Democracy: Ideals and Illusions

Originally published in April 2011.

“[A] government of the people, by the people, for the people.” - Abraham Lincoln

We’ve heard it all too often; the beauty of democracy, championing the empowerment of the citizenry over the leaders—leaders who are described as servants rather than lords. The high virtue of an idea that is selecting leaders based on the decision of the masses rather than through elite linkages or royal lineage. Democracy is freedom, equality, and security.

However, let us erase all history of democratic practice and imagine the story of democracy, possibly from the viewpoint of an enlightened caveman. "Democracy" means my leader will be chosen by all the people who are under the jurisdiction of the government, rather than by a few elites, nor by destiny due to bloodline. 

Here arises the first complication.

How can a mass of people arrive at one decision? Certainly, we cannot accept more than one decision; at the same time, we live in only one universe (so we suppose), and in this universe, there will be only one leader in a particular position in our hypothetical democracy. Additionally, it is safe to assume that a large group of people will be host to an equally large number of complex combinations of beliefs, temperaments, and experiences.

We have no choice at this early juncture but to already make a compromise. We are resigned to the fact that we must define the “choice of the people” as the choice which surfaces most often. In other words, the majority shall represent the population. In truth, we are not following the “voice of the people”--which I reiterate, cannot possibly even be an understandable, uniform sound--but we simply take the loudest collection of cries and interpret it as the collective decision.

For many, this may seem a small compromise to worry about. At worst, they say, we will get a 51% vote in favor of one option; at least there will be more happy people than otherwise. We need only to remind ourselves of the 2010 Philippine elections, where now-President Noynoy Aquino received a whopping 42.08% of the nation’s votes, leaving 7 competitors in the dust and running away with the presidency.

Only, following the argument above, this left almost 60% of Filipinos unhappy. The majority did not get what it asked for. 42.08% is an incredible number only when viewed in reference to the number of people seeking the same position. However, it is not the voice of the majority, much less the voice of the people. Most Filipinos did not think Aquino was right for the presidency.

Once again, we see another caveat. Did Filipinos even know what a “rightful president” was? We cannot assume that the vote of the people—which may not even be the decision of the majority, which is definitely not the choice of the masses—is the best decision. One may argue that “best” is relative, but there is such a thing as a well-informed and educated decision. We cannot assume, however, that every decision-maker—every voter—makes a well-informed and educated decision. E.B. White put it as follows:

“Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.”

We make our third compromise: assume that the majority knows what's best.

Our revised view of democracy now reveals that democracy may possibly take the stand of the non-majority as the collective decision of the people and as the best decision for the people. Some may still accept this; at least it is still a government of people chosen from the masses, somewhat “by” the people.

It is here, however, that reality hands us our final required compromise for making democracy “work.” If any individual within the population can vie for a particular position (say, the presidency), then in a nation of tens or hundreds of millions, we could have thousands upon thousands of candidates. This makes the decision-making process practically impossible. Voters will make ill-informed decisions, the votes will be incredibly spread out, and once again a decision will be made which we will believe to have been arrived at through “democratic” means—yet, as we have already seen, a decision that is made much off line with the very purpose of democracy.

How do real democracies deal with this? It is done with a rigid set of rules--written or implied--that limit who can really run for position. Moreover, just as the rich have a greater capacity to get richer, so the powerful have greater opportunities to gain more power. The eventual result that we observe is that the successful political candidates are those with strong ties in a political party, in a family with political experience, or otherwise already have some sort of grip on power and resources. But then again, is democracy about holding power, or serving the people? All the while, many a Juan dela Cruz lives on with his fellowmen who, with no linkages or lineage to bank upon, do not even try to be a part of their government. Rather, they criticize it, because of the disempowerment, because of the bureaucracy, or because of constraints imposed on the freedom of the people.

We’ve strayed pretty far from the pure ideals of democracy, and that worst part is, it’s all justified. The compromises are unavoidable. I am not advocating any other form of government, nor am I saying that democracy as we know it must be scrapped. I only hope to make the reader think twice and think critically before proclaiming praise for democracy because of the ideals we are conditioned to believe it is meant to possess—that of being a government of, by, and for the people—and to understand the implications thereof as they relate with reality.