CHAPTER 3
Democracy and Liberalism
Had every Athenian been aSocrates, every Athenian assemblywould have been a mob.
—Federalist, No. 55
“Democracy” is a Greek word combining demos (the people) and krátos (power in a strong, almost brutal sense). The milder form would be arche, which implies leadership rather than rule. Hence “monarchy” is the fatherly rule of one man in the interest of the common good, whereas “monocracy” is a one-man tyranny. Aristotle and the early and late Scholastics divided the forms of government according to the table below.
— Monarchy, the rule of one man in the interest of the common good.
BAD FORMS
‘‘Aristocracy,’’ originally a form of government, came to mean the highest social layer. Similarly, the term ‘‘republic’’ came to mean every (external) form of government that was nonmonarchical and “public.” Rzeczpospolita was a term used for the Polish state prior to 1795 and after 1918, while American and British scholars speak about the Polish Commonwealth when referring to the elective kingdom after 1572. Yet the term republic covers a multitude of forms of government—from the Polish Kingdom prior to 1795, to the highly aristocratic Republic of Venice (the Christianissima Res Publica) the Soviet Republic (USSR), the present (presidential) French Republic, and the (presidentless) Republic of San Marino with its five capitani reggenti. The United States is de facto a republic, although not so designated in the Constitution; only the states of the Union are required to have “a republican form of government” (Article IV.4).
Given these historical semantics, the question today is how to define a democracy (once a pejorative label)? To the question, “Who should rule?” Democracy would answer, “The majority of politically equal citizens, either in person or through representatives” (direct or indirect democracy). This formulation raises a number of subsidiary interpretations.
One school insists that only direct democracy is real democracy, that elected delegates constitute an oligarchy with a time limit. This interpreta tion of democracy, the “oligarchic school,” comes principally from Vilfredo Pareto, Gaetano Mosca, and Roberto Michels (an Italianized former German Socialist). All three might conceivably be called fascist sympathizers, but it was probably the intellectual and realistic climate of Italy, so hostile to all forms of illusion, that influenced their critical thinking.
Another school maintains that the election of representatives, bound in conscience to voice the views of their electors, is a democratic performance, while representatives who are guided by their own lights, their own knowledge, their own conscience, are the executors of a republican spirit. Many ancient commentators believe that a republic, no less than a democracy, is ruled by a majority. But in the case of a republic the majority is not only the pars maior, but the pars sanior, whereas in a democracy, the majority can be the worst part of the nation. In every nation, the lower half of the social pyramid (if the expression is permitted) is by far the bigger half, which means that the people of quality can always be outvoted. Not inevitably, of course. The natural aristoi can be included in the party that wins the election. They are out of luck, however, if a demagogue (in ancient Greece, a “leader of the people” in a democratic state) successfully mobilizes the masses against them.
The definition of “full citizen,” as when one speaks of “politically equal citizens,” is always arbitrary. In pre-1971 Switzerland and Haiti, for instance, women were excluded from the suffrage. Yet it is hard to argue that Switzerland was therefore not a democracy. The main Swiss counterargument, one that is typical of this militarized nation, was to the effect that since women did not serve in the armed forces, they did not have equal duties and, thus, should not have equal rights.
Even more arbitrary are the age limits that supposedly define the “mature voter.” One man or woman can achieve an early maturity, another does so at the voting age, a third later in life, a fourth never. There is maturity without knowledge, and knowledge without wisdom—but these analytical probings could lead us far astray. For those who insist that human beings are not only animalia socialia, but also zoa politika, arbitrarily set voting ages are a serious and insoluble matter; for, given this reasoning, some people are being deprived of their “God-given right" (inherent in their God-given nature). In many a country, as a result of the Swiss argument concerning rights and duties, the voting age was lowered to the age of military service. The same argument, applied in reverse, led to conscription and the levée en masse in the First French Republic.
Our marginal remarks notwithstanding, it remains that democracy rests on two pillars: majority rule and political equality. And this although certain constitutions make it possible (with or without gerrymandering) for a minority of citizens to elect a majority of deputies or representatives. Proportional representation (P.R.) eliminates this possibility. But although the many disadvantages of proportional representation are frequently pointed out and the idea pilloried, P.R. is undoubtedly more “democratic" than the majority system as it exists in the United States and Britain—although not necessarily better.
Freedom, however, has nothing to do with democracy as such—nor has a republic. The repression of 49 percent of the people by 51 percent, or of 1 percent by 99 percent, is most regrettable, but it is not undemocratic. Bear in mind that only democracy has made the concept of majority/minority an absolute political reality; naturally the whole people can never act as ruler, but a majority can (usually) through its representatives. If this majority, however, is lenient towards those it has defeated in the prior election, it will have been motivated not by democratic principles but by tolerance. And if this tolerance is ideologically systemized, it is liberalism in the geniune sense, not in the totally perverted American sense. (See chapter 8.)
