In one of those “suddenly everyone gives a damn about Egypt” pieces, David Aaronovitch (£) says that scepticism about democracy “dovetails into the aggressive apologia that undemocratic regimes invent for themselves.” This is silly.
Those of us who are sceptical about democracy do not deny that democracy is superior to dictatorship - not least because, As David says, democracy is intrinsically good even if its consequences leave something to be desired.
Instead, our concern is that there are trade-offs between democracy and other values such as liberty or justice. These trade-offs are not a big problem in benighted nations, as these are so far from the efficient frontier of values that they can (possibly) achieve more of every one. But they are more pressing in liberal democracies.
And herein lies my beef with the so-called decent left. For me - and I’ll grant this might be just a personal idiosyncrasy - the issue is not one of liberal democracy versus dictatorship. Arguing that the former is superior is like me saying I’m a better guitarist than Abu Hamza. It is uninterestingly true, because our standards should be much higher,
Instead, there are two more interesting questions. One is: are there ways of improving existing democratic institutions? In particular, can we mobilize the local knowledge of people, rather than their mere irrationalities and prejudices?
My hunch is that this might be possible - be it through more associative or deliberative democracy such as citizens’ juries; through demand-revealing referenda (making people pay is a way of making them think); or perhaps through efforts to wise people up to their cognitive biases.
The second question is: why are there trade-offs between democracy and other values? Could it be that it is (partly) because cognitive biases and adaptive preferences help to entrench support for inequality.
The problem is that empty sloganeering about the value of democracy, in effect, functions to deflect attention away from these questions. In doing so it helps to entrench an imperfect - and, I would stress, inegalitarian - quasi-democracy.
Surely demand-revealing referendums would entrench (and exacerbate) inequality of income. In 1998 I earned £25,000 and spent about £20,000. In 1999 I earned £15,000 and spent about £15,000. It seems to me that I would be under much greater pressure to state my anticipated benefit honestly in 1999 than in 1998. Or, indeed, to lie about my anticipated benefit, if I genuinely believed it to be very low or very high.
Posted by: Phil | February 03, 2011 at 04:10 PM
"Democracy" and "liberal democracy" are, of course, rather different things. If my cricket team voted 10 to 1 in favour of the wicket keeper picking up the bar tabs that would have been democratic but not very just.
Posted by: BenSix | February 03, 2011 at 04:48 PM
"democracy is intrinsically good even if its consequences leave something to be desired"
If democracy was "intrinsically" good, could its consequences leave something to be desired? I can see a good thing - like alcohol - having unfortunate consequences, but not something that is intrinsically -- ie wholly? - good.
Posted by: paulilc | February 03, 2011 at 06:41 PM
As Pierre Manent says: we must love democracy, but not too much.
Posted by: ortega | February 03, 2011 at 09:41 PM
"If my cricket team voted 10 to 1 in favour of the wicket keeper picking up the bar tabs that would have been democratic but not very just.2
That rather depends upon the wicket keeper.
Posted by: Torquil Macneil | February 04, 2011 at 08:58 AM
...is like me saying I’m a better guitarist than Abu Hamza. It is uninterestingly true, because our standards should be much higher,
I'd advise him to raise his action and experiment with open tunings.
Posted by: Scratch | February 04, 2011 at 08:59 AM