Democracy in the United States
According to Iris Marion Young in her book Inclusion and Democracy, the extent to which a society meets certain conditions determines how shallow or deep their democracy is. These conditions are: rule of law, the promotion of civil and political liberties, and free & fair elections of lawmakers. Let's take a brief look at how the US measures up in these areas.
1. Rule of law: We have this, but with uneven application along race and class lines. One example is the way the death penalty is unfairly applied. If you're black, your chances of being executed skyrocket. The same thing happens if you're poor. As Supreme Court Justice William Douglas put it: "One searches in vain for the execution of any members of the affluent strata of our society."
2. Promotion of civil liberties: The Patriot Act and now the USA Freedom Act have nullified or watered down many sections of the Bill of Rights. We've taken a giant step backward in this area.
3. Promotion of political liberties: Without access to a free, widespread forum that allows for informed and reasonable debate about issues, progressive political movements and candidates don't stand much of a chance. The increase in media deregulation over the last few decades doesn't bode well for the future of democracy. Fewer and fewer media outlets in fewer and fewer hands leads to dangrous echochambers and groupthink.The Telecommunications Act of 1996, signed into law by President Bill Clinton, opened the merger floodgates. The act was "essentially bought and paid for by corporate media lobbies" says FAIR, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting.
4. Free & fair elections of lawmakers: In our country, they don't just disenfranchise people by intimidation and suppression, they make it so that some people can't vote at all. Structural Disenfranchisement is "the modern equivalent of poll taxes, grandfather clauses, and literacy tests - quietly invidious, but equally destructive..." It’s the New Jim Crow. If you think that disenfranchising people is an accident, a minor blunder and not an active campaign to keep people from the poles or keep their votes from being counted, recall what Michigan state Rep. John Pappageorge (R) said to his cronies in 2004, “If we do not suppress the Detroit vote, we're going to have a tough time in this election.” African Americans who primarily vote Democratic comprise 83% of Detroit’s population. Elections are clearly not fair, nor are they free. Ultimately campaign money, not votes, is what gets people elected. "Concentrated wealth is concentrated political power. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, some 80 percent of all political contributions now come from less than 1 percent of the population."
So, where does the U.S. land on international rankings? On a scale of one to ten, the U.S. scores a 7.9, ranking it 25th in the world, behind South Korea, Spain, Japan, Taiwan, and many other countries:
According to Iris Marion Young in her book Inclusion and Democracy, the extent to which a society meets certain conditions determines how shallow or deep their democracy is. These conditions are: rule of law, the promotion of civil and political liberties, and free & fair elections of lawmakers. Let's take a brief look at how the US measures up in these areas.
1. Rule of law: We have this, but with uneven application along race and class lines. One example is the way the death penalty is unfairly applied. If you're black, your chances of being executed skyrocket. The same thing happens if you're poor. As Supreme Court Justice William Douglas put it: "One searches in vain for the execution of any members of the affluent strata of our society."
2. Promotion of civil liberties: The Patriot Act and now the USA Freedom Act have nullified or watered down many sections of the Bill of Rights. We've taken a giant step backward in this area.
3. Promotion of political liberties: Without access to a free, widespread forum that allows for informed and reasonable debate about issues, progressive political movements and candidates don't stand much of a chance. The increase in media deregulation over the last few decades doesn't bode well for the future of democracy. Fewer and fewer media outlets in fewer and fewer hands leads to dangrous echochambers and groupthink.The Telecommunications Act of 1996, signed into law by President Bill Clinton, opened the merger floodgates. The act was "essentially bought and paid for by corporate media lobbies" says FAIR, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting.
