Democracy! Can We Have It?

Thomas Paine is famously quoted thus: "That government is best which governs least". This can be taken to mean the best government is the one that most closely approaches no government at all.

The aphorism should rather be understood to mean the best government is the government that provides all the beneficial and detailed governance required for optimal community health, yet does so with the lightest and most delicate touch. Or another way of saying it would be, the best government is the most invisible government.

Now, invisible governance is generally considered to be anathema to democracy, for True Democracy is commonly viewed as a process in which every member of the community is fully involved in every (fully transparent, of course) governing decision the community makes.

But talk about intrusive, thumpingly in-your-face government! What could be more intrusive big government than a government that demands your participation in every policy decision, starting with which crosswalk to repaint, then which agricultural methods to encourage, which laws to prioritize, which financial regulations to establish, which schools to fund, which sewer lines to clean, which professionals to license, which drugs to permit, which land uses to prohibit where, which transportation corridors to build, which... and on and on and on to infinity and seemingly beyond. And all that on the basis of you pulling yourself up to meet your social and democratic obligations by studying for unending hours each and every policy trade-off, fully understanding what you've studied, and then spending endless hours in meetings discussing with an open mind all the permutations consequent to every policy decision! If that demand for constant, unpaid service is not a form of taxation, and even slavery, then I have no idea what is.

Then there is the problem of effecting full and universal participation, even if only to address a somehow limited range of policy decisions. As anyone who has ever participated in group decision making knows, full and universal participation doesn't really happen, even among those who disrupt their lives enough to attend the meetings. This is true even when it's just a small, self-selecting group, because always, somehow, not everyone in the group manages to get an equal voice. This remains true even in the rare case of having no formal barriers to expression and participation. There are always a few who have more juice, the ones who stand forth and dominate the dialog, who shape the agenda, and who guide the saliencies that determine the eventual purported consensus. Or, if the image of consensus cannot be reached, there is always someone, consciously or not, who controls the final ballot. You've seen it, as have I. Yes, in the end, group decision making always devolves to those in the group who have the gift of, and the pulpit for, the gab. How, then, is that significantly different from rule imposed by any other elite?

Well, for one thing, it's way more cumbersome, and way more likely to get muddled up and compromised with satisficing and incremental changes.

So while participatory democracy is a lovely ideal, it's a practical nightmare, both as an immense burden on the citizen and a Gordian knot of policy making logistics. Though it may have good and reasonable functionality in very small and isolated groups that have only a very simple palette of tools and problems, it's hopelessly cumbersome and unreliable in larger, more cosmopolitan groups burdened with complex tools, intractable management problems, and the consequent scope of policy choices.

Since few show much real enthusiasm for returning to isolation and simple tools, we're faced with the problem of designing a governance structure that better satisfies human aspiration while also maintaining a high level of cosmopolitanaity along with rapidly evolving tools.