This land is your land, and this land is my land
– Woody Guthrie
In Aesop’s fable, the frogs, tired of self-rule, asked Zeus for a king. In response, Zeus gave them a gentle log, which they mocked. They demanded a stronger ruler, so Zeus sent them a stork, and it ate them. There is no philosopher-king, no benevolent dictator. The act of becoming king and staying king requires that the consolidation of power be the priority of those in power, even when it is not in the interest of the people. The very existence of a king or emperor or dictator or oligarchy guarantees that the system will not work in the interest of the people.
Democracy is a moral assertion. It is a claim that power should be distributed among the governed, that this is right and good, that we should work to achieve this in our self-governing, that we should protect this system, even fight for it, even die for it if necessary. A democratic government works for the good of the many and protects the rights of the individual. The entire wolf pack will be fed. No monkey shall come to harm.
In the face of macroeconomic power consolidation, fueled by the powerful actors who drive that consolidation for their own gain, democracy is a bold, difficult, and constant task. Where democracy continues to exist, it is being actively exercised and protected.
Western Democracy
You are the government
– Bad Religion
The idea of democracy is as old as civilization itself, yet the famed city-state of ancient Athens is most often credited as the birthplace of Western democratic government. Citizens there participated directly in civic decision-making through an assembly. Government roles were filled by lot rather than election, and each free adult male voted on every issue. Even though the system excluded the majority of the population (women, slaves, and non-citizens), it was still an effort in spreading power among more of the people.
Later, Rome introduced to the world a representative model of democracy that is similar to ours today in the U.S. The Roman Republic flourished as a nation, yet consolidation worked its way, and eventually, Rome birthed an emperor. The authoritarian government that followed was to rule the Western world for hundreds of years. Then, after the collapse of that empire, the Western world saw a millennium of clashing kingdoms spread across the vast land, each a small economy where the king was fully sovereign by the will of god. Eventually, we see democracy raise its head again. The Magna Carta (signed in 1215) was a document that came from an assembly of Lords in England that limited the king’s power and introduced early principles of accountability on the monarchy. The idea that not even the king was above the law was a fundamental change in belief system that led eventually to the American revolution and the birth of the United States of America. Being a nation of laws is what keeps a democratic government from the hands of a would-be king.
Industrialization in the 20th century drove inclusivity in the system, and we saw the expansion of voting rights to working-class men; the rise of labor movements and political parties advocating for economic and political equality; women’s suffrage movements achieving milestones such as New Zealand granting women the vote in 1893 and the US doing so in 1919; and the fall of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires leading to new democratic governments across most of Europe.
Today, democracy is the dominant form of governance throughout the Western world. But while democracy is an old concept, modern democratic governments are not that old at all. We have a few hundred years of democratic governments under our belts here in the Western world. We cannot take these for granted. History shows us that what comes next is an empire. We must be on guard from populism, misinformation, and economic inequality, as these threaten our democratic institutions worldwide and lead us into a world of authoritarian control.
American Democracy
A government of laws, and not of men
– John Adams
The United States of America was founded on democracy. It is the central principle of the Constitution and of the government as designed by the founding fathers and ratified by the states. In the 19th Century, we built our nation on the principle of democracy. Then, as we moved into the 20th Century, democracy was our justification for entering two world wars. Americans held democracy as sacred and principle to what America is. Democracy was freedom. And that was something worth fighting for, even dying for.
As we moved into the Cold War, we found ourselves fighting the growth of communism. So, to rally the people against communism, the American government leaned on what we held sacred as a people. The government called upon us in the name of democracy. They even called upon us in the name of Christ. I once heard a baby-boom grandmother answer her grandson’s question, “What does communism mean?” with the soft and sincere answer, “It’s people who don’t believe in God.”
The problem with all of this messaging is that it’s false. While the USSR weeded out religion with violence, which made it the enemy of Christianity, and Stalin was an authoritarian dictator, which is the opposite of democracy, communism is merely an economic system. Communism is not the opposite of religion. It’s not the opposite of democracy, either. Communism is the opposite of capitalism.
It took some years and lots of propaganda for the American people to move their allegiance from democracy to capitalism. But it has happened, it seems. Democracy and free market economics were so intertwined in the lives of Americans, that the shift in paradigm seemed natural and went mostly unnoticed. But the implications are significant. Not only do we as a nation struggle to see how un-democratic the outcome of our current capitalist system is, but we cheer those who are consolidating power as champions of our system and heroes of our society.
America was founded as a democracy. Above all other beliefs, above all other commonalities, above all else, America was founded to be a government of the people, for the people, and by the people. Today, our democracy is under great threat by both unchecked economic forces pushing towards the Power Law Distribution and by intentional actors who seek to create authoritarian rule over our nation. We must reclaim our nation by reclaiming democracy as our guiding principle. We must implement democracy through our economic systems, for any real change is economic. If our great wealth was among the people, then so would be prosperity, rights, justice, opportunity, and governance.