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The Case Against the Democratic State: An Essay in Cultural Criticism
The history of the last two hundred years is a story of the immense and relentless growth of the State at the expense of other social institutions. We are now so familiar and accepting of the State's pre-eminence in all things, that few think to question it, and most suppose that democratic endorsement legitimizes it. The aim of this essay is to present a sustained and compelling argument against both presumptions. It contends that the gross imbalance of power in the modern State between ruler and ruled is sorely in need of justification, and that democracy simply masks this need with an illusion of popular sovereignty. Although this is an essay in cultural criticism whose argument should be fully accessible to the general reader, it is written from within the European tradition of political philosophy from Plato to Rawls.
- GenresPolitics
96 pages, Paperback
First published October 30, 2002
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About the author
Gordon Graham
96 books2 followersGordon Graham is Director of the Edinburgh Sacred Arts Festival. He previously taught philosophy at the University of St Andrews, University of Aberdeen, and Princeton Theological Seminary. The author of twenty books on a wide range of subjects in aesthetics, politics and moral philosophy, he has also published extensively on the Scottish philosophical tradition. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and winner of an Eighteenth Century Scottish Studies Society Lifetime Achievement Award, he was founding editor of the Journal of Scottish Philosophy and general editor of the Oxford History of Scottish Philosophy. His books include Scottish Philosophy after the Enlightenment (Edinburgh University Press, 2022).
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 19, 2016
I started thinking critically about democracy after reading Plato's Republic. In particular, Book VIII's description of the flaws of democracy is eerily accurate, and still rings true today. This made me curious about serious, philosophic critiques of democracy. I tried reading Nietzsche Contra Democracy, but that was disappointing. Nietzsche was more about posturing and "art" than making sober, sustained arguments against democracy.
This book by Prof. Gordon Graham is short and not very thorough, but it's a good departure point. It covers a number of important arguments against democracy:
1) Democracy gives power not to the people but to demagogues (i.e., spin doctors, opinion shapers) [Plato]
2) You wouldn't take a vote to decide how to handle a serious illness with your body, so why would you take a vote to handle a serious illness with the body politic? ["Plato's Challenge"]
3) The true democrat believes that the "will of the people is authoritative and ought to prevail." Yet at the same time, there are cases where the will of the people is clearly the wrong option. So the true democrat must simultaneously believe that the will of the people should and should not prevail. [The Paradox of Democracy]
4) The conflict between liberalism (individual rights) and democracy. It is often said: "You can't hold a referendum on people's rights." But if the people cannot be trusted to vote on important issues like rights, why should they be trusted to vote on any other important issue?
5) The question of competence: If children can be barred from voting due to lack of competence, why can't adults be barred for the same reason? It's very difficult to reach a consistent position on this point.
6) The issue of consent: It seems impossible to withhold consent, and this makes democratic "consent" meaningless. As Herbert Spencer wrote regarding taxation: If a person votes for a representative, he is understood as consenting to the taxes the representative enacts. But what if he voted for the representative's opponent, in order to avoid the taxes? Then since he participated in the election, he is taken to have tacitly consented to the majority decision. What if he refrains from voting? Then he has no right to complain because he did not vote. So the person consents to the government's decision, no matter what action he takes.
7) The illusion of power: The voting of an individual has no effect at all on the outcome of elections. Instead of giving power to the people, elections ensure that they have no power at all. Graham compares it to a cake. Slicing a cake between 8 people is a way to share the cake within a group. Slicing a cake between 200 million people results in no one getting any cake at all. It is in this latter sense that power is distributed to people in a democracy. Graham: "...a very widespread distribution of some good does not lead to a more egalitarian distribution of benefits. Rather, no one benefits at all, because the shares are too tiny to constitute benefits."
8) The democratic illusion, i.e., that people control the government, and not the other way around. "Far from it being the case that ordinary citizens can tell politicians what to do, as the democratic illusion and the politics of management falsely suggest, it is politicians who tell ordinary citizens what to do, and have the power to coerce them when they do not."
This book by Prof. Gordon Graham is short and not very thorough, but it's a good departure point. It covers a number of important arguments against democracy:
1) Democracy gives power not to the people but to demagogues (i.e., spin doctors, opinion shapers) [Plato]
2) You wouldn't take a vote to decide how to handle a serious illness with your body, so why would you take a vote to handle a serious illness with the body politic? ["Plato's Challenge"]
3) The true democrat believes that the "will of the people is authoritative and ought to prevail." Yet at the same time, there are cases where the will of the people is clearly the wrong option. So the true democrat must simultaneously believe that the will of the people should and should not prevail. [The Paradox of Democracy]
4) The conflict between liberalism (individual rights) and democracy. It is often said: "You can't hold a referendum on people's rights." But if the people cannot be trusted to vote on important issues like rights, why should they be trusted to vote on any other important issue?
