The Failure of Western Democracy by Stephen Garvey

In this introductory article I hope to convey that Western Democracy, the current western political system, is inherently undemocratic, the globalization of Western Democracy is a threat to humanity, and there exists a more democratic alternative to Western Democracy.

Western (or Liberal) Democracy in mainstream western society refers to free, fair, multi-party, regular, competitive elections, in which the people through elections have the final say as to who governs.

My definition of Western Democracy, and I believe the accurate definition of Western Democracy, is an autocratic hierarchy of undemocratic political power based on the ability and means of dominant political parties, and their candidates and supporters, to influence and manipulate the people to vote a certain way. The autocratic, hierarchical nature of Western Democracy can be clearly seen by the dominant political parties in the West like the Republicans and Democrats in the United States, the Conservatives and Liberals in Canada, and the Conservatives and Labour in Britain.

So in contrast to so-called western elites who label Western Democracy as free and fair, I view Western Democracy as autocratic and unfair.

The question emerges—how can Western Democracy be undemocratic when the people are given an opportunity to remove governments through regular elections?

The democratic failure of Western Democracy arises from its systematic emphasis on totals of votes. Totals are the focal point or hinge of Western Democracy. (I.e. the party/candidate with the most votes generally wins.) The democratic problem is that the emphasis on totals produces a self-interested drive of political parties and their candidates to get the most votes, and to get the most votes, they influence and manipulate the voting public. Now partly due to advancement in communication technology, inequalities of capitalism, and the large size of western societies in terms geographic and population, political hierarchies form based on both the ability and means, politically, to influence and manipulate.

The reader may think that regardless of political influence and manipulation, the voter makes up his or her mind about who to vote for, and therefore influence and manipulation is cancelled out. This view, in which the individual is defined as an end-in-itself or a complete whole, is unsound when one considers the interconnectedness of things, and the incompleteness of human knowledge. (I.e. the individual is part of everything around him or her, and therefore himself or herself as an entity is incomplete. Also, the knowledge the individual uses to reason (and anyone else’s knowledge) is incomplete, due to infinite regress.) So the voter as an incomplete entity with incomplete knowledge is unavoidably subject to influence and/or manipulation.

Or as I say in Anti-Election (2006):

“To further elucidate this non-voter centered perspective, I ask the audience to consider that the act of choosing, a decision-making process, revolves around weighing information. For instance, to choose between Candidate A and Candidate B, a voter weighs relevant information about them. The important consideration in the context of voters, is that their information for weighing and ultimately choosing comes primarily from competing candidates and parties, and secondly from news agencies, political cueists, peers, family members, educators and so on. Within all this information there are layers upon layers of political influence and manipulation, so that voters choose from within a realm of information which is outside of their control. I.e. external information determines fundamentally how people vote.
Also, voters (or individuals) are interconnected to everything else; so voters do not and cannot choose because there is no concrete, absolute voter who chooses or can choose. Nor is there concrete, absolute individual information or opinion.

“All voters can do is reflect in a limited sense upon the information they receive. But the information, which is the basis for voters’ choice, is a form of political influence and/or manipulation. Hence, the notion of voters freely and independently choosing is an illusion. Also, it is a myth of Western Democracy.1

Why is Western Democracy being promoted so extensively and rigorously?

Western societies are fundamentally driven by capitalism. So Western Democracy through its autocratic, hierarchy is an excellent political system to maintain and expand the global capitalist agenda. I say this point, based on a majority of people being deceived into believing they have say, a final say, through elections.

If one looks closer, it becomes clear that capitalism and Western Democracy are complementary, because they are both driven by self-interest to get the most votes or to sell the most products and services, and they rely on influence and manipulation. In making this point, I am not saying that all products/services and political candidates are unbeneficial to the people.

Why should people care about the promotion and spread of Western Democracy?
According to the Democratic Peace Clock, which is based on Freedom House country ratings, in 2096 all of humanity will be a under the Western Democratic system. And as of 2000, 58.1% of humanity is already under the Western Democratic system. This prediction and rating are relatively consistent with other academic ratings of countries like the ratings/predictions from POLITY.3

Now the crucial question people face is what democratic alternative is there to Western Democracy?

An obvious alternative which comes to mind is the populist movement in Latin America. However, though this movement is making huge strides at correcting gross inequalities produced by capitalism and Western Democracy, the populist system is ultimately based on totals of votes, and therefore over time will be highly susceptible to the emergence of autocratic hierarchy.

To correct the failure of Western Democracy, we must remove the systematic emphasis on totals of votes, and change the drive of the system from self-interest to collective interest.

I propose a democratic evaluative system—Evaluative Democracy. It is based on the public submission of reasons for and against public collectives (my term for political parties) and their candidates, and the public reasons evaluation based on the soundness of the reasons themselves, and according to the better interest of society as a whole. So instead of elections, there would be determinations; instead of votes, there would be public reasons; and instead of political parties, there would be public collectives.
The democratic power of Evaluative Democracy is that all people have a say, influence and manipulation—the cornerstone of Western Democracy—would diminished significantly, and the drive and focus of Evaluative Democracy would on the collective interest.

I acknowledge that Evaluative Democracy is not perfect, but I believe it is fundamentally sound in terms of democracy defined as collective governance—of the people, by the people, and for the people.
Also, I acknowledge that the evaluators of public reasons are a potential weak point in the evaluative system. But I stress that it is within our means to hold evaluators accountable through public selection process, public dispute and criticism mechanisms, legal mechanisms, transparency of evaluators’ determinations, and confinement of evaluators to a set methodology of evaluation based on the collective interest and to an evaluation of only publicly submitted reasons.

For more information on Evaluative Democracy, see Introduction to ED

Notes:

1. Stephen Garvey, Anti-Election: Pro-Determination, Kimberley, BC, 2006, p. 21.

2. US State Department, Peformance and Accountability Reports, Financial Section, Washington DC, 2005, p. 399.

3. Democratic Peace Clock (online), Democratic Peace Clock

Stephen Garvey is a Canadian author of twelve years, and most recently on alternative political theory: The Critique of Reasonableness, Evaluative Democracy, The Political Evaluator, and Anti-Election. Currently, he is on a speaking tour entitled, “Re-Designing Democracy (What Al Gore did not say….)”