Thus, in the democratic order, the phrase “rule of the people” is misleading. The majority rules over the minority, or in George Orwell’s famous phrase in Animal Farm, “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.” The notion that one part lords it over another is displeasing to the “democratist,” i.e., the supporter of democratism, which is democracy raised to the status of an ideology. He will argue that those who have been beaten in an election have, by their cooperation in the process, helped the majority in furthering their plans, just as the man who chooses a losing lottery ticket contributes to the jackpot won by somebody else. This, however, will certainly not be the case where only part of the population believes in democracy as an article of faith. (In the German elections in July and November 1932, only a very small part of the electorate genuinely believed in democratic processes.)
Yet even if the entire electorate were convinced of the dogmas of “democratism,” the “yes” of the disappointed voter would be qualified and sometimes most unhappy. In an existential sense democracy is not self government at all, and self-government (unless we stand for unanimity in a democratic procedure) is an illusion. Herman Melville expressed this view when he said, “Better to be secure under one king, than exposed to violence from twenty millions of monarchs, though oneself be one of them.”
Actually, the voter never knows precisely what effect his vote will have whether it will make him a winner or a loser. He might, the morning after the election, ascertain whether he is among the winners or the losers. But in many a country he will have to wait, as, for example, if none of the parties has an absolute majority, in which case a government will be formed only after lengthy negotiations concerning which the voter has no influence whatsoever. He can only watch joyfully or angrily how his vote is utilized. Existentially, he is faced with a preestablished situation: he has to choose between candidates he rarely had a hand in picking (certainly never picked singlehandedly); thus he is usually left to choose the least objectionable among various undesirables. In large nations, moreover, the voter is a microscopic unit. If the electorate of the United States were equal to a thick black line as high as the Empire State Building in New York City, graphically a single vote would be about 3μm, which is three times the thousandth part of a millimeter (and a millimeter is the twenty-eighth part of an inch). The formula “self-government” under these circumstances makes hardly any sense.
Yet self-government is understandably a dream. Since government (the state) would not exist without Original Sin, “democratism” is looked upon as a paradisaical movement, promising an Eden-like utopia more often than not depicted as a return to a lost Golden Age. (In the secular view, this Golden Age was not lost owing to the rebellious sin of our ancestors but as a result of a wicked conspiracy of evil minorities.) The notion of self-government implies that we will not be ruled by somebody else: we will do it ourselves and thereby we will be free. Rule, force, and subservience will come to an end. Nudism, this type of thinking holds, will solve the sexual problem by disposing of clothes. But, in fact, people get used to nudity while the sexual problems continue (as in the case of Japan).
There is just no return to Paradise by the back door or by political legerdemain. The hardship of being ruled by somebody else remains; it can be alleviated only if we love those who rule us. Servitude can only be dissolved in love. But how can there be love for the rulers when we hire and fire them like obnoxious menials? Have not the words “politics” and “politicians” assumed pejorative meanings in democracies? Do they not express contempt, suspicion, sarcasm, and irony? Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman, the Liberal British Prime Minister, declared that “self-government is better than good government.” If this were true, medical self-help would be preferable to professional treatment. The Austrian Peter Wolf, on the other hand, said that the first right of a nation is to be well governed. Personal freedom, which can be brutally curtailed by majority rule, belongs essentially to good government.
To speak of tolerance as the essence of liberalism, which might or might not exist alongside democracy, implies a readiness to “carry” (tolerare), to “put up with” the presence, the propagation of views and ideas that we reject or oppose. Marshaling our charity, we would suppress our indignation and give our fellowmen the opportunity for open dissent despite our disagreement. Tolerance is a real virtue because it entails self-control and an ascetic attitude.
There are nevertheless certain limits to tolerance. All behaviors, all political ideologies cannot be tolerated at all times. The United States severely restricted the immigration of anarchists. Anarchists believed in the Propaganda of Deeds, which meant assassination and open revolution. Nor could all faiths be tolerated. Some religions encourage murder, such as the East Indian Thugs who assassinated travelers for the greater glory of Kali. And what about the People’s Temple, the American sect that climaxed in Guyana with nearly one thousand murders and suicides? (Whether religious polygamy should be outlawed is a moot question. When I was born about half a million of my fellow citizens were Muslims. Here in the United States, Mormon fundamentalism is certainly an authentic American religion; besides, almost all American states permit polygamy on the installment plan.) On the political front, West Germany outlawed the Communist party for years, yet it is legal in Austria. Ironically, the brown-clad murderers, supporters of the gas chamber, cannot have a political party, but the red executioners, who shoot through the nape of the neck, can. In these matters, arbitrariness once again prevails.
Those who have no principles, no grounded convictions, no dogmas, cannot be tolerant—they can only be indifferent, which is quite another matter. An agnostic is expected to be indifferent, not tolerant, because he has no good reason to oppose another opinion. To him truth is either nonexistent or humanly unattainable. A strict agnostic makes no value judgments, and thus for him there is no “good” or “bad,” while “right” and “wrong” have only practical, circumstantial meanings. To a person like Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., man is no better than a baboon or a grain of sand. According to Holmes, “Man at present is a predatory animal. I think that the sacredness of human life is a purely municipal idea of no validity outside the jurisdiction.” An agnostic, a philosophic relativist, can only say to his adversary, “I think that I am right in my own way, and although you differ from me, you may be right in your own way. So let’s compromise.” All of which recalls the delightful conversation between Franklin D. Roosevelt and Stalin at the Teheran Conference when Stalin wanted to execute 50,000 “junkers and militarists,” and Roosevelt counterproposed 49,000 and then, in compromise, 49,500. The conversation was facetious, but, in a way, not so facetious. It disgusted even such an immoralist as Winston Churchill.
