Criticism of democracy

 

As Robert Dahl writes, "Although the practices of modern democracy bear only a weak resemblance to the political institutions of classical Greece...Greek democratic ideas have been more influential...[and] what we know of their ideas comes less from the writings and speeches of democratic advocates, of which only fragments survive, than from their critics".^[6]

Aristotle was a mild critic who "disliked the power that he thought the expansion of democracy necessarily gave to the poor."^[6] Plato's political philosophy was skeptical of democracy and advocated for "government by the best qualified".^[6] Modern liberal democracy incorporated some of these critiques.^[7] For example, James Madison "trained rigorously in...ancient learning" as a young man, and the ideas of ancient authors explain a "facet of Madison's recorded attitude on the nature of man".^[8] The influence of the ancient critiques of democracy is seen in how Madison spent the months before the Constitutional Convention "studying many centuries of political philosophy and histories of past attempts at republican forms of government".^[9]

According to Dahl, Aristotle and Plato would agree with most advocates of modern democracy that an aim of the society is "to produce good citizens" and "Virtue, justice, and happiness are companions...[in] developing citizens who seek the common good".^[6]

Thucydides, the famous ancient Greek historian of the Peloponnesian War, witnessed the fall of Athenian democracy and applied scientific history in his critique of the democratic government.^[10] At the heart of his critique were how democracy failed "in the search for truth" and how leaders and citizens attempted "to impose their own speech-dependent meanings on reality".^[10] Thucydides blamed "public orators" and demagogues for a failure of epistemic knowledge, allowing most Athenians to "believe silly things about their past and the institutions of their opponents".^[10]

Confucius greatly influenced East Asian societies over time, and political leaders, such as Lee Kuan Yew, in Singapore and China today often say Confucianism provides a more "coherent ideological basis for a well-ordered Asian society than Western notions of individual liberty".^[11]

From 500 to 1500 AD, philosophers and political leaders around the world often advocated for traditional systems of governing society, which were critical of democracy.^{[citation needed]}

Italian philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas advocated for "a mixed government combining elements of democracy, aristocracy and kingship...[which] is reminiscent of Aristotle's preference for mixed government over either democracy or oligarchy."^[12] Scholars also consider "the substantial medieval literature in support of the Inquisitions" as opposed to modern ideas of democracy.^[13]

Democracy existed in a few "city-states of medieval Italy...[which] were ultimately submerged in imperial or oligarchic rule."^[6] The idea of "representation was not invented by democrats but developed instead as a medieval institution of monarchical and aristocratic government," and had its beginnings in "assemblies summoned by the monarch, or sometimes the nobles themselves, to deal with important matters of state."^[6] The "state of military technology and organization" in medieval Europe was "highly unfavorable in its effects" on democracy.^[6]

Medieval Jewish political philosophy was influenced by Plato, Muslim thought, and Halakhic concepts and was "monarchist, and inherently anti-democratic."^[14]

As Amartya Sen wrote about traditional Asian societies, "It is not hard, of course, to find authoritarian writings within the Asian traditions. But neither is it hard to find them in Western classics: One has only to reflect on the writings of Plato or Aquinas to see that devotion to discipline is not a special Asian taste."^[13]

Since the post-classical period, Islam has been an important pillar of society for much of the world, and some critics have defended this tradition from "the secular assumptions of the Enlightenment" and an "uncritical universalism," which "erodes historical continuity and the sense of community that sustains traditional societies."^[15] In many societies today, people of faith challenge the idea of "secularism as the only 'rational' way to deal with the challenges of life."^[15]

Thomas Hobbes, one of the first philosophers of the Enlightenment, published Leviathan in 1651 in defense of "absolute sovereignty" and supporting the royalists in the English Civil War.^[16] Hobbes was a critic of democracy because "the sovereign in a democracy (i.e. the people) can only exercise its power when it is actually assembled together...Only in a monarchy is the capacity to govern always exercised."^[17] Hobbes also thought democracy would lead to instability, conflict, glory seeking, mistrust, and undermining the social contract.^[17] Later Enlightenment thinkers, such as Madison who shared Hobbesian concerns about "the strongest passions and most dangerous weaknesses" of human nature, would use some of these critiques to improve modern democracy.^[18][8]

