The Flattering Myth

It appears to me madness to base all our political efforts upon the faint hope that we shall be successful in obtaining excellent, or even competent, rulers. Sir Karl Popper

By Georgy at hilislaw.substack.com; @hilislaw at x.com

Opinions about why we should have democracy, or why democracy is preferable to other forms of government, are anything but rare. Indeed, so much has been said and written on that account that, in my view, Professor Andreski’s diagnosis, which he made in 1972 – almost sixty years ago, is now fully vindicated: “The word 'democracy', incidentally, has long ago ceased to have any definite meaning, and in common usage has come to indicate a mere approval of the given system, whatever it might be.” Painfully true, isn’t it? Opinions about democracy are an embarrassment of riches. The real thing, that is, the system we actually have today, is still very much in rags. So, can we find a proper, logically rigorous and sound case for democracy?

In my view, such a case was presented by Sir Karl Popper – a great thinker of the past, whose pro-democracy formula stands out, being qualitatively different from mere crowd-pleasing babble. How does it stand out? Because it is straightforward, logical, and, right at the outset, it leaves all pleasantries behind.

Democracy is preferable, as Popper observed, not because it is somehow intrinsically good, or noble, or spiritually elevated, or ideally representative of the general will, or historically pre-ordained. Such sentiments about democracy are pretty much what they are – so much maudlin dross and bunkum, designed mostly to beguile the many-headed. No, in reality, democracy is preferable not because it is good, but because all other options are worse.

How come? Worse? Worse than what? As some might rightly observe, the fruits of democracy can be perfectly rotten: arrangements such as mob rule, for example, or oligarchic dictatorships can be produced through the mechanisms of democracy. What’s even worse, as history shows, under democracy, people tend to elect leaders perfectly unfit for rule: demagogues, populists, oligarchs, dead-eyed technocrats and mass-surveillance sadists.

Perfectly correct, I say, but that’s exactly Popper’s point. You see, Popper was, fundamentally, a realist. To him, the ‘damned question’of political philosophy, the question of “who should rule?” was a meaningless question. Why? Because, according to Popper, no matter how we answer that question, i.e. whether we say “the best should rule”, or “the wisest”, or “the general will”, or “the people”, or “industrial workers,” at the end of the day, we invariably get the worst. An observation as old as philosophy itself! People who are fit to rule rarely ever rule; people who are unfit to rule and should never be allowed to rule invariably become rulers.

It’s not to say that things mightn’t be good at first! By a stroke of luck, we might get a Pericles or a Solon as our ruler, but eventually (and inevitably) the throne will be taken by a shaved ape. Once again, a hard lesson of history: that a brazen-faced, rascally rogue should take power is never a matter of “if” or even “how”: it is a matter of “when” and the answer is usually “now!”

All of that our old philosopher understood, coming to the following conclusion: “It forces us to replace the question: Who should rule? by the new question: How can we so organise political institutions that bad or incompetent rulers can be prevented from doing too much damage?” In other words, how do we kick that rogue out of power without having to tear down and burn the commonwealth? Well, if theparasite-in-chief is a tyrant, an oligarch, or an absolute monarch – good luck kicking him out. Chances are, people won’t be able to budge him without a full-blown civil war, which, needless to say, is a very grim and grotty prospect, entailing lots of suffering and bloodshed with very uncertain political and social outcomes. The commons might succeed and displace the tyrant, but at the expense of the destruction of the commonwealth. A very sour deal.

To avoid rebuilding the country from the ground up every time we change the leader, Popper suggested democracy, since democracy offers the possibility of removing rulers without bloodshed. Here’s Popper’s final definition, giving us the logical criterion of democracy: “Democracy cannot be fully characterised as the rule of the majority, although the institution of general elections is most important. For a majority might rule in a tyrannical way. In a democracy, the powers of the rulers must be limited; and the criterion of a democracy is this: In a democracy, the rulers—that is to say, the government—can be dismissed by the ruled without bloodshed.”

As you can notice, this definition places an explicit safeguard against dictatorship by making a peaceful transition a hard requirement. If we can get rid of our rulers by peacefully voting them out of office, we have democracy. If we cannot do that, we don’t. In essence, this is a litmus test of whether we have democracy or not. Very simple, right?

But I gather you can sense the presence of the elephant in the room: if we follow Popper’s criterion, can we say we presently have democracy or live under democracy? Well…

Democracy Without the Dismissal

So, if we accept the Popperian definition of democracy, then, considering our current state of affairs, we cannot help but notice a certain pattern of degradation. Methinks, our brazen-faced rogues adapted to democracy, or rather had democracy adapt to their particular wants and needs.

Pay close attention: indirectly, Popper’s definition of democracy still answers the question of “who should rule?”, giving the people sovereign right to vote for their government. Essentially, it is the people who rule, but their rule is conceptualised as an exercise of negative power: people vote bad rulers out, rather than vote “good rulers” in. Thus, the whole point of democracy lies in people’s ability to change the government: to replace rulers, to remove and assign decision-makers according to the people’s will. And that’s exactly what the rogues hijacked!

