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Britannica article on democracy
Thoughts
about the Encyclopedia Britannica article on democracy
My
Encyclopedia Britannica, 1967 Edition, I am using as an end table beside our
chesterfield.
Months
ago, though, I dug out the volume with its article on democracy and went
through it. Only later did the significance of the article, and its place in
history, sink in. At first blush the article just seemed dated, written as it
was during the Cold War.
But then it struck me how our definition of democracy
has changed in the decades since it was written. We think of democracy as one
thing, but the author of this article distinguishes two breeds of democracy,
constitutional and totalitarian, the latter meaning democracy under communist
regimes.
Such was
the influence of Marxism that the author of this Britannica article had to take
its claim to democracy seriously. Its conclusion notes that democracy in the
20th Century had spread but it was still doubtful which of the two types,
constitutional or totalitarian, would win.
"Democracy
was in the ascendant everywhere, but only the future could tell whether the
prevailing form of democracy would prove to be constitutional or
totalitarian." (EB, Democracy, Vol. 7, p. 223)
Two
major features qualify the totalitarian breed of democracy as a democracy: one,
it includes a complete bill of rights and, two, its bicameral legislature
elected by universal suffrage. However, the leading role of the communist party
was unchallengeable, and it permitted no political action without its approval.
Hence, totalitarian.
"In
any normal sense of the word, democracy, a form of government which provides no
opportunity for the legitimate expression of popular preferences and which
confines the right of significant political action to a small minority of the
population is the reverse of democratic. The communists insist, however, that
the constitution of 1936 is the most democratic in the world, and that liberal
constitutions by comparison are nothing more than facades masking the realities
of a basically undemocratic society. This conclusion follows logically from the
premises of the Marxist conception of democracy." (EB, Democracy, Vol. 7,
p. 222)
The
total might of the party did not interfere with democracy because, according to
Marxist theory, everything human is derived from the material and economic. The
communist party only made sure that the economic fountainhead was pure. As long
as everything is informed by economics, how can the people not approve of the
result?
The
author of this article accepts the possibility of "totalitarian
democracy" because, according to the definition of democracy, both liberty
and equality of citizens are essential features, but if you cannot have both,
equality is more important.
He cites the following quote from Aristotle in
evidence,
"A
democracy is a state where the freemen and the poor, being in the majority, are
invested with the power of the state ... The most pure democracy is that which
is so called principally from that equality which prevails in it; for this is
what the law in that state directs; that the poor shall be in no greater
subjection than the rich; nor that the supreme power shall be lodged in either
of these, but that both shall share it. For if liberty and equality, as some
persons suppose, are chiefly to be found in a democracy, it must be so by every
department of government being alike open to all; but as the people are the
majority, and what they vote is law, it follows that such a state must be a
democracy." (Aristotle, Politics, IV, ch. 4, 1290b, 1291b))
Is a
constitutional democracy open to the freedom and equality of all? Are its
citizens allowed to vote in laws? Has that happened in living memory? Be that
as it may, here is what this Britannica author says in defense of
constitutional democracies against their rival school, totalitarian democracy.
"If
democracy is primarily a question of political rights, the democratic claims of
the U.S.S.R. are nonsense. Even if democracy is primarily a question of
economic equality, those claims are still dubious since many other countries,
including Britain and the United States, have gone a good deal further than
communist Russia in equalizing incomes. In the special terminology of Marxism,
however, the necessary and sufficient condition of democracy lies simply in the
elimination of private ownership of the instruments of production. There is no
private capital in the U.S.S.R. From this it follows that in the very special
Marxist sense of the word, the USSR is far more democratic than any liberal
state." (EB, Democracy, Vol. 7, p. 222)
This is
the passage that made me do a double take. A week long double take. I finished
reading and set the article aside for about a month. It kept bugging me, what
it said about equality in constitutional democracies. Finally, I just had to go
over it all again and set it down.
What the
author says about economic equality progressing more in constitutional
democracy shows that it was the competitive pressure of communism to beat them
out at their own game, equality, that pushed the capitalists. As soon as
Europe's communist regimes began to totter, that pressure went away and the
present extreme wealth loosed its bounds. Now capitalism has become out and out
plutocracy.
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