Romantic critics of democracy include Thomas Carlyle, John Ruskin, Matthew Arnold, James Fitzjames Stephen, Henry Maine, and William Lecky. In his study, Benjamin Evans Lippincott wrote that "they opposed democracy fundamentally for the same reason as Plato—that democracy led to disorder." Their unique historical contribution was to critique democracy under capitalism in modern industrial society. They believed that democracy produced anarchy in society, not simply anarchy within the individual as Plato believed.^[19]

Lippincott proposed that their three leading doctrines were "the common man's inferiority, the title of the few to rule, and authority". The main sources of these ideas were Puritanism, middle-class ideas of power, and the classical education that they received in their youth. The three doctrines were "most perfectly represented in Plato's Republic," while classical history seemed to provide examples of "the common man's inferiority" as in the cases of Athens and Rome, "which showed the populace turning to disorder". The three doctrines were developed during the Reformation and the Enlightenment by writers like John Calvin, Edmund Burke and David Hume.^[20]

These arguments support more political egalitarianism by improving representative democracy or relying more on mechanisms like citizens' assemblies to delegate power more directly and unfiltered through the election process.

Robert A. Dahl defines democracies as systems of government that respond nearly fully to every one of their citizens. He then poses that no such, fully responsive system exists today.^[3] However, this does not mean that partially democratic regimes do not exist—they do. Thus, Dahl rejects a democracy dichotomy in favor of a democratization spectrum. To Dahl, the question is not whether a country is a democracy or not. The question is to what extent a country is experiencing democratization at a national level. Dahl measures this democratization in terms of the country's endorsement and reception of public contestation. Polyarchy, or "rule of the many people," is the only existing form of democratized government; that is, it is within polyarchies that democratization can flourish. Countries do not immediately transform from hegemonies and competitive oligarchies into democracies. Instead, a country that adopts democracy as its form of government can only claim to have switched to polyarchy, which is conducive to, but does not guarantee democratization. Dahl's polyarchy spectrum ends at the point in which a country becomes a full polyarchy at the national level and begins to democratize at the subnational level, among its social and private affairs. Dahl is not deeply concerned about the limits of his polyarchy spectrum because he believes that most countries today still have a long way before they reach full polyarchy status.^[21] For Dahl, whatever lies beyond full polyarchy is only possible, and thus only a concern, for advanced countries like those of Western Europe.^{[citation needed]}

According to Boaventura de Sousa Santos, "democracy is being so emptied of content that it can be instrumentally defended by those who use it in order to destroy it," saying that individuals calling for increased democratization and protection from fascism are labeled as leftists.^[22] De Sousa Santos says that while the Western world displays its support for democracy, its approval of governments being overthrown is a double standard.^[22]

Voter turnout being lower than desired in some democracies has been attributed to several causes, with examples including reduced trust in democratic processes, lack of compulsory voting, political efficacy, include wasted votes,^[23] gridlock and high barriers to entry for new political movements.^[24]

Various reasons can be found for eliminating or suppressing political opponents. Methods such as false flags, counterterrorism-laws,^[25] planting or creating compromising material and perpetuation of public fear may be used to suppress dissent. After a failed coup d'état over 110,000 people have been purged and nearly 40,000 have been imprisoned in Turkey, which is or was considered to be a democratic nation, during the 2016 Turkish purges.^[26][27] Fake parties, phantom political rivals, and "scarecrow" opponents may be used to undermine the opposition.^[28]

Bernard Manin believes that both representative and direct democracy promote "rule of the people," but that elections lead to the "rule of the aristocratic". Manin explains that in direct democracies, virtually every citizen has the chance to be selected (sometimes at random) to populate the government but in modern republics, only elites have the chance of being elected.