How did they do that? The idea was simple enough to be brilliantly effective: keep the mechanism of democracy, but abstract proper political power from it. That’s the real cause behind the popular complaint about the seemingly immovable “uniparty”: no matter who you vote out and vote in, government policy doesn’t change, and it doesn’t change because the actual political power lies outside the mechanism of voting, parties, and popular candidates. Elections, under such an arrangement, become a charade, a shuffle of meaningless figureheads, and that’s exactly what the rogues desire. Power, real power, remains safely in their hands.

Other disarming ploys include, but are not limited to:

• The Administrative State: it’s when you elect a new government but then discover that 90% of the actual levers of state are held by permanent, unelected civil servants in a glass building which is not even in your country.

• Supranational Institutions: you elect a national government that campaigns on, say, controlling borders or exiting ruinous energy pacts. It takes office… only to discover it is bound by treaties, EU regulations, IMF conditions, and WTO rules that cannot be altered without the unanimous consent of some remote parasites who were never on your ballot.

• Judicial Supremacy: you vote the rascals out, but their policies are guarded by black-robed mandarins who answer to no electorate and cannot be impeached.

• Central Banks and Technocratic Agencies: monetary policy, financial regulation, public health emergencies… whole swathes of governance have been declared “too important” for mere voters. Central bankers and expert panels operate with statutory independence, setting interest rates, printing money, or imposing lockdowns without ever caring to ask the hoi-polloi.

Then again, there’s the all-encompassing ploy of the proportional electoral system. Why is the proportional electoralsystem such a problem? Because it allows small parties to wield disproportionately great, often decisive influence in coalitions, thus sustaining deeply unpopular governments explicitly against the wishes of the voters. This, in its own turn, leads to the following undemocraticdevelopments:

A) The Decay of Responsibility. In a well-functioning democracy, a party holds a clear majority. This means full and transparent responsibility, both personal (a politician) and collective (the party), for government actions. In Proportional systems, however, all responsibility is blurred. Politicians can always claim that they “had to concede to their coalition partners” or that “the other party’s veto forced their hand.” Suddenly, no one in government can be held accountable, especially when it comes to treachery and failure.

B) The Frustration of the Democratic Mechanism. In a properdemocracy, the election day is the Day of Judgment: a day when a government stands accountable for its deeds and omissions, for its successes and failures. The election day is when the Popperian principle gets fulfilled – people peacefully kick out morons, rascals, and rogues. Proportional representation, however, frustrates all of that. Already, voters know that, chances are, no single party will achieve an absolute majority. Thus, instead of treating elections as the Day of Judgment to convict and dismiss a government for its failures, voters spread their support across multiple parties, leading to fragmented results. This fragmentation enables unpopular politicians to retain power by negotiating new alliances and coalitions with smaller parties. The result? An unpopular government persists despite dissatisfaction, frustrating the mechanism of non-violent removal from power. Political power still remains with the rogues.

Finally, there’s the moral side of the problem. How does all of thatinfluence the characters of our prospecting politicians? What sort of behaviour does this arrangement incentivise? Well… First, let me offer you a little tableau from a play by Aristophanes, written sometime in 424BC:

Cleon: You have embezzled a sum from the Treasury that runs into five figures, and I swear you shall pay for your villainy! Agoracritus: And you got sixty thousand drachmas from the Potidaeans, and don’t deny it! Cleon: Would you be prepared to take six thousand to keep quiet about it? Agoracritus: I'm sure I would, with pleasure. 

In a nutshell, this is precisely the kind of moral fibre and behaviour our present system incentivises. Our system is fine-tuned to produce more rogues: personal responsibility is diluted, loyalties are shifted from the people to the party apparatus, sponsors, donors, various lobbying groups and special-interest PACs. Proportional representation, for example, turns politicians into mere extensions of the party apparatus, where apparatus and its favour come first while direct voter approval comes last. This, in its own turn, creates fertile ground for “moral flexibility”, or plain old roguery: politicians who are willing to compromise with truth, honesty, hard-held convictions, and the trust of the public are more likely to climb the ranks and secure a safe position on party lists. An unscrupulous willingness to toe the party line no matter what is rewarded much more than ideological purity and public accountability. All in all, our present system is, in essence, a school of political roguery that churns out the worst, whilst keeping the potential best down in the gutter.

And that brings me to the final reflection: democracy, or at least its Popperian concept, is an admirable thing. It is imperfect, yet still better than the arbitrary rule of narcissistic despots and warty old kings. Yet, considering all that I thought about and said above, do we have democracy? Well, fry me in butter and simmer me in prune juice, but I’ll be damned if we do. All we have is a flattering myth…

Agoracritus: I still don’t know how you expect me to manage all the People’s business. Demosthenes: Dead easy. Just carry on doing what you’ve always done, Mix all the City’s policies into a complete hash, butter the People up a bit, throw in a pinch of rhetoric as a sweetener, and there you are. All the other essentials of a good politician you’ve got already. You’ve a voice to scare a Gorgon, you were brought up in the Market Square, oh yes and born in the gutter – what more do you need? Here, put on this wreath and pour libation to Stupidity.