Over half a millennia before Jesus Christ was supposedly mounted on a cross, democracy was born in Athens. It was a raw system of referenda which required merely a stone to cast a vote. It is tempting to glamorise this early form of direct democracy partaken among the fig trees, marble statues and mosaics of Greece but the Athenian elite still centralised political control and only the native men were enfranchised. Since then, democracy in the anglosphere has transformed from these ancient rudiments to the dominance of elite corporate agendas. This elite manifests in many forms: from the identifiable personalities of Supreme Court Justices, politicians and celebrity billionaires to the intangible ether of the mass media machine and the political mechanisms of western democracy, fending off real change. Soon not only will democracy die but humanity will die with it as corporate agendas devastate the environment and the socio-economic state of the people in it. Decision-making is being concentrated in the hands of a few and political policy is becoming homogenized. Those who petition for change, whether it’s Jeremy Corbyn or Bernie Sanders, are marginalised and trivialised as “extreme” whilst the issues of the day are continually ignored. Although democracy is dying, it is important to explore how desirable total direct democracy is.
Many political mechanisms are used currently to control decision-making as they always have. Notably, the Supreme Court of America, the many measures of party control against popular political movements and electoral systems. The US Supreme Court arguably protects the inviolable rights of Americans but in reality, we have seen the vagaries of a 250-year-old document absurdly distorted to pursue an evangelical and neo-conservative agenda. The 3 Trumpian appointments have helped uphold the “right to bear arms”, dismissing the sprees of mass shootings that have erupted across America in favour of the profitable gun lobby and the approximate 68% of Americans who are in favour of stricter gun control (Statista 2021). Moreover, 80% of Americans believe climate change is creating adverse health effects worldwide (2022 Statista) yet the robed tyrants on the Supreme Court continue to restrict the extent to which the EPA can regulate emissions. Meanwhile, whilst access to abortion has been curbed, roughly 66% of Americans support the legalisation of abortion (Statista 2021). The ability of 9 sovereign justices to determine the parameters of governance above the mass population is a mechanistic barrier to democracy that thankfully the UK does not have.
The political mechanism of party control also massively undermines democracy as demonstrated by the candidate selection of the Labour and Democrat parties. Notably, in the US presidential nominations, the superdelegates have allowed the party establishment to influence which candidates are chosen with Biden and Clinton favoured heavily over the more progressive Sanders. Similarly, in the UK the Blairite ranks of the labour party attempted to stifle and suppress the grassroots momentum of Corbyn continually plotting and conspiring against him. This has been evidenced by Peter Mandelson's admission of attempting to undermine Corbyn “every single day”, the will of Labour members overwhelming the leadership in Corbyn’s 61.8% strong vote seen in 2016, the Forde Report’s exposure that senior Labour staff even surreptitiously diverted campaign funds away from Corbyn in 2017 and how such a staunch anti-racist was associated with antisemitism in Starmer’s suspension of Corbyn. This level of establishment control in candidate nomination has led to the creation of uninspiring politicians who fail to seriously address the issues of global inequality and climate change in the UK and US. The strength of the party WHIP in the UK also massively undermines independence with the spectrum of opinion shrunken in the UK political parties. Notably, in the conservative party, Johnson’s purge of 21 MPs who protested the no-deal Brexit in 2019 dealt a major blow to the one-nation conservative faction, axing the likes of Kenneth Clarke and Rory Stewart whilst Starmer has expulsed the progressive Corbyn faction. Under Starmer, he has reneged all of his “10 pledges” that he was elected leader upon and purged the hugely successful left of the party with Corbyn and Long-Bailey’s expelled upon falsified antisemitism claims and more recently those who condemned NATO’s actions were forced to withdraw statements in February. For all of its flaws, at least there is a democratic breadth of opinion in the US parties as seen with the fiscal conservatism of Joe Manchin and the “blue dogs” to the progressive groundswell of Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders in the Democrat party. However, the inability of governments to enact policy due to the neo-liberal manacles of the constitution largely invalidates the breadth of opinion in the US parties.
The elitist nature of these political mechanisms could be considered preferable with a Burkean elite that safeguards against the misguided rashness of the masses. However, conversely, it is clear to see that this current elite is driven purely by self-interest with neo-liberalism permeating the core of every major political party in the US and UK. On the other hand, although the aforementioned examples of elitist control are highly undemocratic, complete democracy is also highly undesirable. Notably, the purest form of direct democracy is destabilising, fostering nationalist extremism and weak coalition governments. This has been observed in Europe with most infamously the triumph of the Nazi Party in the Reichstag but most recently the Austrian People’s Party, Italy’s Lega Nord and Five Star Movement and Hungary’s Christian Democratic People’s Party. This suggests that total democracy is not always desirable although ultimately democracy is preferable as it provides accountability and legitimate freedom of choice. First-Past-The-Post however should still be used despite overrepresenting the main parties as it ensures the winner of the popular vote is the winner of the election and government effectiveness (unlike the USA’s absurdly disproportionate electoral college system). This avoids nationalist extremism whilst also ensuring governments can implement real change.
