We are still in lock-down and so again we met online. As we waited for all members to join, we joked about haircuts – how is one supposed to have hair cut during Covid-19 lockdown? Some members appeared distinctly shaggy, others had been well-trimmed by spouses, who themselves are feeling self-conscious about the state of their hair. It is just one of the many minor issues of the Corona virus pandemic, dwarfed by the major issues it raises. There is one consolation: plenty of free time is available to read (or listen to) a good book.
This month’s book turned out to be extremely topical. It was published in 2018, just before Covid-19. The fragility of democracy in the face of this new global challenge had not yet been exposed. Now, the pandemic has underlined the case made in the book, that democracy has reached middle-age and in its present form it is not fit for purpose. It isn’t a particularly new viewpoint – one member noted that the Guardian columnist George Monbiot had made the same argument the day before:
The author of the book, David Runciman, is Professor of Politics at Cambridge University, and son of Viscount Garry Runciman, the political scientist and historical sociologist. Father and son both went to Eton and Cambridge, but they have evidently eschewed the path to politics that many from those esteemed stables have pursued, and instead opted for an academic life where they can stand back from the fray, observe, analyse and write. David Runciman’s writing has been well-received: the cover proclaims the Guardian’s opinion ‘Bracingly intelligent—a wonderful read’.
Did we agree? Broadly, yes; everyone had enjoyed the book. The author raises many thought-provoking issues (sometimes a bit rambling), and our discussion was lively.
In the Western world we think that democracy is the best system of government, and most people consider it to be an essential ingredient of a civilised society. Yet, it is easy to demonstrate the weakness of democracy by recalling the words attributed to Churchill: “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” Indeed, the average voter is ill-informed and ill-equipped to distinguish between the lies, half-truths and (sometimes) real truths uttered by the political leaders and re-enforced by media. Politics has become a stage-show; only clowns and con-men need apply. That’s a consequence of populism. Hence, many of today’s national leaders are manifestly unsuited to the difficult task in hand and citizens suffer. In many countries the situation appears to be getting worse rather than better: the USA, UK, Brazil, Venezuela and Hungary are examples. The author discusses one possible remedy – replacing democracy with epistocracy.
Epistocracy is a political system which concentrates political power in the hands of citizens specially selected according to their knowledge of public affairs: the more informed members of society are allowed more votes than the less-well educated. It is argued that public ignorance undermines the legitimacy of democracy because, to the extent that ignorant voters make bad choices, they harm their own and one another’s interests. Epistocracy would leave policy decisions largely in the hands of social-scientific experts or voters who pass tests of political knowledge. One member noted that epistocracy ‘of a sort’ was in place in Britain until the 1950s by special parliamentary seats. Arguably we still have elements of epistocracy: the House of Lords contains a supply of proven brain-power but whenever it speaks we are told it is an affront to democracy, so instead the noble Lords are mostly silent.
A related system of government is technocracy whereby those who govern have technical skills rather than parliamentary or oratorical skills. Ultimately, policy would be advised or even directed by computer models rather than human whim. Could a computer look after a nation, tweaking the levers of power at exactly the right moment to keep the ship on course? And if so, where does this leave democracy? One member recalled the sentient computer Hal 9000 in the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, and the famous quote when things went wrong “I’m sorry Dave, I can’t do that”. Despite Hal’s short-comings, it is hard to deny that artificial intelligence will ultimately replace human intelligence as the best decision-making machinery.
The author reviews the ideas in the book Against Democracy by political philosopher Jason Brenner, who argued that democracy is overrated — that it isn’t necessarily more just than other forms of government, and that it doesn’t empower citizens or create more equitable outcomes.
The COVID-19 pandemic underlines the inadequacy of western liberal democracy. The most western and the most liberal of democracies are among those performing worst (with the highest death rates). In contrast, authoritarian governments in the East have taken action promptly and steered their countries relatively swiftly away from deaths and economic disaster. The governments of UK and USA took the complacent view, summarised as ‘it could never happen here’, ignoring scientific and medical advice available in January right up to the last-minute (end of March) and consequently the countries face social and economic trauma. But this alone is unlikely to lead to the end of democracy because both countries have ‘strong institutions’ (Runciman says) and are resilient. Runciman provides historical perspective: he considers the history of government failure in USA and France in the 1890s where public mistrust of government was high and populism was rife. Yet the governments survived. However, today’s ‘strong institutions’ can be undermined by ‘fake news’ and ‘conspiracy stories’ spread rapidly on the internet. Our 20th Century democracies have these characteristics, all of which are potentially destabilizing:
- Uncontrolled corporate power (‘companies have become the real governors’)
- Significant sections of society are under-educated and unemployable
- Over-reliance on governmental traditions that are no longer fit for purpose
- Debt, personal and governmental
- Racism based on deep ethnic and religious divisions, polarised attitudes
- Gutter press, distorting truth and focussing on triviality
- The power of the web, with potential to undermine and corrupt any stable society
- Environmental issues which are expensive to solve
- Fragile food chains
- Widespread violence, self-harm, suicide (in the USA more people kill themselves than are killed by others).
Runciman states that one good thing about democracy is that it provides citizens with personal dignity. We could not agree. One member pointed out the case of democracy in India, applied to the caste system: not much personal dignity if you are one of the untouchables. It was argued that China fares better: it is definitely not a democracy but it is stable, people’s living standards have advanced at an unprecedented rate, and policy is planned over the long term by a connected Five Year Plans. However, there is a price to pay for tight political control, in terms of Human Rights.
In a concluding chapter ‘This is how democracy ends’, he says that Japan or Greece provide the best examples of how democracy will end – not with a bang but a whimper, wherein the problems are ‘kicked down the road’ and countries stagger along zombie-like. Growth ceases as the population grows steadily older.
The author does not give the reader any ‘fix’ to the problem of democracy’s decline. He says that democracy will have a drawn-out demise, being kept on life-support. He thinks there might be places where democracy retains some of its youthful characteristics. One of our members thought that local democracy might have an important role to play.
The book was pacey and certainly stimulating. Some readers might find it depressing, consoled only by the thought that looking into the future has never been reliable. We simply don’t know what will happen next. All our institutions are fragile and unpredictable when faced with sudden large threats (pandemic, nuclear war, asteroid strike). Climate change is arguably manageable as it happens relatively slowly, giving time for adaptation, albeit at huge cost.
Other readers may keenly dip into the five pages of ‘Further Reading’ that the author has thoughtfully provided. Me, I’ve had enough of this topic. I’ll read some more David Lodge next – Deaf Sentence is supposed to be good.
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