If you begin with the notion that every happening is an effect that had a cause triggering it, you’ll conclude that Democracy must have been triggered by something. What could it be?
You look at all the possibilities and assign to each a probability of being
the cause. This leads to the conclusion that there came a time when a good
chunk of the population in a society that was ruled by a tyrant, rose up and
demanded a change in how it was governed.
The idea that the people are subjects whose role is to serve the ruling
class was discarded and replaced by the idea that the people should elect the representatives
who will serve them as stipulated by them. Thus Democracy was born as an idea. What
was left to do was devise the mechanics by which Democracy could be
implemented. But in so doing, the mechanics gradually overwhelmed the idea
itself, and came to define Democracy. With the passage of time, the idea of the
people telling their elected representatives how to govern, died an ignominious
death.
So the question to ask is this: How does the mechanics of implementing
Democracy define the word? To understand the forces that led to this
development, and answer the question, we need to look at the period that
spanned the time between the end of the Feudal System and the start of the
Industrial Revolution. This was a time when craftsmanship of all kinds had so
proliferated and so matured, craftsmen in all fields of endeavor ran their own
businesses as proud sovereigns who controlled their own destinies being their
own bosses.
Unfortunately for them, however, the invention of the steam engine brought
the Industrial Revolution that outperformed them by making better products and
selling them at a cheaper price. The craftsmen closed shop and were forced to
work for the industrialists who treated their workers more harshly than did the
feudal lords of the preceding era. This caused a revolt that was originally
directed at the Lords of Industry, but when it became apparent that the
governing bodies at all levels were in cahoots with the industrialists, the
revolt intensified and became a full blown revolution.
This is when those in charge of the nation decided that the way to mollify
the revolution was to give the masses the opportunity to participate in the way
they were governed. To implement Democracy, these people who did not think of
equality the way we do today, allowed some people but not others to vote and
elect the candidates that impressed them the most. In time, one group after
another of those deprived of the franchise to vote, protested and demanded that
they be given that right. It took some time for this to happen, but universal
suffrage eventually became the norm.
At that time, the mechanics of implementing Democracy was simple and
straight forward. But for various reasons, powerful people disliked the idea of
“one man one vote.” Because they could not abolish it, they invented all kinds
of ways to suppress the vote of one group or another. One scheme involved the
tailor-designing of the voting districts (known as gerrymandering) to make it so
that the candidates chose who will elect them instead of the electors deciding
who to elect. When you add this to the reality that money has become the
lifeblood of political campaigns, you understand how the mechanics of the
electoral process came to define Democracy. On the surface, it looks like the
idea of Democracy still allows the people to govern themselves. But in reality,
the voice of the people has no more sway than the town crier who runs around warning
that: the end is near, the end is near.
You don’t need a town crier to tell you that the nations first to implement
Democracy, have reached a high level of distortion in their implementation of the
Democratic ideal. Meanwhile the nations that sat and watched the show while
working on plans to industrialize themselves, have finally decided that they
need to implement some form of Democracy in their jurisdictions before events
will force them to adopt the one that became so decrepit, it will harm them if
they were to import it and use it.
Seeing no successful model they can copy in their jurisdictions, those
nations had no choice but to improvise and tweak their way to a model that will
work for them. Because the goal is to give the people a say in how they are
governed, which is what the rulers aim for, they insist that the system must be
called a Democracy no matter what others think of it.
This brings us to the article that came under the title: “Biden’s weak
defense of democracy,” and the subtitle: “It leaves a lot to be desired.” It
was written by Clifford D. May, and published on December 22, 2021 in The
Washington Times.
The writer made the correct observation to the effect that no one at
this time is trying to define Democracy. He did not say why this is the case,
and neither does his article give any hint. But Clifford May wrote a very
pessimistic article about the state of what he still regards as being a
Democratic system of government.
And this is what should cause fair-minded observers to puzzle as to why Clifford
May is refusing to side with or encourage those who seek to modify, rejuvenate,
alter or experiment with new ideas in the hope that something will emerge to
give humanity the ideal system it needs to fix the ills of modern society.