The biggest problem with democracy is that we trust it, and think we are justified in doing so.

A long time ago, I was disappointed that Singapore was not democratic as other places. Whatever it was that made me so – a kiasu nationalistic impulse for my country to top all the rankings, a capricious streak of youthful rebelliousness, or a naïve vision of the liberation of man – it has since passed. It’s not that we should stop trying to become more democratic, but that, on reflection, our political inclinations may lean too much toward democracy.

Our political leaders have a clear stance on democracy: Singapore’s “special circumstances” justify a different sort of democracy, which by most measures is less liberal than Western democracies. Many find it difficult to accept this argument, but we tell ourselves that our government is not saying it does not believe in democracy, just that some of its assumptions do not hold in Singapore, thus justifying what Lee Kuan Yew terms “amendments” and “pragmatic adjustments.” This is more acceptable to our democratic sensibilities, and at least we can hope that our government continues to, in PM Lee Hsien Loong’s words, “pump air into the political balloon slowly.”

We seem to start from the assumption that democracy as a model holds if all its assumptions hold, just like perfect competition in economics. As long as you fulfil these conditions, there will be utopia. Even when Lee Kuan Yew questions something as basic as one-man-one-vote (“I’m not intellectually convinced that one-man-one-vote is the best.”), we reflect and we can offer reasons for why he might think so. In the extreme case of Afghanistan, your tribal elders decide who you should vote for, and you follow. The only people who really vote are the elders, and their votes are arbitrarily weighted by how large their tribe is. As Lee Kuan Yew notes:

“They say people can think for themselves? Do you honestly believe that the chap who can’t pass primary six knows the consequence of his choice when he answers a question viscerally, on language, culture and religion? But we knew the consequences. We would starve, we would have race riots. We would disintegrate.”

(Source unknown)

Again, we can comfort ourselves: in the ideal world, there is no Afghanistan, and everyone would be well-informed, intelligent, and willing to participate in the political process. In the ideal world, democracy would work. Our energies are then diverted to ensuring that these conditions exist, and we wait for the democracy that will then fall on our laps. We can even question the ‘robustness’ of the democratic model, just as we do with the perfect competition model, by pointing out how often (almost never) the assumptions hold in reality. But these are all issues in the implementation of democracy, not issues with democracy itself. While we are acutely aware of these ‘practical’ issues, I contend that we have overlooked the theoretical flaws of democracy.

We hold a presumption that democracy is, well, awesome.

At the end of the Cold War, Francis Fukuyama wrote a famous thesis, “The End of History and the Last Man”, declaring that the evolution of political and economic systems was over, and that democracy and capitalism were the victors. His sweeping generalisation attracted swarms of critics, but most denied the primacy of capitalism rather than the primacy of democracy. Even where the scepticism was directed at democracy, the objection was limited to “we can never implement it fully” or “it only works in the West”. We have inculcated a faith in democracy, not dissimilar to the faith in the divine right of kings that so long upheld monarchy as the system of governance. Instead of subjecting democracy to the same logical scrutiny we have used to criticise monarchy and communism with, we hold a presumption that democracy is, well, awesome.

Even in an ideal world where all assumptions hold, democracy is deeply, and perhaps fatally, flawed, and the skirting of this problem in mainstream discourse is disturbing. We may frequently bemoan the perceived totalitarianism of our government (and indeed we more often joke about it than despise it) but the tyranny that comes with democracy has the potential to do far worse. This is not because the momentary harm is greater, but because the harm festers without us perceiving it or wanting to perceive it for long periods before we realise how bad it can get. We’ve seen it manifest countless times in the history of democracy: discrimination against African-Americans; Israeli Arabs; indigenous Bolivians; Australian Aborigines; French Protestants; Sri Lankan Tamils; and, arguably, the LGBT community.

Neither nice nor neat

Voters have to express their view of a policy, or government, in one vote, and that has to cover the whole range of possible effects.

Society is composed of many different sub-groups, some majorities and others minorities. Since democracy awards political power to the majority, there is a high risk that majorities will emerge along sub-group lines such that majorities become self-serving at the expense of minorities. Utilitarian theorists argue that society is better off in net terms for any decision a democracy makes, but democracy itself is not necessarily a positive sum game. The loss sustained by each member of the minority may far outweigh the gain conferred upon each member of the majority, to such an extent that society experiences a net loss. In other words, if a decision results in dispersed gains for a large group and concentrated losses for a small group, the decision will go through anyway, to the detriment of society.