Manin draws from James Harrington, Montesquieu, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau to suggest that the dominant form of government, representative as opposed to direct, is effectively aristocratic.^[4] He says that modern representative governments exercise political power through aristocratic elections which, in turn, contradicts "rule of the people". As far as Montesquieu is concerned, elections favor the "best" citizens who Manin notes tend to be wealthy and upper-class. As far as Rousseau is concerned, elections favor the incumbent government officials or the citizens with the strongest personalities, which results in hereditary aristocracy. Manin further evinces the aristocratic nature of representative governments by contrasting them with the ancient style of selection by lot. Manin notes that Montesquieu believed that lotteries prevent jealousy and distribute offices equally (among citizens from different ranks), while Rousseau believed that lotteries choose indifferently, preventing self-interest and partiality from polluting the citizen's choice (and thus prevent hereditary aristocracy).

However, Manin also provides criticism of the Athenians' experiment with direct democracy, or selection by lot.^[4] Manin reflects on Montesquieu's interrogation of the extent to which Athenian direct democracy was truly direct. Montesquieu finds that citizens who had reason to believe they would be accused as "unworthy of selection" commonly withheld their names from the lottery, thereby making selection by lot vulnerable to self-selection bias and, thus, aristocratic. Manin does not dwell on direct democracy's potentially aristocratic elements, perhaps because he shares Montesquieu's belief that nothing is alarming about the exclusion of citizens who may be incompetent; this exclusion may be inevitable in any method of selection.

Additionally, Manin is interested in explaining the discrepancy between 18th-century American and French revolutionaries' declaration of the "equality of all citizens" and their enactment of (aristocratic) elections in their respective democratic experiments.^[4] Manin suggests that the discrepancy is explained by the revolutionaries' contemporary preoccupation with one form of equality over another. The revolutionaries prioritized gaining the equal right to consent to their choice of government (even a potentially aristocratic democracy), at the expense of seeking the equal right to be the face of that democracy. And it is elections, not lots, that provide citizens with more opportunities to consent. In elections, citizens consent both to the procedure of elections and the product of the elections (even if they produce the election of elites). In lotteries, citizens consent only to the procedure of lots, but not to the product of the lots (even if they produce the election of the average person). That is, if the revolutionaries prioritized consent to be governed over equal opportunity to serve as the government, then their choice of elections over lotteries makes sense.

A major scholarly attack based on democracy was made by German-Italian political scientist Robert Michels who developed the mainstream political science theory of the iron law of oligarchy in 1911.^[29] Michels argued that oligarchy is inevitable as an "iron law" within any organization as part of the "tactical and technical necessities" of organization and on the topic of democracy, Michels stated: "It is organization which gives birth to the dominion of the elected over the electors, of the mandataries over the mandators, of the delegates over the delegators. Who says organization, says oligarchy" and went on to state "Historical evolution mocks all the prophylactic measures that have been adopted for the prevention of oligarchy".^[29] Michels stated that the official goal of democracy of eliminating elite rule was impossible, that democracy is a façade legitimizing the rule of a particular elite, and that elite rule, which he refers to as oligarchy, is inevitable.^[29] Michels had formerly been a Marxist but became drawn to the syndicalism of Sorel, Eduoard Berth, Arturo Labriola, and Enrico Leone and had become strongly opposed parliamentarian, legalistic, and bureaucratic socialism of social democracy and in contrast supported an activist, voluntarist, anti-parliamentarian socialism.^[30] Michels would later become a supporter of fascism upon Mussolini's rise to power in 1922, viewing fascism's goal to destroy liberal democracy sympathetically.^[30]

French revolutionary syndicalist Hubert Lagardelle claimed that French revolutionary syndicalism came to being as the result of "the reaction of the proletariat against idiotic democracy," which he claimed was "the popular form of bourgeois dominance". Lagardelle opposed democracy for its universalism, and believed in the necessity of class separation of the proletariat from the bourgeoisie, as democracy did not recognize the social differences between them.

