purpose people go back to tribalism something that kept them alive up until this point in history. That’s why we have politicians referring to people as voting blocks or strongholds instead of individuals with rational thought processes. those who take part in a democracy must know what it truly represents and can set aside tribalistic thinking and vote based on merit.
So who is a citizen? The one who’s well educated about the system in which he lives? The one who abides by all laws and in complete subjugation to the government? Is that a model citizen? To evaluate that in a liberal democracy we should take a look at what John Locke, the father of liberalism says in his 1689 book ‘Two Treatises of Government’.
- All men are created equal
- Certain basic rights exist independent of government
- Government exists to protect those rights
Locke starts by saying that all human beings are created equal by God, we are all part of the same species and we are all capable of doing human things. In that sense, we are equal, not in qualities or outcomes but in rights.
He wrote,
“ Creatures of the same species… born to all the same advantages of nature, and the use of the same faculties should also be equal… without subordination or subjection “.
In this way, a king is no way superior to a commoner such that he might violate the commoner’s rights. They are both human beings and each can reason therefore one is equal to the other. We take this for granted for now but in 1690 it was a radical notion.
Locke believed it was man’s natural state to be free therefore freedom pre-exists government. Locke said that people are to be free from any superior power on earth and not to be under the will or legislative authority [of a government]. As rational human beings, we have the liberty to think and act as we wish so long we harm no one else.
For Locke, the purpose of government was to protect the individual’s freedom and to protect property. Land, and material goods one lawfully acquired. The last thing Locke wanted was to give the government the power to take away that liberty or undermine that property rights. If the government couldn’t provide those protections or abused its power it didn’t deserve to exist. The end of law he wrote, “ is not to abolish or restrain [freedom], but to preserve and enlarge freedom.”
So to be a responsible citizen in a democratic republic, we have to understand that we as a people collectively decide what kind of authority the elected government has upon us. That government is not both our master and protector and it shouldn’t be allowed to grant and withdraw privileges as it sees fit and it’s your responsibility to make sure that government never obtains unlimited power because history shows us that absolute power corrupts.
It’s a tiring job, to say the least. To be educated, vigilant, and to be active in a system that may not give you a great return in the short run. But it’s a great political system that grants everyone some kind of power to make changes. It’s expected from everyone of us to maintain this system and it should be maintained unless we come up with a better one but up until that point in time this is the best system we have and to experience the good things that come with it we have to intentionally make an effort…
So what does it mean to be a citizen? I will let you figure it out on your own. But keep in mind that you do not live in a self-perpetuating system. Though it seems like one at times. It never was and it never will be.