This is in part because a preference can only be expressed in a single vote and not in degrees. If we allowed each individual ten votes, the distribution of votes would, in theory, approximate the utility of society. But even if we give each voter more than one vote to express a degree, almost all voters will always use the maximum to make their voice count more than others’. Votes are free because they are a fundamental right of citizens. Therefore there is nothing to prevent voters from exaggerating the effects of policies: in a one-man-many-votes system, a scratch is as good as bleeding out from a stab to the heart. Voters have to express their view of a policy, or government, in one vote, and that has to cover the whole range of possible effects.

In response to all this we attempt our “adjustments” again: Canada’s guaranteed constitutional minority rights, Lebanon’s ‘consociationalism’ with quotas of representation for each group, or Singapore’s Presidential Council for Minority Rights. These policies deal with the most evident examples of tyranny of the majority we can think of: well-defined minorities of ethnicities, religions, or even sexual orientations. People adopt them as important parts of their identity, and this is why they can be protected specifically in our laws. These cases of minority subjugation are but flukes to us, juxtaposed against the ostensibly grand history of democracy. In the ideal democratic situation, sub-groups shouldn’t exist. But are these groups really just a coincidental occurrence?

American President Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act of 1968. (US Dept of Housing and Urban Devt)

When protection is pricey

Tyranny goes beyond these familiar categories. In any decision of even slight importance, people are affected, some negatively and some positively, and so the minority can take the form of Singaporeans who do not practise any religion; American adults with chronic diseases without health insurance with household incomes of below US$3,000 per month; or Batswana orphans in rural areas who are HIV positive and living with relatives rather than in state care. Tedious. We cannot protect all minorities that are vulnerable to subjugation, because the way we deal with tyranny of the majority is to take care of specific ‘problematic’ groups as if they were exceptions to the rule that democracy is a panacea, when they aren’t and it isn’t.

The established minorities typically have special rights granted to them in constitutions, or at least will have special mention in ‘anti-discrimination laws’ that extend to sub-groups such as race, religion, sex, sexual orientation and gender identity, disability, age, and socio-economic background. The reason for these choices is that protection often goes to the sub-group which can protest with enough vehemence and appeal to our sense of universal injustice, and perhaps even fight back with words, money, riots and bullets. In short, it’s arbitrary, and we protect them so we can appear to be doing a good job. Less noise means a better system.

We lull ourselves into thinking we can make “adjustments” again, and we believe it, because if no one makes noise, we think nothing’s wrong. But there are an infinite number of minorities, many of which have begun to resign themselves to the will of society because all they are told is that democracy is better than every other system. Policies can never keep up; even if you assume that these policies work. Since there will never be enough “adjustments”, by implication democracy is intrinsically flawed. But this doesn’t make it unique; rather this makes it just like all the other political philosophies humanity has proposed, adopted or discarded.

More, therefore right.

We have reduced our political discourse to “I have more marbles than you, and therefore I am right.”

But democracy enjoys its penthouse of privileges in today’s world. Even though the concept would have been foreign to us several centuries ago, today a phrase like “the majority is always right” seems to flow off our tongues. It seems natural to subject ourselves to the will of the people because we have inherited a culture of majority. A simple majority vote may be a good way to decide which movie to watch, but it is very possibly not as appropriate for stimulus packages, corporate taxes and austerity drives. It’s not that the majority is always wrong, but that it can make mistakes, often with the costliest and most hidden consequences.

We have reduced our political discourse to “I have more marbles than you, and therefore I am right.” In the UK’s general elections in May, no single party gained an absolute majority, and for several days there was uncertainty over which party, or parties, would form a government. If Labour and the Lib Dems got together, they would have 52% of the electorate behind them but less than half the seats in the House. Yet, the Tories argued, they ran as separate parties and 52% total support did not mean 52% support for a coalition. Therefore, even though the Tories alone had a plurality, not majority, of votes nor seats, perhaps more voters would be happy with a Tory minority government.