David Van Reybrouck, the author of Against Elections: The Case for Democracy, argues that allocating power through sortition, such as in citizens' assemblies, fixes many of the shortcomings of representative democracy. "Democracy is not government by the best in our society, because such a thing is called an aristocracy, elected or not...Democracy, by contrast, flourishes precisely by allowing a diversity of voices to be heard. It's all about having an equal say, an equal right to determine what political action is taken."^[31]

The 20th-century Italian thinkers Vilfredo Pareto and Gaetano Mosca (independently) argued that democracy was illusory, and served only to mask the reality of elite rule. Indeed, they argued that elite oligarchy is the unbendable law of human nature, due largely to the apathy and division of the masses (as opposed to the drive, initiative and unity of the elites), and that democratic institutions would do no more than shift the exercise of power from oppression to manipulation.^[32]

A 2014 study led by Princeton professor Martin Gilens of 1,779 U.S. government decisions concluded that "elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence."^[33]

The inability of governments around the world to successfully deal with corruption is causing a global crisis of democracy.^[34] Whilst countries that have high levels of democracy tend to have low levels of different forms of corruption, it is also clear that countries with moderate levels of democracy have high corruption, as well as countries with no democracy having very little corruption.^[35] Varying types of democratic policies reduce corruption, but only high levels of, and multiple kinds of democratic institutions, such as open and free elections combined with judicial and legislative constraints, will effectively reduce corruption. One important internal element of democracy is the electoral process which can be considered easily corruptible. For example, it is not inevitable in a democracy that elections will be free and fair. The giving and receiving of bribes, the threat or use of violence, treatment, and impersonation are common ways that the electoral process can be corrupted,^[36] meaning that democracy is not impenetrable from external problems and can be criticized for allowing it to take place. Kleptocracy and money laundering has the potential to erode democracy,^[37] including at global scale.^[38]

Political representatives might tend to vote against their constituency and for special interest groups with increasing lobbying money.^[39] Some aspects of lobbying have been criticized by some for contributing to a democratic deficit.^[40]

Democracy tends to improve conflict resolution.^[41] Spatially concentrated costs and diffuse benefits together with regulatory transaction costs can result in ineffective conflict resolution such as NIMBY.^[42]

The Coase theorem states that non-zero transaction costs will generally lead to inefficient conflict resolution. Daron Acemoglu argues that the Coase theorem extends to politics, where the "rules of the game" in politics need to be enforced to achieve low transaction costs. Groups with political power can prefer inefficient policies and inefficient institutions and oppose further democratization.^[43] Anthony Downs argued that the political markets works much the same way as the economic market and that there could potentially be an equilibrium in the system because of the democratic process.^[44] However, he argued that imperfect knowledge in politicians and voters prevented the full realization of that equilibrium.^[44]

Poor income inequality and socioeconomic mobility can lead to social unrest and revolutions.^[45] The extension of the democratic franchise can be seen as a commitment by the political elite in favor of economic redistribution and political redistribution to prevent social unrest, explaining the Kuznets curve.^[46] In what situations democracy reduces economic inequality is debated.^[47]

Unlike in a consensus democracy or majoritarian democracies that embrace political egalitarianism, democratic theorists worried about conditions where a majority could become tyrannical. Plato and James Madison, for example, were concerned about tyranny of the majority.^[48][49] Professors Richard Ellis of Willamette University and Michael Nelson of Rhodes College argue that much constitutional thought, from Madison to Lincoln and beyond, has focused on "the problem of majority tyranny". They conclude, "The principles of republican government embedded in the Constitution represent an effort by the framers to ensure that the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness would not be trampled by majorities".^[50] Thomas Jefferson warned that "an elective despotism is not the government we fought for".^[51] A constitution^[52] would limit the powers of what a simple majority can accomplish.^[53] Liberal democracy safeguards against the tyranny of majority through rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, right to private property and equality before the law.^[54][55]

Majoritarian democracy has been criticized ^{[by whom?]} for not offering enough political stability.^{[citation needed]} As governments are frequently elected on and off there tends to be frequent changes in the policies of democratic countries both domestically and internationally.^{[citation needed]} Reason Wafawarova argued in 2008 that rigid approaches to democracy may undermine that ability for a developing country to achieve long-term stability and democracy.^{[56][needs update]}

In his criticism of Western liberal democracy, academic Zhang Weiwei contends that liberal democracy is insufficiently meritocratic and fails to choose trustworthy leaders.^[57]: 211

By the median voter theorem, only a few people hold the balance of power in a two-party system, and many may be unhappy with their decisions. In this way, they argue, Two-party democracies are inefficient.^[58] Such a system could result in a wealth disparity or racial discrimination.

