Governance and Legitimacy (part 1)
This post on Best Of A Great Lot is a part of a series on the subject of designing a new form of governance. Each piece aims to stand alone, but fits together on the Table of Contents.
What makes a government legitimate? Simple and obvious metrics like number of attempts to overthrow the government don't mean much, because under that standard, North Korea's doing pretty well. And voter satisfaction clearly isn't a reasonable standard either, or Congress, which enjoys a 19% citizen approval rating wouldn't qualify. So what makes a people accept a government in both a practical and a philosophical sense?
Historically, a variety of justifications have been given to build the case for legitimacy of various governmental systems. Autocrats have often pointed to their strength and ability to protect from outside threats. Monarchs have often claimed to have been selected by God or trained from birth to rule. Religious leaders are often the latest in a chain of disciples of the prophet, or they have direct visions from God. And democracies have claimed their legitimacy from the consent of the people and following the agreed upon rules. This applies whether we're talking about governments of regular people or 18th century pirates.
pirates used democratic constitutions to minimize conflict and create piratical law and order. Pirate governance created sufficient order and cooperation to make pirates one of the most sophisticated and successful criminal organizations in history.
The Founders of the United States argued that consent of the governed and legitimacy were in effect the same, and that it was the people's right to overthrow the government if it went bad. From the Declaration of Independence:
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government
Yet the Founders were against pure democracy, and would be appalled today by our frequent rhetorical claim that something is better if it's more democratic. Instead, they argued that stable government requires significant institutional protections against democracy.
a pure democracy ... can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole ... Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. Federalist Papers #10
Winston Churchill famously said that the most effective argument against democracy was "a five minute conversation with the average voter". In other words, individual people are often stupid, and large groups of people often worse. For evidence, I present Twitter.
So if a government is effective, can it be legitimate simply because of that?
Many people have imagined that if we could just identify a wise and benevolent enough dictator, committee, computer program or God -- someone selfless enough to consistently choose the good when it's presented to them -- we could avoid the battles of self-governance entirely.
China today seems (from an outsider perspective) to be running on this philosophy: a wise committee, choosing the correct wise leader, will be seen as legitimate as long as it is effective, even if it has no self-governing or opportunity for the people to meaningfully consent.
Historical attempts at this haven't lasted very long. We can point to wise and beloved rulers throughout history, but within a century or so those countries have devolved. In some cases, wise leaders have been able to pick a wise and benevolent successor, but over time the quest for power overshadows the selection process. Eventually, the only needs that the leader is considering are those of the powerful. So while I hope for the best for China, I don't expect that their model will last for generations without becoming simple autocracy.
I also do not want to abandon the idea that self-governance is a good in and of itself. The idea that we can all contribute to the running of our society is, I think, more than just a protection against tyranny. It is an essential aspect of calling ourselves adults living in a free society.
Unfortunately, at times self-governance seems to be fundamentally at odds with effective government, such as when the people are vocally clamoring for obviously bad ideas.
Even at the best of times, self-governance is a hard and messy business. Whether in communes and coops attempting to work out agreements through consensus or in the US with a third of a billion of people, or in the most extreme case, India with its billion plus, building agreement among humans on squishy policy issues may be the hardest task out there. Enormous culture-consuming arguments about how we should live and govern ourselves are the norm, not the exception. Despite some rose-colored glasses, at no point in the history of America has there been policy harmony.
Alexis de Tocqueville, in his seminal work "Democracy in America", published in 1835, wrote:
I know no country in which, speaking generally, there is less independence of mind and true freedom of discussion than in America.
In America the majority raises formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion; within these barriers an author may write what he pleases, but woe to him if he goes beyond them. Not that he is in danger of an auto-da-fe but he is exposed to continued obloquy and persecution. His political career is closed forever, since he has offended the only authority that is able to open it. Every sort of compensation, even that of celebrity, is refused to him.
Is this not cancel culture? People cannot speak their minds because they fear reprisal from their community for not conforming? Perhaps this is a fundamental reality of self-governance. The power to govern ourselves implies that our beliefs have the capacity to be powerful. So it's no surprise that we fear that others will enact their beliefs upon us.
Can we make it easier? Or can we make it more successful? The magic would be both.