Representative Democracy in the Mass Media Age

c/p PULSE Review

Innovation is the lifeblood of capitalism. Competing market forces invigorate new development, maximizing efficiency and creating new industrial markets. Old paradigms fall by the wayside due to a loss of efficacy or increased costs.

This innovation does not operate in a vacuum – the ramifications of the progression spread virally into other seemingly unrelated sectors, affecting paradigms across our socio-eco-political spectrum. Not all of these sectors innovate with the same velocity as industry. Some, like our political infrastructure, pride itself on its self-stagnation. Distortions begin to arise as the new meets the old.

******************************

When the Framers of the Constitution crafted our political structure, they did so carefully and with a well-founded purpose. As most know, while the United States is called a “democracy”, we are actually far from it. Instead of our citizens having a direct role in the public policy of our country, we relinquish our sovereignty to representatives who represent our self interest. High school history told us that pure democracy wasn’t implemented because it would be an unwieldy and inefficient governing mechanism mostly because technology had not progressed to the point that individual representation was possible. Many now point to the internet as a means to now provide our own individual representation to the government. The truth is, however, that while the Framers knew that direct democracy wouldn’t be effective in that era, they saw greater perils from pure democracy than mere logistics.

“It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity.” – Alexander Hamilton

The danger, as Plato so deftly highlighted in his Republic, is the onset of mob rule. Direct democracy is an incubator for injustice. Within pure democracy the individual is dangerously vulnerable to the will of the majority. Indeed, James Madison and many other Framers worried about a “leveling impulse”, in which economic prosperity was taken from the successful and redistributed to the masses – legally, of course, due to the direct composition of the government by the populace. As a result, a constitutional republic, centered in representation instead of direct democracy, was designed by the Framers for our use. As such, the elected representatives act in their constituent’s interest, but not as a proxy – they are a self-insulated ruling body that independently makes choices for constituents within the rules and boundaries of a constitution.

These representatives, of course, are accountable to their constituents through the election process, and attempt to please voters out of their own sense of self-preservation. In the past, a politician accomplished this (among other ways) through campaign promises and the ability to convince voters that their interest was in capable hands hands.

Today, much has changed.

**********************************

Politicians, hostage to frequent elections, exhibit vote-seeking behavior in every day activities. Pork-filled bills, bridges to nowhere, and fake southern twangs are all manifestations of political vote-seeking. By obtaining their district wasteful government funds, creating jobs out of nothing to decrease unemployment, and by seeming more like an “every man”, politicians attain more votes and secure their re-election.

With the advent of the telephone, real-time polling of constituents became a realistic means of ensuring voter satisfaction (and therefore re-election). Through the internet, the breadth and scale of polls has continued to increase. The danger increases proportionally, as vote-seeking indicators become more accurate and discernable.

Politicians now use polls to fine-tune their platforms and message to obtain the maximized amount of votes during election season. In essence, this is nothing more than recycled mob rule. The ability to carefully monitor the mood shifts of the American people has resulted in the distortion of the original intent of our political structure. The autonomous, enlightened representative is gone, replaced by the puppet proxy.

Additionally, voters have begun to realize that they can vote themselves money through entitlement programs such as universal healthcare, welfare, Medicare, and others. This is reflected in the polls they answer, and resultantly in the platforms of their elected leaders. Madison’s fear of the “leveling impulse” was on point. As Alexis de Tocqueville said, “”When (Americans) discover that they can vote themselves money from the public till, the experiment will be over.”

It is clear that technology and the original intent of the constitutional republic will not coexist effectively, and the combination is at the very least problematic. Several solutions have been presented, though none of them are particularly good. Outlawing polls unreasonably restricts free speech. Limiting political terms is promising – by removing the need for re-elections, vote-seeking behavior should also dissolve. But this results in a perpetual stream of rookie politicians.

Perhaps what we need is a more responsible citizenry that values more than pure reflection of their desires in a politician. Of course, if that was realistic, perhaps the Framers would not have had to guard the nation against the collective intelligence of its people.

Related articles by Zemanta

• The 60th anniversary of 1984 (michellemalkin.com)

Popularity: 1% [?]