It was farcical. Counting the number of people in favour of and opposed to a particular policy or political candidate may be neat. There are no fractions (people are individuals and therefore integers), and it seems nice and objective when contrasted with the shady and subjective there-are-no-answers-to-these-questions world of political discourse. The need to make up our minds is conveniently devolved to every voter, and all that’s left is to measure what society as a whole thinks to decide on a course of action. Ease of measurement, however, is not a suitable criterion for choosing a political system. The crucial criterion is how often democracy gets it right.

David Cameron’s Big Society campaign, with emphasis on charity and volunteerism. (Number 10)

Self-interest, nothing more

To the theorists, the number of people you can convince is an indicator of how strong your case is, and thus if your policy gets more votes, it is the best policy, because “the tribe has spoken.” This is a misconception. It is situated in a world where the population is made up of independent policy experts with perfect knowledge, undeterred by what people around them think, and most importantly, impermeable to self-interest. They will recommend the best policy regardless of its effect on themselves and their loved ones. If we view the reality TV show Survivor as an experimental democracy, it is clear that it is self-interest that has spoken, and not the tribe.

Recently David Cameron, the UK’s new Prime Minister, launched a campaign for a “Big Society”. The rhetoric sounded nice: he wanted to return power to the people, expressing a clear preference for volunteerism over more government expenditure. Cameron is offering opportunities indeed – not for devolved power, but for tyranny to move from politics to society. People choose their causes arbitrarily. If someone’s mother (god forbid) dies of cancer, that person is far more likely to donate to cancer research than if he or she had no personal stake in the issue. Less popular and more controversial causes will lose the government protection they currently enjoy, not because they are less justified, but because they affect fewer people.

We shouldn’t caricature human nature as inherently bad or good, but the fact that humans can, and often do, act selfishly is clear enough. Our economy (homo economicus), and to some extent our society (advocacy, charity, volunteerism), already work based on these flawed principles of democracy. If we expose our government to the raw force of democratic will, our world would be far more unfair. It is for this reason that most democracies, even the ones we are happiest to call by that name, are representative and not direct. We respect them because they are just and try to offer all, not just a majority, of their citizens a better quality of life.

(From the eponymous 1993 album “The Other Two & You”)

The null alternative

What we don’t see is that democracy serves only the majority, which views itself as worth more than everyone else.

If we are to overthrow the tyranny of the majority within a democratic framework, we must act in the best interest of society at large and dismiss our selfish nature. Even an idealist knows that it’s impossible. The System can’t vote itself out. It is inconsistent with our basic instincts to protect what is ‘our own’, reflected in how we run our economy (capitalism), how we raise our children (with parental custody), and how we vote. We may want a more caring society, but we cannot escape self-interest. To claim otherwise is to be detached from reality. If political systems make us out to be more than we really are, they tend to consistently produce bad policy, and collapse.

Unfortunately, as Fukuyama’s thesis has shown, we seem to have reached equilibrium with political systems. Democracy seems more stable than any other system of governance to date, even though it is far from ideal, because democracy panders to the majority. If all humans are equal, then by a utilitarian argument, any form of ‘minority rule’ is not preferable to the ‘majority rule’ democracy provides. This is why we view the revolutions of the past few centuries as progress: because monarchs, feudal lords, the bourgeoisie and dictators served only themselves as if they were worth more than everyone else. When military coups occur, or a democratically elected leader clamps down on opponents, we frown because we see democracy as the way things should be.

What we don’t see is that democracy serves only the majority, which views itself as worth more than everyone else. As long as the majority is satisfied, we are ostensibly in utopia. If the Tories got a plurality of votes, they should form the government since the highest number of people would be happy, and for the rest who won’t be, tough. But progress occurs when human suffering is reduced, and we would be sorely mistaken if we believe that the project of human progress has been completed already.

There is no viable alternative to democracy. The quote often attributed to Winston Churchill rings true: “Democracy is the worst form of governance, except for all those other forms that have been tried.” But democracy should not be placed on a pedestal as a sort of theoretically perfect system to which we must all aspire by allowing its assumptions to be fulfilled in society, because it is not perfect and does not deserve that pedestal any more than feudalism, communism or anarchy. We have a long way to go yet, and the first step is to acknowledge that democracy is not the last step.