by Roger Bourke White Jr., copyright April 2015
One of the foundation assumptions in the US of how to run government is that vibrant, multi-party democracy is a good idea, and we Americans should do our best to spread this form around the world. But as good as it has been for America and Western Europe, much of the rest of the world has had a hard time making democracy work.
Why?
Why does vibrant multi-party democracy seem to be part-and-parcel with American... developed world actually, exceptionalism?
That is what this essay is about.
One consistent characteristic of those regions and cultures where democracy doesn't work is the high rates of betrayal in dealing with "Them"'s -- people who aren't part of the trusted circle.
This kind of betrayal works well in the thousands of generations of Neolithic and Agricultural Age environments so it has become strong instinctive thinking. But it doesn't work well in Industrial and Information Age environments. In these more modern environments more widespread and more diverse cooperation is needed for society to function effectively. Think of the difference between paying for something with simple barter and paying for something with gold coins, credit cards, or smart phones. For each of these there is a big difference in the level of trust and cooperation required. The result: Where betrayal is routine, bigger and diverse organizations can't thrive -- routine betrayal is too damaging to allow progress in building larger organizations and more complex ways of cooperating.
When this routine betrayal happens in the modern organization context it is criticized as corruption and organized crime if it is illegal, and over-regulation and conflict-of-interest if it is legal. The betrayal can easily lead to lots of violence as well in the forms of feuding and vendettas. Once again, these forms are hard on Industrial Age-style progress because they make building larger and diverse kinds of organizations so difficult.
The Industrial Age cultures need a lot of cooperation, and they need a lot of non-betrayal-style dissent -- loyal opposition -- they need it to be OK to argue about the right ways of doing things. They need this because there are so many ways of doing things in Industrial Age cultures, and some work much better than others. Part of discovering the best ways of doing things is to argue over the facts and proposed plans.
In the well-functioning Industrial Age environments, people can have vigorous arguments, and then cooperate heartily once a choice as been made. This change-to-cooperating happens instead of deciding that other person is beyond hope, pulling knives and going for a kill.
And, to be very clear, this cooperating instead of betraying is a learned skill. This is very much something which has to be part of the community's educational system at all levels.
So, if a community hasn't learned how to cooperate in Industrial Age-style ways, is democracy the best governing choice?
Probably not. It is a governing style that is going to have to wait a few generations before it can be implemented. In the meantime some form of "I've got the biggest stick. We are doing it my way."-style of governing is going to work better.
If this Big Stick governing style is producing rising material prosperity and helping the community learn how to cooperate in Industrial Age-style ways, then it is doing a good job. The contemporary showcase example of this kind of progress is Singapore undergoing an industrializing transformation during the 1960's through 2000's, under the ruler Lee Kuan Yew from 1959-1990. He retired, retained considerable influence, and died in 2015. His rulership was dictatorial, and under it Singapore successfully evolved from third world to first world in one generation. Many Chinese rulers have openly admired his success.
But his example is not an easy one to follow. Contemporary failures at following his example include Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela and Vladimir Putin in Russia. They are spending lots of their country's resources but not building diverse and thriving Industrial Age communities with it.
There are many stable alternatives to the democratic nation-state that America is. Here are some, and some of their virtues.
Monarchy is when there is a single ruler at the top in charge of administering the resources of the community. This person can be advised by a council. And the position is almost always one with a hereditary succession.
The virtue of this style is strong instinctive support -- most people understand the concept of a king and they can accept it as a stable ruling form in Agricultural-style communities.
Imperialism works when a community is too diverse to create its own monarch. An example of this is the diversity of communities in the Middle East region. In such a case bringing in an outsider, with a big outsider army to back him, can bring monarchy-style peace to a diverse community. This is what the Ottoman Empire did for the Middle East region.
If a community is diverse and no imperialist is available, local small-scale rulers will fill in the vacuum. This governing style brings a whole lot of diversity in ruling style to a region, and often a lot of violence. For this reason it is usually a transition governing style that will get replaced fairly quickly with some other form, usually a monarchy or imperialist form. China proved an interesting exception. The warlordism of the early 1900's was replaced with Communism in the 1950's.
America in the 2010's is not without its threats to democracy.
Democracy has served America quite well for two hundred years. But there have always been threats to it, as in, cultural trends that might make other forms work better. Ironically, what those threats were has always been subject to lots of arguing.
One of the threats of the 2010's is thin-skinnedness -- the Trigger Warning mentality. This is a big problem because if issues can't be talked about straightforwardly they can't be solved well. If a person can't listen to unpleasant talk about an unpleasant harsh reality, thinking of good solutions, and implementing them, becomes a technique of wishing and hoping, not diligently looking for practical solutions.
Looking harsh reality square in the face has long been a virtue of The American Way, but in the 2010's it looks as if this virtue is on the brink of being lost. If it is, democracy will stop working well. Democracy depends on voters being well informed. And being able to talk about issues in a straightforward manner is the kind of tolerance that supports democracy.
--The End--