4. Free & fair elections of lawmakers: In our country, they don't just disenfranchise people by intimidation and suppression, they make it so that some people can't vote at all. Structural Disenfranchisement is "the modern equivalent of poll taxes, grandfather clauses, and literacy tests - quietly invidious, but equally destructive..." It’s the New Jim Crow. If you think that disenfranchising people is an accident, a minor blunder and not an active campaign to keep people from the poles or keep their votes from being counted, recall what Michigan state Rep. John Pappageorge (R) said to his cronies in 2004, “If we do not suppress the Detroit vote, we're going to have a tough time in this election.” African Americans who primarily vote Democratic comprise 83% of Detroit’s population. Elections are clearly not fair, nor are they free. Ultimately campaign money, not votes, is what gets people elected. "Concentrated wealth is concentrated political power. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, some 80 percent of all political contributions now come from less than 1 percent of the population."
So, where does the U.S. land on international rankings? On a scale of one to ten, the U.S. scores a 7.9, ranking it 25th in the world, behind South Korea, Spain, Japan, Taiwan, and many other countries:
The fact that the U.S. does not fully meet the requirements of a full democracy means that democracy in the U.S. is shallow. If we want to move toward a Deep Democracy we have a lot of work to do. According to John Dryzek in his book Democracy in Capitalist Times, we would have to increase Franchise, Scope and Authenticity. What does that mean?
1. Increase Franchise: Increase the number of people involved in the political process, and that means more than just allowing people to vote, it means involving the public every step of the way.
2. Increase Scope: More areas of our lives would need to become democratic. For many this means expanding the scope of democracy into the household, affecting how decisions are made and power is shared within family relationships. In our everyday lives, we don't see much democracy. How democratic is your workplace? Probably not very, unless you are in a union. How democratic are the stores where you shop? Probably not at all, unless you're a member of a co-op.
3. Increase Authenticity: According to Dryzek, Authenticity means "the degree to which democratic control is substantive rather than symbolic, informed rather than ignorant, and competently engaged... Agents of impairment include misinformation, indoctrination, conformism, public relations exercises, corporate philanthropy, "groupthink," and preemptive claims of consensus." These agents of impairment are very real and play out in U.S. society in very damaging ways.
It doesn't take much to see that the core of U.S. democracy is hollow and lacking in authenticity. One reason is likely that the U.S. was designed as a republic, not a democracy, during its inception.
"A republic, in the classical form, is a type of government that is made up of a mixture of elements from three other types of government: monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy... There is the Roman model that has a civilian head, and an aristocratic body which is the Senate. It is marked by a bicameral legislative body, the upper house being aristocratic, and by a written constitution that marks out the duties and responsibilities of the different bodies. A classical republic is considered by its proponents to be the best compromise between the interests of the aristocracy or of the wealthy elite and those of the people."
The U.S. Senate was, in fact, designed to represent the wealthy elite. There are some who believe that the U.S. officially became a Democracy in 1913 with the passage of the 17th Amendment which allowed citizens to directly elect Senators. Back when Senators were appointed by the state legislature, a whole lot of them were millionaires who had bought their seats. The progressives who pushed for the passage of the 17th Amendment hoped that the Senate would no longer be a rich man's club. No such luck.
“Members of the Senate [as opposed to the House of Representatives] often have relatively wealthy backgrounds, and many senators are millionaires. The unusual wealth of senators stems partly from the fact that about three-fourths of senators work in banking, business, or law before winning election to the chamber. Few working-class people, those who work for others and earn an hourly wage, come even close to winning a Senate seat. The scarcity of working-class senators is caused by many factors, including the high cost of campaigns and the need for connections to the political and social elite to mount an effective campaign.” [source: Encarta (R.I.P. 2009)]
Passage of the 17th Amendment did not turn the US from a Republic into a Democracy. We've gradually been democratizing the US over the years (for example, by changing the Constitution so that every adult can vote, not just the 3 percent of the population that was white, land-owning and male) but we still have a long way to go.
