Subverting Democracy One Organization at a Time Part I
Our Democracy is being subverted at all levels. In my most recent post "Syndicalism Lives" I was looking at the notion of Syndicalism and how it was used, first to help the labor movement get some representation for the people who work for a living, and then the concept hijacked by Fascists in Europe. While reading and ruminating on this in an article in the Atlantic, Losing the Democratic Habit, by Yoni Applebaum. While reading it I remembered that Democratic Syndicalism originated in the United States. It grew out of habits of Democracy that our forebears practiced. Specifically it was a form of "voluntary association" made necessary by the oppression of businessmen on laborers. We used to practice Democracy in our associations and communities.
The Practices of Democratic Republicanism
The Democratic principles behind the second amendment, volunteerism and Republican forms, were once things that were engrained in our society. In the days of our Grandparents and their forebears, they were habits.
The writer Yoni Applebaum writes in the Atlantic recently that:
“In the early years of the United States, Europeans made pilgrimages to the young republic to study its success. How could such a diverse and sprawling nation flourish under a system of government that originated in small, homogeneous city-states?” Yoni Applebaum: Losing the Democratic Habit
The Answer was that we practiced democracy habitually. In the Atlantic article, Yoni Applebaum asserts that the answer was:
“To almost every challenge in their lives, Americans applied a common solution. They voluntarily bound themselves together, adopting written rules, electing officers, and making decisions by majority vote.”
This was such a habit, that when an organization didn't follow these principles, people would get wary and upset.
Replicating Republican Principles to Children Games
He notes that this way of life started early.
“Children in their games are wont to submit to rules which they have themselves established, and to punish misdemeanors which they have themselves defined,” wrote Alexis de Tocqueville in Democracy in America. “The same spirit pervades every act of social life.” Atlantic
I remember those sorts of games when we were kids. I didn't realize that they were less common among my own children's generation.
Basic Principles of Democracy Taught on the Playground
I've been saying that "without local democracy" there is no democracy in our Republic. Formal democracy at the local level may have been stronger in New England than in the South at the founding of our country. But it's replication locally nationwide in the form of volunteer associations kept it strong nationwide by exerting pressure on businesses and other groups to respect democratic values. Democracy wasn't only taught in civics class it was practiced on the playground and in back yards.
Well Constituted Republican Forms
If one is going to take an "originalist" approach to the Constitution, then one has to understand the principles that underlay it. The bedrock principles of our Democratic, Federated, Republic, include:
- Volunteerism and participatory associations.
- Separation of powers, Executive, Judicial and Legislative bodies.
- That all people have a right to say in all their governing bodies.
- Respect for Majoritarian, rules based and democratic processes.
- Republican principles of representation that bind people together bottom up.
- Checks and Balances that moderate tendencies to centralize power and resource control.
These are bedrock principles necessary to a well constituted Federated Republican Democracy.
From Obvious to Obscure
If I'd been writing about this, as late as 50 years ago, these principles would have seemed "tautologies." People would have been calling me "Mr Obviousman." That this is no longer obvious is a deliberate result. But first let's use the Wayback machine and look at the past. Yoni's article demonstrates how Democracy was once replicated nearly everywhere. This was true for generations.
Basic Democratic Principles as Bedrock
Not that long ago, people practiced parliamentary procedure, a replication of our Republican forms, as a matter of course. At one time the majority of organizations people participated in were organized on the well constituted principles of Republican Democracy.
Participatory Associations
Yoni Applebaum describes that most voluntary organizations organized on a model similar to that of the USA government:
“Local chapters elected representatives to state-level gatherings, which sent delegates to national assemblies.” Atlantic
Yoni notes that:
“Associations are created, extended, and worked in the United States more quickly and effectively than in any other country,” marveled the British statesman James Bryce in 1888. These groups had their own systems of checks and balances. Executive officers were accountable to legislative assemblies; independent judiciaries ensured that both complied with the rules. One typical 19th-century legal guide, published by the Knights of Pythias, a fraternal order, compiled 2,827 binding precedents for use in its tribunals.” Atlantic
Democratic Associations Win
Organizations as diverse as the KKK, NAACP, or the laborers of the Workers of the World, organized on these principles. For Labor, organizing on these principles gave workers power over otherwise hostile forces. Concepts like the General Strike, Closed Shop, got their power from democracy. A Trade Union, only representing one skill-set had no chance against the combined forces of judicial, law enforcement and private security. But the ability to assert themselves en-mass and achieve common goals like minimum wages, 8 hour work days, and other basic rights. Democracy rules, autocracy drools.
