JOHN TONS

In the 2024 June issue of The Atlantic Anne Applebaum argues that Democracy is losing the propaganda war. Her argument is essentially that autocrats in Russia and China are making common cause with Maga Republicans to discredit democracy.

What her article overlooks is that the so called “Seven perils faced by the Chinese Communist Party: Western constitutional democracy, universal human rights, media independence, judicial independence, and civic participation.” are being undermined by the state of democracy in the USA.

18th century political philosophers introduced the world to the social contract, the rights of man and challenged the authority of the aristocracy. Their radical ideas were to shape the American Revolution and the French Revolution. The American slogan ‘no taxation without representation’ introduced a revolutionary new idea that the governed should participate in government. The French took that one step further; their slogan: ‘liberty, equality and fraternity’ became the foundation of 19th and 20th century democratic thinking. Arguably the USA became the midwife for modern democracy. Today it looks as if the USA will be presiding over democracy’s last rites.

We had high hopes for this latest incarnation of democratic government. The American constitution became the template for may democracies. 19th century European social democrats adopted their versions of the checks and balances embedded in the American constitution. Newly independent 20th century nations were encouraged to develop their own constitutional governments. Eleanor Roosevelt was the driving force behind the adoption of the International Declaration of Human Rights. Perforce the USA became the champion for constitutional democracy.

Today the democratic vision that galvanized the world to embrace democratic government is being carelessly discarded by the very nation that gave birth to it. We should not be surprised — it was a difficult birth; we have glossed over the inherent contradictions and weaknesses. We have been seduced by the rhetoric with which the Americans surrounded their democracy. The rhetoric that papered over the deficiencies and shortcomings is now being torn away. The inherent weaknesses have been exposed will be emulated by tyrants and dictators. The USA has become a shamocracy.

Indeed, looking at the USA from the outside one wonders why the Chinese Communist Party’s believes that the seven perils present any risk to autocrats for the Americans have shown that that the seven perils are little more than paper tigers.

Nor should this come as a surprise. The justification for the American war of independence is summarized as follows:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

Stirring words but they did not find their way into the constitution. Yet the success of the USA to free itself from the feudal yoke inspired the development of western constitutional government. One can speculate that had the USA from the outset developed a form of government that was truly based on equality then the rising middle classes in Europe would not have been as keen to introduce constitutional government. Locke had recommended that only property owners should be entitled to vote. Constitutional movements throughout the 18th and 19th century reflected Locke’s version of the social contract. It was to be the owners of capital who would have primacy. The extension of suffrage has been a slow and fraught process.

The problem for western democracies has been that the direct influence the owners of capital had over government has been steadily eroded. Every extension of suffrage reduced the influence of the owners of capital. By 1970 the threat that Western Democracy posed to totalitarian regimes was possibly at its height. It was at this time that John Rawls, arguably America’s greatest political philosopher, produced his theory of justice. His theory is based on two principles. The first gives each person has an equal claim to a fully adequate scheme of equal basic rights and liberties. Secondly that social and economic inequalities are to satisfy two conditions: first, they are to be attached to positions and offices open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity; and second, they are to be the greatest benefit of the least advantaged members of society.

Rawls advocated a form of capitalism that is designed ‘to disperse the ownership of wealth and capital, and thus prevent a small part of society from controlling the economy, and indirectly political life as well.’ (Justice as Fairness p139) Had the USA heeded the advice of its greatest political philosopher then the Chinese would have had something to worry about. But the USA went down the neo-liberal road instead — a road which concentrated wealth and political power in fewer and fewer hands. 

The irony is that the very success of Reaganeconomics has been the death of not just democracy but capitalism.

Meanwhile, neo-liberalism has concentrated economic power in the hands of a few, increasingly technocratic overlords, which means capitalism is giving over to technofeudalism. The development of the ‘cloud’ has created cloud capitalists who take a small percentage of every transaction. As we become more dependent on the Internet these cloud capitalists are the new feudal lords. Smaller companies will be their vassals but the majority of us will be the serfs — reliant on their good will for our survival.

How to break this up? Two ways:

1. Community participation — we need to develop the growing trend to local democracy where communities develop programs that satisfy their local needs. Transition engineering would include communities using 3D printers to make parts for machinery that wears out, building local power grids, encouraging cottage industries for their clothing and food.

2. To achieve the above a UBI would be introduced. A UBI will give a measure of independence. The cloud capitalists or the new feudal lords rely on people needing them — the greater our capacity to live independently the less power they have. Populism may be a thorn in democracy’s side, but simply pruning its excesses won’t do. We need to build and strengthen democracy built on Rawlsian ethics and decentralise power back to the people if we are to avoid the increasingly dystopian forces of technofeudalism.

John Tons is a political philosopher and activist. His most recent book John Rawls and Environmental Justice describes a mode of governance that will enable communities to implement a sustainable and socially just future.