“A few days before the November 2004 election, Jimmy Carter was asked what would happen if, instead of flying to Zambia or Venezuela or East Timor, his widely respected international election-monitoring team was invited to turn its attention to the United States. His answer was stunningly blunt. Not only would the voting system be regarded as a failure, he said, but the shortcomings were so egregious the Carter Center would never agree to monitor an election there in the first place. 'We wouldn't think of it,' the former president told a radio interviewer. 'The American political system wouldn't measure up to any sort of international standards.'” –Andrew Gumbel
The U.S. is a thinly democratic society. We can keep pushing and democratizing and reforming and eventually we might create a true or Deep Democracy, but it is just as likely that our democratic rights will continue to erode. It's up to us. Democracy is never given to people, it is a constant struggle for a deeper, more authentic expression of our social desires.
Democracy Guide
www.democracyguide.org
1. Increase Franchise: Increase the number of people involved in the political process, and that means more than just allowing people to vote, it means involving the public every step of the way.
2. Increase Scope: More areas of our lives would need to become democratic. For many this means expanding the scope of democracy into the household, affecting how decisions are made and power is shared within family relationships. In our everyday lives, we don't see much democracy. How democratic is your workplace? Probably not very, unless you are in a union. How democratic are the stores where you shop? Probably not at all, unless you're a member of a co-op.
3. Increase Authenticity: According to Dryzek, Authenticity means "the degree to which democratic control is substantive rather than symbolic, informed rather than ignorant, and competently engaged... Agents of impairment include misinformation, indoctrination, conformism, public relations exercises, corporate philanthropy, "groupthink," and preemptive claims of consensus." These agents of impairment are very real and play out in U.S. society in very damaging ways.
It doesn't take much to see that the core of U.S. democracy is hollow and lacking in authenticity. One reason is likely that the U.S. was designed as a republic, not a democracy, during its inception.
"A republic, in the classical form, is a type of government that is made up of a mixture of elements from three other types of government: monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy... There is the Roman model that has a civilian head, and an aristocratic body which is the Senate. It is marked by a bicameral legislative body, the upper house being aristocratic, and by a written constitution that marks out the duties and responsibilities of the different bodies. A classical republic is considered by its proponents to be the best compromise between the interests of the aristocracy or of the wealthy elite and those of the people."
The U.S. Senate was, in fact, designed to represent the wealthy elite. There are some who believe that the U.S. officially became a Democracy in 1913 with the passage of the 17th Amendment which allowed citizens to directly elect Senators. Back when Senators were appointed by the state legislature, a whole lot of them were millionaires who had bought their seats. The progressives who pushed for the passage of the 17th Amendment hoped that the Senate would no longer be a rich man's club. No such luck.
“Members of the Senate [as opposed to the House of Representatives] often have relatively wealthy backgrounds, and many senators are millionaires. The unusual wealth of senators stems partly from the fact that about three-fourths of senators work in banking, business, or law before winning election to the chamber. Few working-class people, those who work for others and earn an hourly wage, come even close to winning a Senate seat. The scarcity of working-class senators is caused by many factors, including the high cost of campaigns and the need for connections to the political and social elite to mount an effective campaign.” [source: Encarta (R.I.P. 2009)]
Passage of the 17th Amendment did not turn the US from a Republic into a Democracy. We've gradually been democratizing the US over the years (for example, by changing the Constitution so that every adult can vote, not just the 3 percent of the population that was white, land-owning and male) but we still have a long way to go.
“A few days before the November 2004 election, Jimmy Carter was asked what would happen if, instead of flying to Zambia or Venezuela or East Timor, his widely respected international election-monitoring team was invited to turn its attention to the United States. His answer was stunningly blunt. Not only would the voting system be regarded as a failure, he said, but the shortcomings were so egregious the Carter Center would never agree to monitor an election there in the first place. 'We wouldn't think of it,' the former president told a radio interviewer. 'The American political system wouldn't measure up to any sort of international standards.'” –Andrew Gumbel
The U.S. is a thinly democratic society. We can keep pushing and democratizing and reforming and eventually we might create a true or Deep Democracy, but it is just as likely that our democratic rights will continue to erode. It's up to us. Democracy is never given to people, it is a constant struggle for a deeper, more authentic expression of our social desires.
Democracy Guide
www.democracyguide.org