From: LeoCasey <LeoCasey-AT-aol.com>
Date: Sat, 21 Mar 1998 21:28:51 EST
Subject: M-TH: Democracy and the Tyranny of the Majority


First, in response to Justin's intervention, with which I generally agree, I
would clarify my position as follows. While I do believe that democracy must
involve both majority rule and minority rights, I do not think that a purely
parliamentarian system based on legislative supremacy is necessarily
undemocratic, contra Rawls. Certainly, while the US probably has the strongest
tradition of protection for individual and minority rights, most notably since
mid-20th century with the end of de jure segregation and the incorporation of
the Bill of Rights, there is a longer and by no means unimportant tradition of
such in the UK. My point simply is that the lack of institutional mechanisms
for the protection of individual and minority rights in a pure parliamentary
system makes it much more susceptible to tyrannies of the majority, not that
it must necessarily develop them. If one wants to examine these systems in
comparative context, the one I find most interesting is that emerging in
Canada, now that its Constitution has been repatriated. It remains
parliamentary, in the sense that the executive is still chosen from and
dependent on the legislature, but it has a Bill of Rights and a system of
judicial review, so that the legislation of the federal and provincial
governments still must abide by that rights. Since I believe that the
separation of the executive and the legislature creates real problems of
accountability in government, as well as accentuates the tendency toward the
concentration of power in the executive, I would tend to favor the Canadian
model. (Whether it can survive the question of Quebec is another matter.)

Secondly, James H. recent round of replies to Justin and myself contain what I
believe to be two related flaws, the first historical and the second
philosophical. He suggests that problems of the "tyranny of the majority" are
always, at root, problems of elite manipulation. Further in that vein, he
suggests that racism (slavery, Jim Crow segregation, genocide of the
indigeneous peoples, etc.) in the American context was the product of elite
domination rather than popular sentiment.

This strikes me as a variation of the old "racism (sexism, etc.) is the tool
of the bosses to divide the workers" argument. While it would be foolish to
deny that these oppressive ideologies can be used in this manner, it is no
less foolish to insist, as James H. does, that they can be reduced to elite
manipulation alone. Historically, his argument can not be sustained. While
there are many counter-factuals, let me stick to the specific example of
American racism. I do not believe that such a contention can withstand the
best historiography of the phenomenon -- C. Vann Woodard (especially his
classic _The Strange Career of Jim Crow_), Eric Foner, Edmund Morgan, James
MacPerson, even Eugene Genovese. American racism has been an extraordinarily
populist phenomenon. I would recommend in particular a generally not well-
known text which comments directly on these issues as they pertain to the
debate with James H., Edmund Morgan's _Inventing the People: The Rise of
Popular Sovereignty in England and America._ (NY: WW Norton, 1988) Morgan
shows how the creation of the "American people" and popular sovereignty was
part of the same historical process which defined out of that people the
racial "other", most notably the African-American. The subsequent, especially
post-slavery, history of American racism (clearly the slave-owning elite had a
particularly strong investment in slavery) shows considerable popular roots,
especially in its most violent and horrific moments (ie, lynchings). One can
not ignore, as well, the role of racism in the early labor movement, and not
just with respect to African-Americans; the labor movement was the most active
force, and often in opposition to elite elements, in the anti-Asian racism
that took force on the west coast at the turn of the century and in anti-
immigrant movements as well. Finally, frontier culture, hardly a bastion of
stable elite domination, was invariably genocidal in its attitudes toward
indigenous peoples.

One could argue, as I suspect James H. would do, that all of this proves
nothing except that the popular masses are in the thrall of elite ideology and
manipulation, even when their racist (sexist, etc.) actions are in opposition
to elite interests. This argument assumes that, so long as the elite rules,
there are no "authentic" expressions of popular sentiment, only refractions of
elite domination. If this were indeed true, of course, then all social change
-- much less radical social change -- would be impossible. But, more
importantly, what this argument relies upon is the romantic notion --
Rousseauian at core -- of the natural innocence and goodness of the people.
Strip away the perversion of civilization and elite rule, the people will be
good. Or as James H. would have it, "The difficulty in this discussion is that
Justin and Leo have such an inveterate distrust of popular decision-making,
but fail to see that it is the exclusion of ordinary people from power that
makes them politically immature, and subject to prejudice." Let the majority
rule without restraint, and prejudice will disappear. This romantic notion is
supported by attributing to the contrary side a cynicism, an "inveterate
distrust" of popular decision-making and the people. To which I would simply
say, that the absolute, blind faith which James H. wants us to place in
majority rule -- that it will be good under all circumstances -- is a faith of
a believer for his god, or a parent for his child, and not the stuff of actual
democratic politics. The commitment to democracy, to a government in which the
citizens rule, requires far more than a total faith in majority rule. And
clearly, since in the final analysis, every democracy rests on the consent of
the popular will, it is hardly based on a "distrust" of the people.

Finally, while the problems which James H. raises of popular disengagement
from politics as they are now practiced in the West is real, and a threat to
the continued viability of what democratic forms and rights we still possess
needs to be addressed, this disengagement is hardly restricted to those
nations with systems of constitutional rights and judicial review, and it is
hard to see how the elevation of majority rule to the exclusion of minority
rights speaks to it. If legislative supremacy were a cure for that, life would
be very different in the UK. IMHO, the problem relates more to the
transformation of politics in an information revolution age, with the rise of
media-dominated, non-participatory forms of politics.

Leo

  


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