Monthly Newsletter: Is America a Democracy, Republic, or Empire? by Oliver DeMille
Published: Fri, 04/01/11
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Is America a Democracy, Republic, or Empire?
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Some in Washington are fond of saying that certain nations
don't know how to do democracy.
Anytime a nation breaks away from totalitarian
or authoritarian controls, these "experts" point out that the people aren't
"prepared" for democracy.
But this is hardly the point.
A nation where the people
aren't prepared for democracy--but where a strong leader is prepared for tyranny--is
still better off as a democracy.
A
nation where the people aren't prepared for democracy but where an elite class
is prepared for aristocracy is still better off as a democracy.
A nation where
the people aren't prepared for democracy but where a socialist or
fundamentalist religious bureaucracy is prepared to rule is still better off as
a democracy.
Whatever the people's
inadequacies, they will do better than the other, class-dominant forms of
government.
Winston Churchill was right:
"Democracy is the worst form of government--except all the other forms that have been tried." False Democracy
When I say "democracy," I am of course not referring to a
pure democracy where the masses make every decision; this has always turned to
mob rule through history.
Of Artistotle's various types and styles of
democracy, this was the worst. The American founders considered this one of the least effective of free forms
of government.
Nor do I mean a "socialist democracy" as proposed by Karl
Marx, where the people elect leaders who then exert power over the finances and
personal lives of all citizens.
Whether this type of government is called
democracy (e.g. Social Democrats in many former Eastern European nations) in
the Marxian sense or a republic (e.g. The People's Republic of China, The Union
of Soviet Socialist Republics--USSR, etc.), it amounts to the same oligarchic
model of authoritarian rule.
Marx used the concept of democracy--he called it "the battle
for democracy"--to argue for the working classes to rise up against the middle
and upper classes and take back their power.
Ironically, he believed the masses
incapable of such leadership, and felt that a small group of elites, the
"vanguard", would have to do the work of the masses for them.
This argument assumes an oligarchic view of the world, and
the result of attempted Marxism has nearly always been dictatorial or
oligarchic authoritarianism.
In this attitude Marx follows his mentor Hegel,
who discounted any belief in the power or wisdom of the people as wild imaginings (see Mortimer Adler's discussion on "Monarchy" in the Syntopicon).
The American founders disagreed entirely with this view.
A Democratic Republic
The type of democracy we need more of in the world is
constitutional representative democracy, with:
In such a government, the people have the power to elect
their own representatives who participate at all levels. Then the people
closely oversee the acts of government.
One other power of the people in a constitutional
representative democratic republic is to either ratify or reject the original
constitution.
Only the support of the people allows any constitution to be
adopted (or amended) by a democratic society.
The American framers adopted Locke's view that the
legislative power was closest to the people and should have the sole power over
the nation's finances.
Thus in the U.S. Constitution, direct representatives of
the people oversaw the money and had to answer directly to the people every two
years.
Two Meanings of
"Democracy"
There are two ways of understanding the term democracy. One is as a governmental
form--which is how this article has used the word so far. The other is as a
societal format.
There are four major types of societies:
As a societal form, democracy is by far the best system.Montesquieu, who was the source most quoted at the American Constitutional
Convention, said:
"[Democracy exists] when the body of the people is possessed of the supreme power." In a good constitutional democracy, the constitution limits the majority from
impinging upon the inalienable rights of a minority--or of anyone at all.
Indeed, if a monarchial or aristocratic society better
protects the rights of the people than a democratic nation, it may well be a
more just and free society.
History has shown, however, that over time the
people are more likely to protect their rights than any royal family or elite
class.
When the many are asked to analyze and ratify a good
constitution, and then to protect the rights of all, it turns out they nearly
always protect freedom and just society better than the one or the few.
It is very important to clarify the difference between these
two types of democracy--governmental and societal.
For example, many of the
historic Greek "democracies" were governmental
democracies only. They called themselves democracies because the citizens had
the final say on the governmental structure and elections--but only the upper class could be citizens.
Thus these nations were
actually societal aristocracies, despite being political democracies.
Plato called the societal form of democracy the best system
and the governmental format of democracy the worst.