Democracy has always been meticulously undermined by powerful officials and in nearly all countries (except the UK, Saudi Arabia, New Zealand, Israel and Canada) by an unaccountable and politicised judiciary. However, over the last few decades democracy has been curbed further in the UK and US by the rampant influence of the super-rich. Money has seeped its way into politics through the deregulated chaos of America with the last election amounting to a record $14 billion and the influence of Big Pharma, the fossil fuel lobby and the banking industry on US congressman’s voting patterns. Despite tighter financial regulations in the UK, politicians have become increasingly corrupted by money with the plethora of unlawful contracts dished out to unqualified cronies under Johnson with the Dyson scandal, £3 million tory donations for peerages and the Greensill scandals just a handful of examples on a long list of “sleaze”. Positive Money’s recent revelation that the banking lobby, with city firms such as JP Morgan, has a distorting influence on post-COVID politics has further exemplified this. Notably, 47 MPs received a combined £2.3 million and banks participated in a third of ministerial meetings between 2020-1.
Wealthy media barons such as Murdoch and Warren Buffet over conventional media and the digital monopoly run by the likes of Bezos and Zuckerberg have continued to pollute democracy with neo-liberal biases. Reflecting Chomsky and Herman’s 1988 theory of “manufacturing consent”, the elite consensus was on full display during the 2019 election in which The Guardian launched a vicious antisemitism smear campaign against Corbyn. With a laptop on the sofa of their 6-bedroom Kensington studio apartments, the Guardian’s champagne socialist editorial team typed into the night, attempting to depict Britain’s most prominent anti-racist campaigner as antisemitic (despite the 73% of Guardian readers voting Corbyn in 2017). The growth of misinformation, dubbed “fake news” has been driven by online algorithms. Most recently, fake news has been exhibited with the claim that the pope endorsed Donald Trump by WTOE5 News shared nearly 1,000,000 times (according to Buzzfeed), the “Pizzagate” paedophile smears against Hilary Clinton, the Sun’s claim that Jeremy Corbyn was a communist spy and recently the attacks levelled at Starmer over “Beergate” and concocted claims that he failed to prosecute Jimmy Savile. The dominance of free market agendas in the mainstream media vilifying those who want an increase in taxation has assisted in upholding a neo-liberal establishment.
Another growing threat to democracy has been seen in the furtive operations of the US and NATO in the Middle East, using 9/11 to vindicate a campaign of merciless military intervention. John Bolton, the former National Security Advisor even recently confirmed that he “helped plan coups d’état’ in other countries”. Namely, Nicaragua, Iraq, Haiti and Venezuela are a handful of nations where the US-led efforts to inspire coups. Julian Assange’s exposure of the collateral and overzealous brutality of the US military in Iraq has even put his life in jeopardy with infamous leaks such as the footage of a US Apache Helicopter scything through a crowd of civilians in 2007. This is hardly befitting of a “western democracy”. Whilst secret surveillance and espionage are required for national security, the persistent attempts to extradite and silence Assange are redolent of the repressive nature of Western militaries. The US, assisted by many other NATO countries, regularly commit the same atrocities of the “enemies” in China and Russia; however, these are veiled by the cloak of the media and the distractions of materialism. Whilst the US is admittedly much more preferable to live in, it is also far from the symbol of freedom and democracy it claims to represent. The authoritarian Islamic regimes of the middle east such as Saudi Arabia have also been bolstered by the west through the arms trade. Notably, recent airstrikes in Yemen breaching international law have been facilitated by around £23 billion worth of weaponry sold by the UK since 2015 (estimated by CAAT).
The democracies of the west have always been tightly controlled through the media, political mechanisms and the military. However, increasingly the hegemony of neo-liberalism has been upheld through corruption, military aggression, the supreme court, mainstream party officials, the digital age and the breeding wealth of the super-rich. There is very little accountability to modern democracy. Moral standards have been driven into the ground, the electorate has begun to resemble docile sheep ready to parrot the views of media barons and political debates have been reduced to reality TV shows. If we don’t wake up and smell the coffee, living standards will be compressed further, the earth will be a scorched wasteland drained of oil and less developed nations will never have the opportunity to flourish.