Yet, whether out of tolerance or indifference, the readiness to yield and to compromise is the quintessence of parliamentary life in a democracy. (No stump orator, of course, will promise to be a superb compromiser once he is elected—rather the opposite.) Compromise does not belong per se to democracy, but it is the conditio sine qua non of democracy. It can equally be assumed that when the majority of people inspired by liberal principles in the Western world talk about democracy, they usually refer to liberal democracy. This brings about such errors as calling the confiscation of a newspaper “undemocratic.” If the majority of the people approve of it, such an act is highly democratic, but assuredly not liberal. Democracy is the concept of the totally politicized nation; it is a populism, like ethnicism (nationalism) or racism, and therefore leftist—and consequently totalitarian.
When then is liberalism correctly understood? Liberalism is not an exclusively political term. It can be applied to a prison reform, to an economic order, to a theology. Within the political framework, the question is not (as in a democracy), “Who should rule?” but “How should rule be exercised?” The reply is, “Regardless of who rules—a monarch, an elite, a majority, or a benevolent dictator—governments should be exercised in such a way that each citizen enjoys the greatest possible amount of personal liberty.” The limit of liberty is obviously the common good. But, admittedly, the common good (material as well as immaterial) is not easily defined, for it rests on value judgments. Its definition is therefore always somewhat arbitrary. Speed limits curtail freedom in the interest of the common good, yet there is arbitrariness in setting the limits. Is there a watertight case for forty, forty-five, or fifty miles an hour? Certainly not.
It is obvious that liberty is only relative, that the true liberal wants to push it to its feasible limits, and that it cannot be identical at all times, in all places, under all circumstances, for the same persons. (One might permit an eighteen year-old to drive a car but not a thirteen year-old, and so forth.) Only God—not man—is perfectly free. But freedom does pertain to man (Wust’s animal insecurum) because man is created in the image of God. Liberty, for the same reason, belongs neither to the animal world nor to the sphere of inanimate matter.
Freedom thus is the only postulate of liberalism—of genuine liberalism. If, therefore, democracy is liberal, the life, the whims, the interests of the minority will be just as respected as those of the majority. Yet surely not only a democracy, but a monarchy (absolute or otherwise) or an aristocratic (elitist) regime can be liberal. In fact, the affinity between democracy and liberalism is not at all greater than that between, say, monarchy and liberalism or a mixed government and liberalism. (People under the Austrian monarchy, which was not only symbolic but an effective mixed government, were not less free than those in Canada, to name only one example.)
Viewed in the light of the terminology favored by leading political scientists, it seems that monarchs such as Louis XIV, Joseph II, or George III were genuine liberals—by modern standards. None of them could have issued a decree drafting male subjects into his army, nor a decree regulating the diet of his citizens, nor one demanding a general confession of all economic activities from the head of each household. Not until the democratic age were conscription, Prohibition, and income tax declarations made into law by the people’s representatives, who have far greater power than absolute monarchs ever dreamed of. (In Western and Central Europe, “absolute” monarchs—thanks to the corps intermédiaires—were never for that matter really absolute: the local parlernents in France and the regional Landtage and Stände in the Germanies never failed to convene.) Modern parliaments can be more peremptory than the old monarchies because they operate under the auspices of the magic democratic formula: “We are the people, and the people—that’s us.”
Monarchs, in a way, skated on thin ice. They desperately tried to bequeath their countries to their heirs, for if they failed, they sometimes had their heads chopped off. They could not conveniently retire to a quiet law office like deputies or presidents who fail to get reelected. There are totalitarian and monolithic tendencies inherent in democracy that are not present even in a so-called absolute monarchy, much less so in a mixed government which, without exaggeration, can be called the great Western political tradition. (insert)
Inescapably, then, democracy and totalitarianism are not mutually exclusive terms. Professor J. L. Talmon has rightly entitled one of his books (on the French Revolution) The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy. Nor is it an accident that the isms that have menaced liberty from the eighteenth century to our days were called democratic. Their proponents all claimed that the majority, nay, the vast majority of the people supported their particular “wave of the future.” At times this claim had a solid statistical foundation. Genuine liberalism, on the other hand, rarely became a real mass movement—and conservatism never. The marriage between democracy and liberalism (again, in the etymological sense of the term) came late in history and bore the seeds of divorce. De Tocqueville saw only too clearly that while democracy could founder into chaos, the greater danger was in its gradual evolution into oppressive totalitarianism, a type of tyranny the world would never have seen before and for which it would have been partly conditioned by modern administrative methods and technological inventions.
(Erik Von Kuehnelt-Leddihn — Leftism Revisited: From De Sade and Marx to Hitler and Pol Pot — chapter 3 — Democracy and Liberalism)