In his essay “America Is Not A Pure Democracy”, James Huffman recapitulates the facts of the American system. Under the Constitution we are not a “pure democracy” but a representative democracy in which representatives constrained by the limits of the Constitution are elected by votes of eligible electors.
Our present system is no longer one in which ” individual rights would prevail over national (and later state) power”. Over time that system has transmogrified into one under which factions (known as “political parties”) put forward candidates and one of two of the factions’ candidates is inevitably elected. In some jurisdictions, e.g. Chicago, for practical purposes a single faction’s candidate will inevitably be elected. The range of action of these factional representatives is limited not by the Constitution but predominantly by the self-interest of the representatives themselves.
Our present system, while calling itself “democracy”, more closely resembles a hereditary aristocracy than it does the system the Founders imagined.
In his essay Mr. Huffman repeats the conventional claim against “pure democracy”:
Factions and the tyranny of the majority remain threats wherever democracy is unconstrained. Witness the sad fates of Germany under Adolph Hitler, Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe, the Philippines under Ferdinand Marcos, Venezuela under Hugo Chávez, Bolivia under Evo Morales, and Russia under Vladimir Putin, all democratically elected leaders. The lesson, in the oft-quoted words of Winston Churchill, is that “democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.†As the foregoing examples underscore, democracy can fail with horrific consequences.
There is an exception to that rule: Switzerland. Switzerland’s median adult income is higher than ours (it’s more prosperous) and its Gini coefficient is lower than ours (it’s more equal) and it is for practical purposes a “pure democracy”. Every decision of any importance is subjected to a national referendum. Recently the Swiss have rejected a very high minimum wage (amounting to about $50,000) and a guaranteed annual income.
I have no explanation for why Switzerland has been able to avoid the “evils of faction” of which Madison warned but I think it’s something worth reflecting on.
Madison gave his opinion on the Swiss confederacy in Federalist #19:
“The connection among the Swiss cantons scarcely amounts to a confederacy; though it is sometimes cited as an instance of the stability of such institutions.
“They have no common treasury; no common troops even in war; no common coin; no common judicatory; nor any other common mark of sovereignty.
“They are kept together by the peculiarity of their topographical position; by their individual weakness and insignificancy; by the fear of powerful neighbors, to one of which they were formerly subject; by the few sources of contention among a people of such simple and homogeneous manners; by their joint interest in their dependent possessions; by the mutual aid they stand in need of, for suppressing insurrections and rebellions, an aid expressly stipulated and often required and afforded; and by the necessity of some regular and permanent provision for accomodating disputes among the cantons.”
And they were Papists. Somehow despite all their deficiencies they’ve managed to prosper and have remained independent for a half millennium without an aristocracy to tell them what to do.
To nit a pick, it wasn’t quite that easy, Calvin and Zwingli were active once upon a time but a major blood bath was avoided and democracy gradually grew while noble houses declined.
To my point, how long before the various ornaments in DC (and state houses) get the idea a managed Singapore style democracy is needed? Doesn’t seem to be too long.