The Federalist Phoenix No. 4

As I wrote earlier, the word “democracy” is derived from demokratia, a Greek word with a clear etymological history describing a form of self-rule as practiced in ancient Athens. By showing that even a pure democracy excludes some of the population within an association of people, most notably young children, it becomes a representative democracy, out of the necessity to preserve the association from capricious and potentially destructive choices of the immature. I went on to conclude that equality is the defining attribute of a democratic association, without which and despite how close to parity the ratio of representatives of the association is to its population, it would no longer be a democracy.

My conclusion was based on the underlying assumption that self-rule applies universally to the entire association; that is, the ruled as well as those excluded from the processes of ruling or electing rulers due to immaturity. In other words, all rules apply equally to the entire population of the association, to the extent none are age restricted. For example, if driving a car is restricted to only those within the association who are over the age of 16, then that rule applies equally to everyone below the age of 16. The equal application of rules establishes the necessary basis for equality—no one is above the rules. It then becomes clear that within a democracy the method of choosing (voting) must uphold the fundamental principle of equality such that every person may cast one vote and that every person’s vote carries equal weight. When an association does not apply this fundamental principle, it is not a democracy. When an association applies this principle to a fictional business entity—corporation—elevating it to the status of a person, giving it some of the same civil rights as a person, the outsized influence renders that fundamental principle irrelevant and moot, thereby making a mockery of democracy. To the extent that rulers in an association capriciously erect obstacles to voting instead of making its best efforts to ensure every voter is properly identified, registered, and given accurate information to vote, the association leans toward autocracy.

As an instructive tool, I will now investigate the historical context in which the word democracy was used by the founders. When the Philadelphia convention delegates decried the practice of democracy in the states during the mid to late eighteenth century, it was describing the failures of state legislatures to collect and remit taxes requisitioned by the national congress. When Elbridge Gerry famously lamented, “The evils we experience flow from an excess of democracy,” he was not referring to democracy as a failed method of governance. He was expressing frustration with specific bodies of government not insulated well enough from the voters in order to make unpopular decisions that would anger them. It was a direct, unambiguous reference to the national congress lacking the power to levy and enforce the payment of taxes within the states. In this context, our founders wanted nothing to do with democracy, representative or otherwise. They wanted and drafted a constitution that would create a strong central government capable of enforcing the payment of taxes with a standing army—if required—and insulated from any negative consequences. However, if people believed this was how a democracy functioned, the founders chose not to disabuse them of such errant beliefs.

My reason for recapitulating these ideas and conclusions is to suggest that any future discussions or arguments, in defense of or against democracy as the form of government practiced in the United States must be prefaced by an attempt to define it within the framework of the discourse. To do otherwise renders the discourse an exercise in undifferentiated sophistry. To wit:

In a compilation of scholarly articles published in 1980 by the American Enterprise Institute, the introduction attempts to further confuse any common understanding of what a democracy is by suggesting that “…modern notions of democracy should be brought into line with ‘the American idea of democracy’. An “American” idea of democracy simply brings to the discourse a concept defined by nearly 174 million registered voters. It is not the lack of precision that is bothersome, it is because the lack of precision is used to render an otherwise meaningful concept meaningless for the purposes of detractors or supporters. By allowing ambiguity to prevail as a large part of the argument, it gives an author with linguistic dexterity the ability to sound rational, logical, and convincing.

Such an author was Robert A. Goldwin when he organized and published the compilation of articles with the title: How Democratic Is the Constitution? Mr. Goldwin wrote the preface in which he repeated the question and then posed more questions as answers. “When we speak of democracy, do we mean a democracy that demands equality of political rights or a democracy that demands equality in all respects? And is it instructive to compare both of these senses of democracy with an earlier sense, whereby democracy meant a kind of regime in which each citizen shared fully in the making of decisions and bore a wide range of citizenly obligations toward the community?” Goldwin goes on to eventually ask if the founders, when framing the Constitution, were less concerned with democracy than securing rights.

In answer to Godwin’s first question, I must ask one myself: How much time passed after the ratification of the Constitution before our country demanded “equality of political rights” for all citizens when chief among political rights is suffrage? Godwin’s question is disingenuous at best; otherwise, duplicitous, unless of course he disqualified women, enslaved Africans, and poor white folks as citizens just as the founders did. This convenient, default exclusion of people based upon extant societal norms during the framing of the constitution is anathema to if not the polar opposite of equality. By extension, the arbitrary, capricious denial of suffrage due to a person’s race, gender, social status, or religion is not democracy. To give the right of suffrage only to wealthy, white males is not democracy, it is white supremacy foisted on the citizens as something benign. These same arguments may be applied to Godwin’s later question. When a group of people is arbitrarily and unequally restrained and protected by rules while not being allowed to participate in the making of those rules, the government form is an authoritarian oligarchy, not a democracy, regardless of what is written in the national charter that created it.