Democracy is the Most Desirable Form of Government

Democracy is the worship of jackals by jackasses H.L Mencken, American Political Satirist Today, we talk about a democratic future. The word democratic has even been labeled into the rhetorical vocabulary of even the most undemocratic leaders. But why democracy? Why not anarchism? Why not monarchy? That is the question that we are here to discuss. The Rarity of “Good” Democracies Good democracies are hard to establish, hard to maintain, but easy to theorize. The 1932 Thai Revolution initially had a well planned origin, but clearly, a good democracy in Thailand was never established. Firstly, to understand the establishment of a “good” democracy, we must find a measure of “good” for democracies. A good democracy is defined as a democracy in which the people have equal rights (in voting), corruption is non-existent, and the stability of the system is not threatened. “Good” democracies barely exist; the dream of a “good” democracy, however, is universal. The Democracy Index, albeit its method for calculating the democracy scores can be objected, lists 15.3% of the world’s countries as a “full democracy” However, the population represented in this category represents only 11% of the world’s population [1] If we were to take that seriously, 15 out of 100 revolutions or rebellion would result in the creation of a “good democracy” Apart from this, if we were to take the quantifiable measures right now, 32 of the 100 revolutions/rebellions will result in the creation of a “flawed democracy” and 53 of 100 revolutions/rebellions will result in the creation of a “hybrid regime” or an “authoritarian regime” [1] Even in good democracies, the state exercises complete control over decisions in which the state has no moral obligation to intervene in; a homosexual person wanting to marry his spouse may be barred from doing so in some conservative democracies (India), whilst abortion, a clearly individual decision, is outlawed. A good democracy, albeit being the supposedly “most ethical and realistic” form of governing, will turn into a rule of the majority, where each individual’s rights are not taken into account. Good democracies are rare; a good democracy requires leading elite who will stay true to their ideology and a lot of mass support. And how does this make a system such as democracy “undesirable” Firstly, that is not what I’m arguing. However, if we are to look at it, we may summarize this with John Adam’s quote: “But while I do live, let me have a country, and that a free country.” And what is freedom? I argue we go back to the state of nature, or a state in which all the rights of mankind to do whatever he wants as long as he does not violate the rights of other. And this state is an minimalist state. Alternative #1: Minimalist Government A free country possesses a free people, whose interest is the pure tranquility and liberty of the people. In this, we enter the realm of those with a minimalist persuasion, namely philosopher Robert Nozick. A minimalist state is not democratic in the sense that there is no executive branch to elect, as the opponent has defined in his R1 opening statements. The minimalist state is the only moral and justifiable state; moral in the sense that all of the natural rights are preserved, i.e rights to property, rights to liberty and the pursuit of happiness so forth, and justifiable in the sense that it will keep law and order. The logic of minimalism is to find faults in our state of nature, and address those faults. The logic of a democratic state, however, is to impose the rule of the majority. The minimalist will reform the state of nature, whilst the democrat will replace the state of nature. In forming a democracy, some men’s rights would be violated for the opinion of the majority. A minimalist state is a night-watchman state, whose roles are [2]: 1. To protect the rights of every individual, as apart from the majority 2. To enforce contracts between two parties 3. To instill law and order into the citizens of the government 4. To protect property rights and defend citizens from theft and fraud Note that whilst minimalism may sound like a state, every individual man’s moral worth and individual decision are respected; every man makes his own decisions without the interference from the majority. Humans have individual moral worth; even if the majority agrees on something, that is the majority, not the people. The minimalist state is the people’s state, because people are free to pursue whatever careers they like, and make whatever individual decisions that affect them and are in the limits of the law. All rights are therefore respected in the minimalist state; a mother thinking of abortion is no business of the government, or the majority. Minimalism is the only morally justifiable form of government, as the people will be free from other interferences. The opponent may argue that if a system is more practical, then it is more desirable. However, I have to desires; to earn $3 or to earn $3 million. Earning $3 is definitely more practical; a day’s worth of work earns me that much, but $3 million is definitely more desirable. But if we were to look at this from an empirical perspective, then we are to take another alternative. Alternative #2: Monarchism “I would rather obey a fine lion, much stronger than myself, than two hundred rats of my own species.” Voltaire The Monarchist cause is a dying cause; all over the world, people are turning to the republican institutes that would strangle monarchism. But it is still a force to be reckoned with, and will be presented as my second alternative to the tyrannical rule of democracy. We must firstly define the monarchism we are looking at; it is not the monarchism of Sir Robert Filmer’s Patriarchia, but it is a monarchism of the French Legalists; a constitutional executive monarchy, where the monarch holds considerable power, but is still under the regulations of a written constitution. Therefore, the monarchy we talk about has a legislature, whilst the executive power lies solely in the hands of the monarch and his subjects. The justification of the monarchist form of government is this; providing that a monarchy protects his people’s rights, i.e liberty and equality, the nation can be prosper and stable. In this type of state, politics would be limited to a sizable elitist group and the people could be apathetic without any direct consequences. Such is what happened with Thailand before 1932; the farmers and peasants did not have any opinion, as long as the king was able to govern the country with just rule. [3] Another justification for this is the fact that democracies are built for rhetoricians, whilst monarchism are built for statesmen. Winning a democratic campaign means that the candidate is a good persuader. In reality, the candidate might be a corrupt mastermind. This happened with Adolf Hitler; his usage of oratory persuasion remains unparalleled to this day, but yet his mind was oriented into a bigotry way that led Germany to failure. Monarchies, on the other hand, are built for those fittest to rule; the kings who have gained power often do so as a result of some sort of armed struggle. Such is the case of the House of Tudors, who after a long war, took power and propelled England into a period of enlightened thinking. [4] In forming arguments for monarchism, we take a look back at Sparta. Sparta had a quartcameral (is that even a word?) governing system, in which two kings ruled the executive, two kings managed the legislative, a council managed the kings, and the legislative is democratically elected. [5] Let us note the differences between power in Sparta and its more democratic Athenian friends. Sparta ended more powerful than Athens; this was due to a combination of superior military tactics, but more so to the mixed monarchist system that was present. The executive branch excelled in administering the state; effective ministers were always installed. Apart from this we must mind the fact that democracy is very unstable. Athens, often times, found it hard to find stability in the democratic system; the Coup of 411bc showed that democracy can be susceptible to coups. [5] Athens is not the only case of this; Thailand, with over 80 years of democratic “governing”, has experienced 18 coups! Coups happen when power becomes decentralized and when a leader’s control of the population deteriorates; under a monarchy, this is less likely to happen. Firstly, a monarchy is always centralized; his palace would be considered the center of authority. Secondly, a monarchy is coercive; authority is often always abided under monarchism. Apart from this, under a monarchy, if the state holds absolute authority, then the state could be prosper and powerful, as well as being stable. Prussia proves this amazingly well; the strong and authoritarian minded military junkers, for over 600 years, controlled and managed the Prussian state with excelling power! Prussia went on to defeat Russia, Austria, and France; three immensely powerful European states. How did they do this? Because of the monarchist form of government that was present. With this said, we can come to a conclusion that monarchism can be more desirable than democracy because it installs effective ministers, is stable, and can become a very powerful state. CONCLUSION: The resolution is negated; minimalism and monarchism provides us with two more desirable forms of government, from a both theoretical and practical point of view. CITATIONS: [1] Democracy Index: http://en.wikipedia.org... [2] Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia: http://www.colorado.edu... [3] Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org...(1932%E2%80%9373) [4] Wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia.org... [5] Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org...