The Importance of Democracy

[Adrian II]

Actually democracy is powerful because it allows a mass of dumb agents to work together. Ants rule! Cooperation thru self interest and numbers is a quality all of its own.

Democracy allows us to vote as a bunch of dumb agents. It does not rely on expert agents to rule, just the mass interest. And then also has the smart enough redundancy to have a more steady core of dumb agents in civil service.

I am not sure that we agree.

Groups do not constitute a single organism. Therefore I don't think the terms 'smart' and 'dumb' apply to a mass of people, any mass of people, regardless of whether its members are gathered in a square, unified in the pursuit of certain supermarket articles or all alone in voting booths.

On the other hand modern democracy, like modern society as a whole, relies heavily on experts.

All in all I think democracy is preferable because it provides a check on man's will to power and his perpetual tendency to live by illusions, but without destrying his initiative and free will.

When theologian Reinhold Niebuhr had to sum up his view of democracy he said: "Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary."

P.S. I am researching Niebuhr at the moment, after having read some of his books over the years. I just hit on a NYT article that assesses his importance, written by none other than the late Arthur Schlesinger, in which he refers to the above quote. The article is a good introduction to Niebuhr's thought. I am not a believer, but as Schlesinger writes: "Niebuhr's distinction between taking the Bible seriously and taking it literally invited symbolic interpretation and made it easy for seculars to join the club." That is my position exactly.