Volunteerism and Participatory Associations
The founders may have argued about who should be a citizen, and didn't always take their own words seriously that "all men are created equally. But the elites who founded the country were not allowed to backslide. The founders included the tens of thousands of citizens who took Jefferson's words seriously. Indeed Jefferson staged an electoral revolution in 1799 that changed the country based on using democratic principles to organize his followers.
Bottom up Democracy
The founding generation of Americans took those principles seriously and asserted that they applied to all of our ancestors equally. Even where the founders ignored their own principles, such as with black people and slavery, the people so ignored refused to be silenced and struggled for, and eventually achieved a place in our republic.
Volunteerism Equals Stepping up
Washington, Jefferson and Adams based their ideas on an engaged and participating citizenry, where ordinary people would step up and take a role in governing themselves. Washington so valued this concept he modeled himself on Cincinnatus, who left the plow to be a General for Rome and returned for it when his duty was done. A fundamental equality is based on everyone stepping up where necessary, and nobody letting tyrants run rough shod over them.
Separation of Powers and Checks and Balances
Separation of powers is the principle that "no man can be his own judge" and that power tends to be corrupt, so it needs to be distributed in a manner that prevents any one person from arrogating it. This is the principle behind "checks and balances". We not only need to separate powers, but people need a place to appeal when power is abused.
Americans practiced separation of powers at all levels not merely the Federal Level, out of respect for these vital principles. If a town had a magistrate who was also the Police chief or Sheriff and also the Mayor, a fundamental wrong was sensed. It is part of our literature of corrupt officials and resistance. And the purpose of democracy is to prevent such corruption. We Knew:
Corruption is bad government.
The Right to A Say
Related to Checks and Balances is the notion that everyone should have a right to a say in the places where he/she lives, labors and participates. This is also a principle of good government. Without the right to appeal inequity, the people who are engaging in unjust behavior assert impunity. People with impunity bully others. This leads to resources being hoarded, misallocated and abused. Moreover, good decision making requires input from everyone who has knowledge of what is going on. The basic right to a say, can prevent bad decision making. History is full of people, like the Greek Cassandra, who spoke truth, were ignored, with tragic consequences. In Germany, which practices our lost principles of democracy, workers help guide management to more efficient and better processes because they have a say in the operations of the companies they work for.
Genuine Rule of Law = Consent of the Governed
When people have a say in government, understand process, then they understand majority rule. Even if they don't agree with the majority, they'll go along with them until they can change their minds. This makes 51% or 60% decisions into 100% peaceful decisions and allows actions even when people don't completely agree.
Respect for Process
Respecting process is the basis of lawfulness. If everyone respects the law, then there isn't as much need for police and coercion. There will always be disagreement and disaffection. But a healthy polity, having a say in the decision making learns to respect rule of law too. People used to understand this better.
Bottom up Representation
Bottom up representation is essential to organizing masses. people who all live in the same place might be able to practice direct democracy, but when people have separate functions and locations they need to come together through representation and organize their demands through local democracy. Successful organizations establish chapters and subchapters recursively and each is run on democratic principles and involves representations from its parts. Our Ancestors understood this. In the modern age we confuse mass opinion with democracy, but successful democracy involves bottom up discussions, legislation and inputs to decisions. Leaders lead better if they have to convince more people than a simple 51% majority of the whole.
Even Corporations were once more Democratic
When I was younger I remember successful minority stockholder challenges of giant corporations via stockholder meetings. As a student of Democracy I remember how FDR supported the right of people to join unions and have a say in their government. People used to experience local democracy not only in Union membership but in various mutual assistance organizations like Moose Lodges and the like. I barely remembered practicing democracy as a child til I saw Yoni Applebaum's reference to Alexis De Toqueville. But I remember endless votes on the rules of the games we played.