5) The question of competence: If children can be barred from voting due to lack of competence, why can't adults be barred for the same reason? It's very difficult to reach a consistent position on this point.
6) The issue of consent: It seems impossible to withhold consent, and this makes democratic "consent" meaningless. As Herbert Spencer wrote regarding taxation: If a person votes for a representative, he is understood as consenting to the taxes the representative enacts. But what if he voted for the representative's opponent, in order to avoid the taxes? Then since he participated in the election, he is taken to have tacitly consented to the majority decision. What if he refrains from voting? Then he has no right to complain because he did not vote. So the person consents to the government's decision, no matter what action he takes.
7) The illusion of power: The voting of an individual has no effect at all on the outcome of elections. Instead of giving power to the people, elections ensure that they have no power at all. Graham compares it to a cake. Slicing a cake between 8 people is a way to share the cake within a group. Slicing a cake between 200 million people results in no one getting any cake at all. It is in this latter sense that power is distributed to people in a democracy. Graham: "...a very widespread distribution of some good does not lead to a more egalitarian distribution of benefits. Rather, no one benefits at all, because the shares are too tiny to constitute benefits."
8) The democratic illusion, i.e., that people control the government, and not the other way around. "Far from it being the case that ordinary citizens can tell politicians what to do, as the democratic illusion and the politics of management falsely suggest, it is politicians who tell ordinary citizens what to do, and have the power to coerce them when they do not."
May 19, 2010
In this thought piece, Gordon Graham rehearses some well-known and lesser-known objections to democracy.
First, the good: Graham links his critique of democracy with his critique of the state, the latter of which he defines as that which exercises a "monopoly of legitimate coercion." The two are relevant to each other, especially given democracy's purported legitimizing function of the state, and Graham discusses, wisely in my view, the inability of democracy to legitimize the coercive power of the state beyond the mere illusory satisfaction that the ballot box gives. He also discusses, although I wish he had space to discuss more, the problem of the "tyranny of the majority." Finally, his call for participation in a strong civil society as a counterpoint for democracy tout court is something I can agree with.
What fell short in this booklet is Graham's definition of democracy. He identifies 3 distinguishing features: sovereignty of the people, majority rule, and universal suffrage. He rightly points out that people change their definitions of democracy as a matter of convenience. Still, people quite consistently add another component to their definition of democracy, and that is some sort of provision for the rights of the minority or of the individual. In short, Graham argues, to a certain extent, against a system of government that most people, if you push them beyond the slogans, really endorse and that, even by his own admission, does not exist in pure form.
I really wanted to like this booklet and am probably predisposed to accept its argument. If I had not been, I might have given it fewer stars.
First, the good: Graham links his critique of democracy with his critique of the state, the latter of which he defines as that which exercises a "monopoly of legitimate coercion." The two are relevant to each other, especially given democracy's purported legitimizing function of the state, and Graham discusses, wisely in my view, the inability of democracy to legitimize the coercive power of the state beyond the mere illusory satisfaction that the ballot box gives. He also discusses, although I wish he had space to discuss more, the problem of the "tyranny of the majority." Finally, his call for participation in a strong civil society as a counterpoint for democracy tout court is something I can agree with.
What fell short in this booklet is Graham's definition of democracy. He identifies 3 distinguishing features: sovereignty of the people, majority rule, and universal suffrage. He rightly points out that people change their definitions of democracy as a matter of convenience. Still, people quite consistently add another component to their definition of democracy, and that is some sort of provision for the rights of the minority or of the individual. In short, Graham argues, to a certain extent, against a system of government that most people, if you push them beyond the slogans, really endorse and that, even by his own admission, does not exist in pure form.
I really wanted to like this booklet and am probably predisposed to accept its argument. If I had not been, I might have given it fewer stars.
January 4, 2009
I liked Graham's contrarian viewpoint; he executes it in a way that forces the reader to think and reevaluate current values. Under fire were especially America and Britain's democracies, and the way we as citizens view them and actually have/take part in them. My biggest complaint is that within the last two pages, he backs off, stating that our government is more of a republic, and therefore not under all the scrutiny from the last 92 pages of the book. Seriously? Then why write the essay? I wish he would have stuck to his guns, because otherwise it makes his whole essay seem pointless, which is unfortunate, because I think it is very worthwhile.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews