The Problem with Democracy

In America many of us have been ingrained with a communal belief that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Even those of us who have not seen Star Trek II will be familiar with this fundamental statement. In point of fact this maxim was actually postulated by a school of English philosophy know as Utilitarianism. Chiefly among these philosophers is John Stuart Mill, and Jeremy Bentham. While the quote is generally associated with Mills, it may more likely have been Bentham. Regardless, this fundamental belief is a cornerstone to the principals of democracy. Here's why:

Since the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few then it would only follow that the rule of the majority would best be qualified to decide which courses of actions would be best for the group as a whole since they are the many and their desire would be best served through the fulfillment of their needs.

So far everything sounds pretty good right? Wrong. Here's the problem, just because a majority of people want something that doesn't give them the right to impose those wants and desires on those people in the minority. Mills referred to this as the Tyranny of the Majority.

As an example we can take a long and embarrassing look at our own history of slavery here in the United States. Can you imagine that for almost 300 years white people imported black people from the continent of Africa to be used as slaves. How was this even possible? Simple, it was the rule of the white majority. That didn't make it right, but that doesn't matter if you're in the majority. Further even after the slaves were set free African Americans were still denied equal liberties for almost another hundred years, again because of the rule of the majority.

However, even as horrendous as that was it pales in comparison to what the Free and democratic society of Germany did to the Jews simple because of religious beliefs in the years of the second world war. There is no way that would have happened if the Jews had been in the majority. And again we see that just because a society is democratic doesn't mean that there is Justice and Freedom. It just means that majority is in charge.

After reading some of the works of Jefferson and Franklin it becomes quite obvious that they recognized all too clearly that a pure democracy was nothing more mob rule. They realized this in the late 1700's even though this was not stated overtly for almost another 100 year by Alexis de Tocqueville in his book Democracy in America. Which just goes to show how smart Jefferson and Franklin were. And as a consequence they went to great lengths to make sure that the constitution of the United States was designed around the basic premise of the preservation of liberty and not just the will of the angry mob.

The point that I'm trying to get across in this little blog is that just because you have democratic society that does not necessarily mean that you have a free society where the rights and liberties of everyone are protected. It just means that you have little more than a mob rule. Which is why all of us living in America should just be thankful that Jefferson realized that when he penned the Constitution so that these United States should be a constitutional republic and not just a pure democracy.

"A democracy is nothing more than two wolves and a sheep trying to decide what's for dinner." "liberty is well armed sheep contesting the menu" -Benjamin Franklin