Arrow's impossibility theorem suggests that winner-take-all elections (unlike multi-winner voting such as proportional representation) can be logically incoherent. This is based on a certain set of criteria for democratic decision-making being inherently conflicting, i.e., these three "fairness" criteria:

1) If every voter prefers alternative X over alternative Y, then the group prefers X over Y.

2) If every voter's preference between X and Y remains unchanged, then the group's preference between X and Y will also remain unchanged (even if voters' preferences between other pairs like X and Z, Y and Z, or Z and W change).

3) There is no "dictator": no single voter possesses the power to always determine the group's preference.

Kenneth Arrow summarised the implications of the theorem in a non-mathematical form, stating that "no voting method is fair," "every ranked voting method is flawed," and "the only voting method that isn't flawed is a dictatorship".^{[59][needs context][verification needed]} However, Arrow's formal premises can be considered overly strict, and with their reasonable weakening, the logical incoherence of democracy looks much less critical.^[60]

This situation was metaphorically characterized by Charles Plott:

The subject began with what seemed to be a minor problem with majority rule. "It is just a mathematical curiosity," said some...But intrigued and curious about this little hole, researchers, not deterred by the possibly irrelevant, began digging in the ground nearby...What they now appear to have been uncovering is a gigantic cavern into which fall almost all of our ideas about social actions. Almost anything we say and/or anyone has ever said about what society wants or should get is threatened with internal inconsistency. It is as though people have been talking for years about a thing that cannot, "in principle," exist, and a major effort now is needed to see what objectively remains from the conversations.

— Charles Plott (1976) Axiomatic social choice theory, p. 511^[61]

To safeguard democracy from state of emergencies sunset provisions with an extension review process are discussed.^[62] Sunset provisions are discussed to increase long-term electoral accountability of laws.^[63]

The Chinese Communist Party political concept of whole-process people's democracy criticizes liberal democracy for excessively relying on procedural formalities or rule of law without, in the party's view, genuinely reflecting the interests of the people.^{[64]: 60–64} According to Wang Zhongyuan of Fudan University, this critique arises as part of a post-1990s trend in which various countries have sought to redefine "democracy" in ways that differ from Western multi-party democratic systems.^[64]: 61 Under the framing of whole-process people's democracy, the most important criteria for democracy is whether it can "solve the people's real problems," while a system in which "the people are awakened only for voting" is deemed not truly democratic.^{[64]: 60–64} The concept is thus both a way of criticizing liberal democracy and deflecting criticism of the Chinese system.^[64]: 64

Short-term incentives on elected politicians can lead to short-term benefits,^[65] while ignoring long-term risks such as debt crisis, pensions crisis, climate risk or financial crisis.^[66] Some election systems have been shown to reward financial prudence^[67] and debt brakes.^[68] Different voting systems lead to different levels of short-termism in politics.^[69]

Chinese policymakers argue that policy under democratic systems is largely restricted to ad hoc interventions which leaves social development vulnerable to market forces.^[70]: 144 According to this view, policy-making in democratic systems is limited to ad hoc policy interventions.^{[70]: 144–145} Chinese planners argue that such interventions are incapable of coping with fundamental challenges such as environmental degradation, dysfunction in capital markets, and demographic change.^[70]: 145

James M. Buchanan and Richard E. Wagner argue that the nontransparent nature of tax system causes a fiscal illusion which results in greater government spending than democratically expected.^[71]

Malleability of public opinion is cited by Schumpeter as a reason to prefer technocracy to democracy, while others concerned about the sway of the public argue for limiting the ability of money to play a role in democracy.^[72][73] Critics^[who?] claim that mass media actually shapes public opinion, and can therefore be used to "control" democracy.