Clearly, knowing the difference is vital.
Aristotle felt that there are actually six major types of
societal forms.
A king who obeys the laws leads a monarchial society, while a
king who thinks he is above the law rules a tyrannical society.
Likewise,
government by the few can either have different laws for the elite class or the
same laws for all people, making oligarchy or aristocracy.
In a society where
the people are in charge, they can either rule by majority power (he called
this democracy) or by wise laws, protected inalienable rights and widespread
freedom (he called this "mixed" or, as it is often translated, "constitutional"
society).
Like Plato, Aristotle considered the governmental form of
democracy bad, but better than oligarchy or tyranny; and he believed the
societal form of democracy (where the people as a mass generally rule the
society) to be good.
Democracy or Republic?
The authors of The
Federalist Papers tried to avoid this confusion about the different meanings of
"democracy" simply by shortening the idea of a limited, constitutional,
representative democracy to the term "republic."
A breakdown of these pieces is
enlightening:
The framers required all state governments to be this type
of republic, and additionally, for the national government to be federal (made
up of sovereign states with their own power, delegating only a few specific
powers to the national government).
When we read the writings of most of the American founders,
it is helpful to keep this definition of "republic" in mind.
When they use the
terms "republic" or "a republic" they usually mean a limited, constitutional,
representative democracy like that of all the states.
When they say "the
republic" they usually refer to the national-level government, which they
established as a limited, constitutional, federal, representative democracy.
At times they shorten this to "federal democratic republic"
or simply democratic republic.
Alexander
Hamilton and James Wilson frequently used the term "representative democracy,"
but most of the other founders preferred the word "republic."
A Global Problem
In today's world the term "republic" has almost as many
meanings as "democracy."
The term "democracy" sometimes has the societal connotation
of the people overseeing the ratification of their constitution. It nearly
always carries the societal democracy idea that the regular people matter, and
the governmental democracy meaning that the regular people get to elect their
leaders.
The good news is that freedom is spreading.
Authoritarianism, by whatever name, depends on top-down control of information,
and in the age of the Internet this is disappearing everywhere.
More nations
will be seeking freedom, and dictators, totalitarians and authoritarians
everywhere are ruling on borrowed time.
People want freedom, and they want
democracy--the societal type, where the people matter.
All of this is positive and, frankly, wonderful.
The problem
is that as more nations seek freedom, they are tending to equate democracy with
either the European or Asian versions (parliamentary democracy or an
aristocracy of wealth).
The European parliamentary democracies are certainly an
improvement over the authoritarian states many nations are seeking to put behind
them, but they are inferior to the American model.
The same is true of the
Asian aristocratic democracies.
Specifically, the parliamentary model of democracy gives far
too much power to the legislative branch of government, with few separations,
checks or balances.
The result is that there are hardly any limits to the
powers of such governments. They simply do whatever the parliament wants,
making it an Aristotelian oligarchy.
The people get to vote for their government officials, but
the government can do whatever it chooses--and it is run by an upper class.
This
is democratic government, but
aristocratic society. The regular
people in such a society become increasingly dependent on government and
widespread prosperity and freedom decrease over time.
The Asian model is even worse. The governmental forms of
democracy are in place, but in practice the very wealthy choose who wins
elections, what policies the legislature adopts, and how the executive
implements government programs.
The basic problem is that while the world equates freedom
with democracy, it also equates democracy with only one piece of historical
democracy--popular elections.
Nations that adopt the European model of
parliamentary democracy or the Asian system of aristocratic democracy do not become
societal democracies at all--but simply democratic aristocracies.
Democracy is spreading--if by democracy we mean popular
elections; but aristocracy is winning the day.
Freedom--a truly widespread
freedom where the regular people in a society have great opportunity and
prosperity is common--remains rare around the world.
The Unpopular
American Model
The obvious solution is to adopt the American model of
democracy, as defined by leading minds in the American founding: limited,
constitutional, representative, federal, and democratic in the societal sense
where the regular people really do run the nation.
Unfortunately, this model is
currently discredited in global circles and among the world's regular people
for at least three reasons:
1.
The American elite is pursuing other models.
