Democracy and Tyranny? Which is Which: Representative Democracy or Dictatorship? Civil liberties or mob rule?
By definition, a Dictatorship is absolute rule by a specific individual or clearly identified group. In a modern State, a Leader requires a whole army of civil servants, police spies and informants, thugs, sycophants as well as an Armed Force. It is often assumed that, generally speaking, the People acquiesce to this. What is more realistic is that most, say 80-90% of a population will generally support, if only mostly passively, a system as long as it does not directly interfere with their well-being as individuals. The system is ultimately able to perpetuate itself so long as its active supporters outnumber, in actuality or in terms of abilities, its dissenters.
Take an example of Representative Democracy. One nation has elections, which are contested by three main parties. They each receive 40, 35 and 25 % of the votes cast so the party that received 40% takes power. But 60% of those willing to vote are now, presumably, against the government, but possibly not the system. Over 25% of those eligible to vote do not, presumably they are against both the government and the system but there is no empirical way to tell. In a Representative Democracy, voting is only a passive expression of “People Power”.
In the example of the Dictatorship, the passivity of the majority keeps the government in power, so long as its active supporters outnumber dissenters. In the example of the Democracy, a majority “acting” against the (future) government cannot always remove its possibility. Without more information, the “Dictatorship” is a sort of Mob Rule, with the “Democracy” having the very possibility of being a Tyranny by a significant minority.
"Power is not given it is created and sustained through action"-
Hannah Arendt
In theory, then, all that separates a Dictatorship from a Democracy, in terms of actually representing the will of the populace, is that the Democracy will be more likely to respect Human Rights. Realistically, the State in any case will do whatever it can get away with, especially if it can count on disadvantaged members of society, who are unlikely to care about abstractions such as human rights or the environment when they have more immediate issues to deal with (like everyday survival), for support.
In this case, Democracy can only be realised if it has the support of the Poor, as there is no real guarantee in any case that whoever wins an election will have the best interests of the poorest at heart.
Tyranny by whom? According to Alasdair ManIntyre, politics is “Civil War by other means.” Similarly, for Michael Bakunin, Britain is not a proper State, but is more like a “federation of moneyed interests”. Looked at in this cynical way, the stability of a nation depends on its ruling classes or the richest members of society having common interest: “It doesn’t matter who you vote for, the government always wins.”
In this fashion, Democracy is, as Aristotle defined it, Rule (or Tyranny) by the Poor, as opposed to Oligarchy (Rule by the Rich: “If voting changed anything, they’d abolish it!”)
By definition then, Democracy is rule by the Poor, but would not necessarily be a Free Society. Similarly a Free Society would provide free emergency health care, equal access to credit in a Market economy and free help for the insane and mentally ill/ disturbed, but to be a Democracy there would have to be no privileged groups or castes, in other word Rule By the Poor*.
*Not quite the same as “Dictatorship of the Proletariat”, as specified in “Libertarian Marxism?”
By definition, a Dictatorship is absolute rule by a specific individual or clearly identified group. In a modern State, a Leader requires a whole army of civil servants, police spies and informants, thugs, sycophants as well as an Armed Force. It is often assumed that, generally speaking, the People acquiesce to this. What is more realistic is that most, say 80-90% of a population will generally support, if only mostly passively, a system as long as it does not directly interfere with their well-being as individuals. The system is ultimately able to perpetuate itself so long as its active supporters outnumber, in actuality or in terms of abilities, its dissenters.
Take an example of Representative Democracy. One nation has elections, which are contested by three main parties. They each receive 40, 35 and 25 % of the votes cast so the party that received 40% takes power. But 60% of those willing to vote are now, presumably, against the government, but possibly not the system. Over 25% of those eligible to vote do not, presumably they are against both the government and the system but there is no empirical way to tell. In a Representative Democracy, voting is only a passive expression of “People Power”.
In the example of the Dictatorship, the passivity of the majority keeps the government in power, so long as its active supporters outnumber dissenters. In the example of the Democracy, a majority “acting” against the (future) government cannot always remove its possibility. Without more information, the “Dictatorship” is a sort of Mob Rule, with the “Democracy” having the very possibility of being a Tyranny by a significant minority.
"Power is not given it is created and sustained through action"-
Hannah Arendt
In theory, then, all that separates a Dictatorship from a Democracy, in terms of actually representing the will of the populace, is that the Democracy will be more likely to respect Human Rights. Realistically, the State in any case will do whatever it can get away with, especially if it can count on disadvantaged members of society, who are unlikely to care about abstractions such as human rights or the environment when they have more immediate issues to deal with (like everyday survival), for support.
In this case, Democracy can only be realised if it has the support of the Poor, as there is no real guarantee in any case that whoever wins an election will have the best interests of the poorest at heart.
Tyranny by whom? According to Alasdair ManIntyre, politics is “Civil War by other means.” Similarly, for Michael Bakunin, Britain is not a proper State, but is more like a “federation of moneyed interests”. Looked at in this cynical way, the stability of a nation depends on its ruling classes or the richest members of society having common interest: “It doesn’t matter who you vote for, the government always wins.”
In this fashion, Democracy is, as Aristotle defined it, Rule (or Tyranny) by the Poor, as opposed to Oligarchy (Rule by the Rich: “If voting changed anything, they’d abolish it!”)
By definition then, Democracy is rule by the Poor, but would not necessarily be a Free Society. Similarly a Free Society would provide free emergency health care, equal access to credit in a Market economy and free help for the insane and mentally ill/ disturbed, but to be a Democracy there would have to be no privileged groups or castes, in other word Rule By the Poor*.
*Not quite the same as “Dictatorship of the Proletariat”, as specified in “Libertarian Marxism?”
posted by Legal Smeagol at 1:10 PM
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