We are at a low point in the US democracy, with the Senate having covered itself in shame over the last week, and sure to do so again next week, courtesy of one party that is in thrall to its president. But the whole world is headed in the same direction, as rightist, "strong" leaders pop up all over, from Brazil to China. The whole idea of democracy is under threat world-wide from the a new authoritarianism, which has evolved out of the old communism and more traditional feudal arrangements. And from the lust for power generally. The US misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, trying so blindly to implant democracy in societies woefully traumatized and unprepared for it, followed by the appalling handling and aftermath of the Arab spring, seem to have cancelled any hope of an end to history in the form of democracy triumphant across the globe.
Two decades ago, Hugh Helco wrote a prescient jeremiad titled "Hyperdemocracy" diagnosing the ills of a shallow and ill-educated democracy in the US, titillated with constant "news" (fake and otherwise) and oversharing, but lacking true deliberation and veering towards ungovernability. One ironic consequence of everyone, every corporation, and interest group having their say is that no one can be trusted. Eventually government is bereft of the basic civic faith and common narrative that the social contract relies on. His critique was acute, but his suggested treatments were afterthoughts and the problem has amplified dramatically in recent years, with foreign countries like Russia weaponizing so-called "free speech" against us.
"For the making of public policy, hyperdemocracy presents three general problems. Policy debate occurs without deliberation. Public mobilization occurs without a public. And the public tends to distrust everything that is said. " "... good policy argumentation is bad political management"
A book relevant to the question came out in 2013, from billionarie Nicolas Berggruen, who argues in Intelligent Governance for the 21st Century that some sort of convergence between the non-democratic methods of China and our rather chaotic and hyperdemocratic methods is called for, to merge China's effectiveness in public management with our respect (such as it still is) for individual rights and democratic legitimacy. Berggruen has set up a series of vanity foundations and Davos-like talk shops to solve the problems of Europe, the world, and California. The solutions focus on meritocracy- trying to insulate decision makers from the political winds by appointing Berggruen's friends to influential commissions and special bodies that would advise the politicians who may not benefit from proper think-tank training. For California, his solutions ended up recommending taxing the poor more and the rich less- which says alot about his version of meritocracy.
Nevertheless, these arguments raise interesting questions at this perilous time. Does being in a hyperdemocracy mean that we have too much democracy and deserve less? Or do we really live in a hyperdemocracy at all? And does China have some kind of secret sauce for public management and institutional far-sightedness and continuity that we could learn from, seeing as they are a rising power with confidence and in some cases, outstanding public services? I think hyperdemocracy is a bit of a misnomer, since it is hardly an acceleration of democracy to replace reasoned discourse with propaganda and corporate interests, and to give up our politicians to utter corruption. The lack of a civil and civic discourse formed around truth and mutual respect is an unmitigated disaster, not some hyper form of democracy. The fact that Facebook allows those with money and psychological skills of a nefarious or pathological nature to implant viral falsities into our body politic is not "democracy", or "free speech", but is abdication of the most basic role of publishing- that of standing behind what you publish and standing for a level of discourse that befits our culture.
The fact is the America is hardly even a democracy at this point. The public routinely stands behind significant public policy advances that are as routinely stymied by a minority that is funded by rich ideologues, both directly through political corruption and through myriad propaganda outlets. Far from a hyperdemocracy, we live in a oligarchy, one that is slowly morphing into an even more concentrated fascist regime before our eyes. The convergence is taking place, but not in a good or intended way.
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| A high-speed train to nowhere. California's rail plan is in crisis. |
So the prescriptions that Berggruen touts, allowing that they were authored before our current administration, hardly meet the crisis of our times. Yes, we need more competent public administration. Just look at California's high speed train fiasco, and its public pensions crisis. Yes, we need longer-term strategic thinking. But the elites that have been serving us over the last couple of decades have not done such a good job, particularly from Republican administrations. Where have the truly momentous foreign policy disasters come from? Where has the denial of climate change come from? From one region in our political spectrum. And that is no accident, being the region that has antidemocratic tendencies, and seems dedicated to some sort of aristocracy of class and money. Replacing it with a slightly more centrist aristocracy of class and money, with an intellectual patina, is not likely to alter our course very much.