Dan Slater and Lucan Ahmad Way criticized the FBI for announcing that the agency would examine potentially incriminating evidence against Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server just 11 days before the election.^[74] The argue that misinformation − such as fake news − has become central to elections around the world.^[74]

Social bots and other forms of online propaganda as well as search engine result algorithms may be used to alter the perception and opinion of voters.^[75][76] In 2016 Andrés Sepúlveda disclosed that he manipulated public opinion to rig elections in Latin America. According to him, with a budget of $600,000, he led a team of hackers that stole campaign strategies, manipulated social media to create false waves of enthusiasm and derision, and installed spyware in opposition offices to help Enrique Peña Nieto, a right-of-center candidate, win the election.^[77][78] Televised debates^[79] and, according to George Bishop, inaccurate opinion polls^[80] may also be able to shift election outcomes.^{[improper synthesis?]}

Investigative journalism can perform a checks and balances and truth finding role in a democracy, also described as part of the Fourth Estate.^[81] Funding,^[82] journalistic objectivity, credibility^[83] and journalistic autonomy^[84] can affect the effectivity of investigative journalism.

While surveillance in democracies has been justified with arguments on enforcing rule of law, mass surveillance itself can pose a risk to democracy in the form of surveillance state,^[85] police state,^[86] or surveillance capitalism.^[87] Existing democratic oversight of surveillance has been criticized of regulatory capture, limited independence typically from the executive, and limited checks and balances.^[85] Proposed improvements include an independent body accountable only to the legislative branch.^[85]

These critiques largely see people as incapable of self-rule, preferring the empowerment of religious or secular elites.

Theocracies view deities as supreme ruling authorities, not the people.^[88] Theodemocracy combines authority by both deity and the people.^[89]

The practice of orthodox Islam in the form of Salafism can clash with a democratic system. The core precept of Islam, that of "tawheed" (the "oneness of God"), can be interpreted by fundamentalists to mean, among other things, that democracy as a political system is incompatible with the purported notion that laws not handed down by God should not be recognized.^[90]

Plato believed the ability of common men to vote was not proper for a democracy. The vote of an expert has equal value to the vote of 'an incompetent'.^[91] Jason Brennan believes that the low information voters is a major problem in America and is the main objection to democracies in general because the system does not incentivize being informed.^[92] Brennan cites a study where less than 30% of Americans can name two or more of the rights listed in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights.^[92] He believes an informed voter should have extensive knowledge of the candidate's current and previous political beliefs/tendencies. He proposes an epistocracy, which would only give a vote to those with an elite political understanding.^[92]

Charles Maurras, a supporter of the Vichy regime and member of the far-right FRS of the Action Française movement believed in biological inequality and natural hierarchies, and claimed that the individual is naturally subordinated to social collectivities such as the family, the society, and the state, which he claims are doomed to fail if based upon the "myth of equality" or "abstract liberty". Maurras criticized democracy as being a "government by numbers" in which quantity matters more over quality and prefers the worst over the best. Maurras denounced the principles of liberalism as described in The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and in Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen as based upon the false assumption of liberty and the false assumption of equality. He claimed that the parliamentary system subordinates the national interest, or common good, to private interests of a parliament's representatives where only short-sighted interests of individuals prevail.^{[citation needed]} Attempts to replace Democratic meritocracy with Authoritarian meritocracy face challenges since power can override merit.^[93]

A hereditary monarchy has been argued to be a more effective leadership selection process when communication was costly in pre-modern era. The spread of mass communication is argued to increase the efficiency of democratic forms for resolving the coordination problem of government.^[94]

• Brennan, Jason (2016). Against Democracy: New Preface. Princeton University Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctvc77mcz. ISBN 978-1-4008-8839-9. OCLC 942707357.
• Reybrouck, David Van (2016). Against Elections: The Case for Democracy. Translated by Waters, Liz. London: The Bodley Head. p. 133. ISBN 978-1-84792-422-3.
• Femia, Joseph V. (2001). Against the masses : varieties of anti-democratic thought since the French Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-828063-7. OCLC 46641885.