Democratic versus Autocratic Institutions
Yoni Applebaum notes that “Volunteerism” alone doesn't teach Self Government. At least not the way we practice it today. But that was not always the case. Yoni may not know that Militia and even Continental Army Members used to select their own non-commissioned officers. Volunteer organizations used to practice republican democracy too, at least in auxiliary decision making.
He also claims:
“church attendance, and social-media participation are [also] not schools for self-government; they do not inculcate the habits and rituals of democracy.” Atlantic
Yoni probably doesn't know that many early Americans were Presbyterians or Quakers, and many church members practiced democratic forms in their churches, if not in their church management in its social groups. Social media started as news groups where anyone could say pretty much anything. Moderators were found to be necessary because it wasn't constituted with republican principles in mind. It is not the Volunteering, Church participation or social media participation that is stopping the inculcation of democratic principles, it is the disregard for those constitutional principles by the owners, operators, preachers and officers of those institutions that is subverting them. In some of the social groups I was in we used surveys and votes to decide issues. It can be done. That it isn't is intentional. Which makes what is happening subversion.
The Consequences of Subversion
The Destruction of our Democracy by people who's primary interest is personal gain at the expense of others, is an intentional thing. The goal of Exploitive, Manipulative, Amoral and Dishonest managers and owners, is usually a continuance of their dominance and exploitation of the resources they control. It is no accident that:
“as young people participate less in democratically run organizations, they show less faith in democracy itself.” Atlantic
That “The golden age of the voluntary association” is not over, “thanks to the automobile, the television, and the two-income household”, but is under assault by people who saw democracy as a threat to their personal power and influences. Henry Ford envisioned networks of highways depopulating cities. The Television started as a place that provided public services and paid for them with entertainment and advertising. The other institutions and services which are no longer truly representative or run on democratic principles all have the common attribute of being run by and driven by private separate profit motive and people who benefit from an authoritarian population. If Americans are “no longer inclined to leave the comforts and amusements of home for the lodge hall or meeting room.” that doesn't mean they don't long for the sense of comity and community of being involved with others. It is more the fact that these institutions are no longer available, denied to them, or relevant to their current situation. The “revival of participatory democracy” isn't built on “fraternal orders and clubs. &rduqo; [Quotes from Atlantic article]
One thing that is certain is that once power is lost to centralization and hierarchy, it is difficult for people to reacquire it. It will probably take legislation & legal enforcement to take back our voluntary associations from top down hierarchical and profiteering institutions. We have thousands of "Associations" that are essentially subscription services with little voice from the rank and file. But the AARP, AAA, etc... are voluntary associations that would meet the needs of their members better if the members had an actual say in their function.
The real culprits are the spread of authoritarian religion, privateering corporations and just plain authoritarianism in general. When there are 10 TV stations owned by the same monopolists, that is subversion. When people are told what to think and not given an opportunity to discuss the facts, that is authoritarianism.
Yoni is right here:
“Young Americans of all backgrounds deserve the chance to write charters, elect officers, and work through the messy and frustrating process of self-governance. They need the opportunity to make mistakes, and resolve them, without advisers intervening. Such activities shouldn’t be seen as extracurricular, but as the basic curriculum of democracy. In that respect, what students are doing—club sports, student council, the robotics team—matters less than how they’re doing it and what they’re gaining in the process: an appreciation for the role of rules and procedures in managing disputes.” Atlantic
It's not just young Americans, it is working Americans in all walks of life. It is apartment dwellers. It is people living in sprawling developments with no mayor, city council or say over water, sewer, cable or power supply decision making at a local level. School Children need to judge miscreants instead of sending 12 year olds to prison. Class Presidents need to be more involved in School than simply being the prettiest or most popular kids. Democracy is a right not a mere privilege. And Authoritarianism is not an alternative, but a curse. The “the cult of efficiency” is a con.
To be Continued.
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