Berggruen proposes an ideal republic that is extremely indirect, such that a small community of a few thousand people elect ten representatives, and then those representatives elect a next level that represents about 100,000 people, and they elect another body, and so forth until the top layer of some kind of president or council is elected in a pyramid of representation that is four levels deep. This hearkens back to what the American founders were trying to accomplish with their indirect elections of Senators, and the electoral collage for the Presidential election. But then later in the book, he bemoans the out-of-touch-ness of the European administration in Brussels, which has so little democratic legitimacy. It is a curious conflict in a book full of them, and of airy ideas.
Nevertheless, the idea of a more vibrant local politics is a very important one. We are overly focused on national politics, about which the average person can do nothing but get upset. Voting is great, but participation is better, in face-to-face settings. One way to enable this is to mandate one day per month holiday for political functions. This could include voting, but also encompass neighborhood meetings, town council events, etc. The way our culture values work over civic obligations and participation is extremely unbalanced. Participation would not be manadatory, but all levels of government would obligated to open their doors, hold relevant meetings on these days, and foster public participation.
Secondly, the idea of some insulation from the political winds is also important, for many policy makers, particularly those oriented towards the long-term. Berggruen points to institutions like the Federal Reserve, the civil service, and many other regulatory bodies, which have purposefully been separated from the political fray in a way that balances accountability with the freedom to think calmly and for the long-term. We should have more such bodies, even perhaps modeled on the 5-year plan system of China, to think carefully about our future infrastructure, our future social policies, and our future politics. The state of California could certainly use a bit more organized foresight, which used to be provided by business leaders like Leland Stanford, but now is more likely to be corrupted by business than served by it.
Berggruen bemoans the state of the California referendum system, originally a gem of democracy, which has been captured by business interests which regularly compete against each other in offering rival propositions which are engineered to sound as anodyne and contrary to their actual intent as possible. Here there is an easy solution, which is to outlaw paying people to collect signatures. The currency of the referendum system is signatures, and collecting them is arduous. No one would do so unless they either cared a great deal about the issue or were well paid.
Lastly, there is the media (leaving out general corruption, which can be addressed by public financing of elections and prohibitions on corporate meddling in political affairs). Here we get to the to a truly difficult issue- how to re-establish a shared culture of truth and civic pride from our dispirited current state of Twitted discourse. Here we could learn a few lessons, not from China, but from Europe, which carefully, but legally, disables some extreme forms of speech to set guardrails on the society. We might consider making false claims grounds for suit and penalty, (proportionate to the audience), not only in commercial speech where this is already the case, but in political and policy speech. Propaganda outlets like FOX are a cancer on the Republic, that trade in lies as the foundation of their bizarre narratives. Block the lies, and the narratives are much more difficult to maintain. This is very fraught policy to propose, as our largely free speech standard has served the US quite well most of our history, (excepting several phases of extremely partisan presses), and any kind of censorship can be twisted to nafarious purposes. But this legal standard would not be enforced in some star chamber, rather in open court, presumably with evidence, experts, scholarly apparatus, etc. There is far more to do to re-establish a productive fourth estate, which is such a crucial participant in a functioning democracy, but the truth is one place to start.
Our problems cry out for reform, not revolution. Our democracy is under extreme pressure, but has not yet broken down completely. It is an index of our problems that Democrats need typically to find the perfect candidate, pristine in speech and spotless in record and demeanor, in order to have any hope of winning, while Republicans can put up virtually any grifter or mysogyinst with a fair chance of success. It is a reflection of the unfairness of our current system, ridden as it is with dark money in the service of extreme and retrograde ideologies. But there is hope, especially in demographic change, that California, dysfunctional though it may be in many ways, represents the imploded future of the Republican party, which would unleash enormous energies for national reform, towards a democratic, not an oligarchic, future.
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