Has democracy failed us?

This is my speech for my house debating final, in which I am arguing that democracy has failed us.  To get to this stage of the competition, I successfully argued against cariogenic freezing and life extending treatments for the terminally ill. 

  Good morning everyone, I am Tom Hennessy and I am here to speak on why democracy has in fact failed us.   Before I begin with my line of argument, I would like to make it clear that taking this side of the debate does not mean that I am proposing another system of government than democracy.  I am a democrat and believe that democracy is the ultimate form of government as it combines and balances the three crucial elements of a successful state: rule of law, effective institutions and accountability to the people it governs.  This debate is by no means a call for a dictatorship, which at best treats its citizens like immature children, incapable of governing themselves and at worst as disposable trash or as resources to be exploited.  The issues facing democracy do not require an overhaul of the democratic system, only reforms. 

Democracies failings are due to political decay.  This means a decline in the quality of government, not to be confused with the decline of the system itself.  Political decay in in Western democracies has taken the form of political institutions becoming dysfunctional due to excessive rules and regulations and entrenched political actors, who are often powerful and wealthy figures who hinder reforms. 

The first example of decay that I am going to introduce is the over importance of law, which dictates what a government can and can’t do. This may seem like an attractive proposal, that the government’s power is checked by a powerful legal system, so that once elected, they cannot simply rule as dictator.  We did learn from 1930s Germany right? But the reality of this theory is very different, while a degree of checks are important, the legal system has proven so effective at limiting the government’s power that decision making and strong, decisive leadership has become virtually impossible. In California for example, every citizen has a right to sue the government either because they did not enforce a certain law, or because a law is not legitimate.  This makes governance extremely inefficient because everybody is threatened with lawsuits.

This inability to govern effectively also extends to the entire United States.  The country’s famous constitution is deliberately designed to stop any one party from possessing too much power.  By multiplying checks and balances to all levels of government, it has become a vetocracy, which is a country where the decision making process can be halted if a single person opposes whatever act the government is attempting to do.  In such a state, the US cannot, in all likelihood, decay into a dictatorship like Weimar Germany, but on the other hand it is extremely difficult to pass reforms and to govern more effectively.  The United States faces a very serious debt problem, which is solvable through political compromise, but Congress cannot effectively cooperate to resolve this crisis, between 2009-16, it did not pass a budget according to its own rules, and in 2013, shut down the entire government because it could not agree on paying for past debts.  This ineffectual system of government is hardly a source of inspiration around the world. 

While this is a major issue, I think the bigger problem is to do with people using the state for their own personal gain. Corruption is present in Western democracy and it is getting worse.  While bribery is outlawed, what is not covered by the law is what biologists call reciprocal altruism, or gift exchange.  In a gift exchange, giving a present to someone does not mean that they have to give you another gift back, as in trading, Giving a gift only means that they have a moral obligation to you, and will be likely to return the favour at a later time and place.  The law bans trades between politicians and supporters, but not the exchange of favours. This natural behaviour, which can be observed in Chimps, is the single biggest reason for why democracy is failing. 

In America, interest groups are able to influence members of Congress, the American parliament in perfectly legal ways simply by making donations and waiting for future favours. For example, very few big businesses, which heavily fund political parties, actually pay tax at the rate of the American tax code because of their links to politicians.  They are almost always made up of the small elite in a society, who are well organised. The reason for this level of organisation is clear to anyone who has ever tried to make plans in a group chat; in a small group, plans can be made easier, while trying to arrange anything in a large group will result in hours of pointless arguing.  The same goes for interest groups.  A small group of wealthy people with almost identical interests, such as investment bankers, will be better organised  and better able to campaign than the general public. Therefore, the politicians in office, who are retuning favours to their wealthy supporters are only representative to the richest and best organised elements of society. Therefore, politics is becoming to be defined by wealthy and well-organised interest groups. Such an occurrence was noted in 380BC by the Ancient Greek philosopher Socrates, who observes that after a while a democracy will decline into an oligarchy, which is a country run by its elites, who today are coming to rule through interest groups.  Despite the clear injustices of such a system it is very difficult to make change. No political party has any reason to cut off their funding from interest groups, and interest groups don’t want a system where money does not buy influence. 

To conclude, no one living in a liberal democracy should be complacent about its survival.  There is no automatic measure that makes progress inevitable, or that prevents political decay.  Democracies exist and survive only because people are willing to fight for them; strong leadership, organisational ability and sheer good luck are needed for them to prevail over enemies that range from Nazism to the human tendency to return favours.  Right now, we are at a crossroads at the future of democracy, we are undoubtedly experiencing political decay, and it is here and now that reform needs to happen.  The current system muddles through, it leads to huge waste, delay and dissatisfaction with the quality of government.  This dissatisfaction has been shown by events such as the election of Trump, Brexit and the rise of the alternate right, who all used anti-establishment rhetoric as a centrepiece to their campaigns. 

Thank you for your time