Democracy is a word, the real gist of which still sleeps, quite unawakened. It is a great word, whose history remains unwritten, because that history has yet to be enacted.”
Walt Whitman
Defining Democracy
George Orwell addressed the problem of defining democracy in his essay “Politics and the English Language” (1946). He made the point that "the great enemy of clear language is insincerity”, resulting from “a gap between one's real and one's declared aims”. In that context, he identified some political words that have been “abused” to the point that they have “several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another”. Regarding democracy, he said:
“In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic, we are praising it: consequently, the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning.”
It is true that the term democracy has come to mean different things to different people but attempts to define democracy are not “resisted from all sides” – only by the defenders of other kinds of regimes – the false friends and true enemies of democracy.
How Do the People Govern?
The Essential Elements of a True Democracy
Majority Rule
As much as some people may deny it or disagree, majority rule is the essential element that makes a government a true democracy.
The English philosopher John Locke’s support for majority rule was unequivocal. The word “majority” appears frequently throughout his Second Treatise of Government (1689). He asserted that “every man, by consenting with others to make one body politic under one government, puts himself under an obligation, to everyone of that society, to submit to the determination of the majority, and to be concluded by it”. Because “if the consent of the majority shall not, in reason, be received as the act of the whole, and conclude every individual; nothing but the consent of every individual can make anything to be the act of the whole: but such a consent is next to impossible ever to be had.”
John Locke (1632-1704)
This description of the ideal representative assembly remains as useful and relevant today as it was in 1776. Congress and state legislatures in America have, however, fallen far short of this ideal. Common sense tells us, and research confirms, that “The preferences of the average American appear to have only a miniscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.” [From a study by Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page]
Providing “equal representation” for every citizen in large, populous nation-states has proven difficult. When the people have chosen to “depute power” to "a few of the most wise and good”, experience has confirmed Lord Acton’s well-known observation that “Power tends to corrupt.” Even if those chosen as representatives are “wise and good” and intend to “govern with a view to the common interest” at the time they are elected, they tend to be corrupted by power over time. This is especially true in the United States, where getting elected and remaining in office requires continually raising enormous amounts of money.
Implementing Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) would help to “prevent unfair, partial, and corrupt elections”. Implementing systems of Proxies for Citizens that would allow politically active citizens to assign a proxy to any one member of both houses of Congress and their state legislature and then give each senator and representative a number of votes equal to the number of proxies they have been assigned, plus one for themselves, would instantly transform Congress or a state legislature into truly democratic institutions.
Democracy Is the Best Form of Government
Democracy is the only form of government with the potential to incorporate ALL the qualities that make a government a "good" government.
When political power is shared equally by all the citizens of a state or nation who want to be politically active corruption is minimized. When all citizens have the right to participate in governing elected officials are more likely to “govern with a view to the common interest” and implement policies that create the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. When all the politically active citizens of a state or nation participate in making the laws, they are less likely to tolerate anyone attempting to place themselves above the law. For democracy to be a good form of government, politically active citizens must respect each other’s rights and be well-educated and well-informed enough to elect wise and virtuous leaders. When political decisions are made by majority vote, politically active citizens must promote the laws and policies they favor by using reason and logic to win the hearts and minds of those who have a different opinion or who have not yet formed an opinion. Civic matters naturally take on a much more civil quality.