The
left-leaning elite (openly and vocally) idealize the European system, while the
American elite on the right prefers the Asian structure of leadership by wealth
and corporate status.
If most of the intelligentsia in the United States aren't
seeking to bolster the American constitutional model, nor the elite U.S.
schools that attract foreign students on the leadership track, it is no
surprise that freedom-seekers in other nations aren't encouraged in this
direction.
2.
The American bureaucracy around the world isn't
promoting societal democracy but rather simple political democracy--popular
elections have become the entire de facto meaning of the term "democracy" in
most official usage.
With nobody pushing for limited, constitutional, federal,
representative democratic republics, we get what we promote: democratic
elections in fundamentally class-oriented structures dominated by elite upper
classes.
3.
The American people aren't all that actively
involved as democratic leaders.
When the U.S. Constitution was written, nearly
every citizen in America was part of a Town Council, with a voice and a vote in
local government. With much pain and sacrifice America evolved to a system
where every adult can be such a citizen, regardless of class status, religious
views, gender, race or disability.
Every adult now has the opportunity to have
a real say in governance. Unfortunately, we have over time dispensed with the
Town Councils of all Adults and turned to a representative model even at the
most local community and neighborhood level.
As Americans have ceased to
participate each week in council and decision-making with all adults, we have
lost some of the training and passion for democratic involvement and become
more reliant on experts, the press and political parties.
Voting has become the
one great action of our democratic involvement, a significant decrease in
responsibility since early America.
We still take part in juries--but now even
that power has been significantly reduced--especially since 1896.
In recent times popular issues like environmentalism and the
tea parties have brought a marked increase of active participation by regular
citizens in the national dialogue.
Barack Obama's populist appeal brought a lot
of youth into the discussion. The Internet and social media have also given
more power to the voice of the masses.
When the people do more than just vote, when they are
involved in the on-going dialogue on major issues and policy proposals, the society is more democratic--in the
American founding model--and the outlook for freedom and prosperity brightens.
The Role of the
People
Human nature being what it is, no people of any nation may
be truly prepared for democracy.
But--human
nature being what it is--they are more prepared to protect themselves from
losses of freedom and opportunity than any other group.
Anti-democratic forces
have usually argued that we need the best leaders in society, and that experts,
elites and those with "breeding," experience and means are most suited to be
the best leaders.
But free democratic societies (especially those with the
benefits of limited, constitutional, representative, and locally participative
systems) have proven that the right leaders
are better than the best leaders.
We
don't need leaders (as citizens or elected officials) who seem the most
charismatically appealing nearly so much as we need those who will effectively
stand for the right things.
And no group is more likely to elect such leaders
than the regular people.
It is the role of the people, in any society that wants to
be or remain free and prosperous, to be the overseers of their government.
If
they fail in this duty, for whatever reason, freedom and widespread prosperity
will decrease. If the people don't protect their freedoms and opportunities,
despite what Marx thought, nobody will.
No vanguard, party or group of elites
or experts will do as much for the people as they can do for themselves.
History is clear on this reality.
We can trust the people, in America and in any other nation,
to promote widespread freedom and prosperity better than anyone else.
Two Challenges
With that said, we face at least two major problems that
threaten the strength of our democratic republic right now in the United
States.
First, only a
nation of citizen-readers can maintain real freedom. We must deeply understand
details like these:
In short, we must study the great classics and histories to
be the kind of citizen-leaders we should be.
The people are better than any
other group to lead us, as discussed above, but as a people we can know more,
understand more, and become better leaders.
Second, we face
the huge problem all great democratic powers have eventually faced: how to
reconcile our democratic society at home with our imperialism abroad.
As George Friedman has argued, we now control a world empire larger than any in
history, whether we want to or not.
Yet a spirit of democratic opportunity, entrepreneurial
freedom, inclusive love of liberty, freedom from oppressive class systems, and
promotion of widespread prosperity is diametrically opposed to the arrogant,
selfish, self-elevating, superiority-complex of imperialism.
This very
dichotomy has brought down some of the greatest free nations of history.
On some occasions this challenge turned the home nation into
an empire, thus killing the free democratic republic (e.g. Rome).
Other nations
lost their power in the world because the regular people of the nation did not
reconcile their democratic beliefs with the cruelty of imperial dominance and
force (e.g. Athens, ancient Israel).
At
times the colonies of an empire used the powerful democratic ideals of the
great power against them and broke away.
At times the citizens of the great
power refused to support the government in quelling rebellions with which they
basically agreed (e.g. Great Britain and its relations with America, India, and
many other former colonies).
Many of the great freedom thinkers of history have argued
against empire and for the type of democratic republic the American framers
established--see for example Herodotus, Thucydides, Aristotle, the Bible,
Plutarch, Tacitus, Augustine, Montaigne, Locke, Montesquieu, Gibbon, Jefferson,
The Declaration of Independence, and
Madison, among others.
The Federalist
mentions empire or imperialism 53 times, and not one of the references is
positive.
In contrast, the main purpose of the Federalist Papers was to make a
case for a federal, democratic republic.
Those who believe in American exceptionalism (that the
United States is an exception to many of the class-oriented patterns in the
history of nations) now face their greatest challenge.
Will America peacefully
and effectively pull back from imperialism and leave dozens of nations
successfully (or haltingly) running themselves without U.S. power?
Will it set
its best and brightest to figuring out how this can be done? Or to increasing
the power of empire?
Empire and Freedom
Some argue that the United States cannot divest itself of
empire without leaving the world in chaos.
This is precisely the argument
nearly all upper classes, and slave owners, make to justify their unprincipled
dominance over others.
The argument on its face is disrespectful to the people
of the world.
Of course few people are truly prepared to run a
democracy--leadership at all levels is challenging and at the national level it
is downright overwhelming.
But, again--the people are more suited to oversee
than any other group.
And without the freedom to fail, as Adam Smith put it,
they never have the dynamic that impels great leaders to forge ahead against
impossible odds. They will never fly unless the safety net is gone.
The people can survive and sometimes even flourish without
elite rule, and the world can survive and flourish without American empire.
A
wise transition is, of course, the sensible approach, but the arrogance of
thinking that without our empire the world will collapse is downright
selfish--unless one values stability above freedom.
How can we, whose freedom
was purchased at the price of the lives, fortunes and sacred honor of our
forebears, and defended by the blood of soldiers and patriots in the
generations that followed, argue that the sacrifices and struggles that people
around the world in our day might endure to achieve their own freedom and
self- determination constitute too great a cost?
The shift will certainly bring major difficulties and
problems, but freedom and self-government are worth it.
The struggles of a free
people trying to establish effective institutions through trial, error,
mistakes and problems are better than forced stability from Rome, Madrid,
Beijing, or even London or Washington.
America can set the example, support the process, and help
in significant ways--if we'll simply get our own house in order.
Our military
strength will not disappear if we remain involved in the world without imperial
attitudes or behaviors. We can actively participate in world affairs without
adopting either extreme of isolationism or imperialism.
Surely, if the world is as dependent on the U.S. as the
imperial-minded claim, we should use our influence to pass on a legacy of
ordered constitutional freedom and learning self-government over time rather
than arrogant, elitist bureaucratic management backed by military might from
afar.
If Washington becomes the imperial realm to the world, it will
undoubtedly be the same to the American people. Freedom abroad and at home may literally be at
stake.
The future will be significantly impacted by the answers to
these two questions:
Who are we, really? Today we are part democracy, part
republic, and part empire.
Can we find a way to mesh all three, even though the
first two are fundamentally opposed to the third?
Will the dawn of the 22nd
Century witness an America free, prosperous, strong and open, or some other
alternative?
If the United States chooses empire, can it possibly retain the
best things about itself?
Without the Manifest Destiny proposed by the Founders,
what alternate destiny awaits?
Above all, will the regular citizens--in American and
elsewhere--be up to such leadership?
No elites will save us. It is up to the
people.
To get Oliver's books on similar topics, including The Coming Aristocracy and FreedomShift: 3 Choices to Reclaim America's Destiny, go to oliverdemille.com. *******************  Oliver DeMille is the founder and former president of George Wythe University, a co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd Online.He is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom, and FreedomShift: 3 Choices to Reclaim America's Destiny.
Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.
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