Democracy can mean many things. Often it is used out of context, and more often it is not mentioned, when it should. I think nowadays democracy is under great pressure from mainly USA corporations. Freedom of thought and travel and so on, especially for non-USA citizens is also under pressure. About time to really understand what democracy means. So we can defend what is important.
Democracy is a form of society and government. Usually people think of democracy as only a form of government, but I think that is wrong. It fits into a cultural pattern and values that are a lot more than a form of government.
Democracy in the modern sense has three main components (and yes I know you can devide it up in many different ways too).
Firstly, there should be a body of government that has real power to decide, or to control those that decide. It is important it has real power: if it has only an advisory role, there is no democracy at all. This body should represent all voters: the people. Normally by direct elections. The directer the elections, the more truely a democracy is democratic. Usually one calls this body the parliament, congress or a house of representatives, the chambers or other names. It can exist of one or two parts and in fact it often does.
Secondly, and this is often forgotten, the body of government should be embedded in a constitutional state: a system can only be democratic within a body of laws that ensures that the parts of the government play by certain well-defined rules. This is important for the parliament, but even more so for the executive parts of the government we will talk about later.
The third part of a democracy besides the parliament and the rules and laws that describe its behaviour and that of other parts of the government is the implementation of the trias politica. The trias policita is usually seen as a system that devides parts of the government up in 1. the law-making power (parliament) 2. the executive power (ministries, cabinet, president) and 3. the juridical power (they check if the rules are followed.)
The constitutional state and trias politica serve many functions:
The decisions taken by the parliament are laid down in a body of laws (often with a constitution at the basis of the system). But the decisions should also be taken according to already laid down laws. These laws can be called upon by individual civilians and other actors such as firms and foundations for instance. This ensures that a parliament, or the executive power cannot become so powerful it can just wipe out all wishes of the people that elected them. The laws are interpreted by a juridical system where judges can destroy decisions taken by the parliament (and also by the executive bodies of government) if they are in conflict with certain laws.
Now this schema with three parts of the government embodied in a system of laws can have all kinds of different add-ons. There can be governmental systems such as counties, states, cities and municipalities that have complicated intertwining powers, based upon geography. Often such sub-systems of government have there own trias politica sub-systems, such as councils, a mayor and so on.
These are also special parts of government at the top: usually either a monarchy or a republic. Usually a monarchy has a king with very few powers, where in a republic the presidency can have little or much power, depended on the design of the system.
However the precise form the government takes, in essence there are some points to discern:
- There should be no absolute power. The system of checks and balances should be such that no part of the trias politica gets too much power. So, the parliament should make sure the executive parts of the government don't get out if line and do what they promise or what they are ordered to do by the parliament. Judges should be able to protect the civilians from arbitrariness and in-justice. The executive powers should be able to do what is needed to make civilians and other actors live in freedom and peace. In fact using the words checks and balances is confusing. There can be a number of very different rules and structures between different bodies of government that make sure non of them becomes too powerful. And in the end the body that is elected directly should have the final say.
- The civilians/voters should have a real say in what happens in a country. No matter how complicated the laws and governmental system is, in the end the voters should see their desires and problems reflected in what happens and what solutions are taken for certain problems.
- In western democracies, but I think in about all democracies, the government and the constitution must protect the freedom of individuals, and their right to free speech and other human rights.
In 2003 the democracy seems especially under attack. The DMCA and especially multinationals in the USA are a big threat to the freedom of Europeans and others. The non-democratic European union is also becoming a real threat: they are for instance deciding on a law that brings intellectual property under patent law. Such an undemocratic governmental organization is trying to import USA-problems into Europe. High-level governmental organizations seem less and less controlable by the voters: they do what they want without any significant discussion with voters. In this world and timeframe it is important to sum up the threats to democracy: without a doubt governmental organizations themselves are the root of the problems. These are the dangers I see for democracy nowadays:
- One can have all democratic bodies and laws in place. But if corruption is a big problem, laws will not be abided. Corruption is a way to completely destroy democracy: it makes sure that those with money, usually criminals, and those with power in the government get what they want. The common civilian has little freedom and few rights he can actually enjoy. If those making up the checks and balaces do not work properly and according to their function democracy is a farce.
- One can have all democratic laws and bodies in place. But if the system is heavily influenced by media, and there is no good feed-back between what civilians want and need and the government, things go wrong. Free speech and free press is important. But often free press acts only according to what sells. This can have very little to do with what people need. This can have very little to do with what is happening in reality to ordinary people, firms, and all kinds oif other actors.
The problem here is really with the fabric of our laws and institutions and the change in media the last 50 years. There are no checks and balances with regard to media. In practice this means that a small group of influential people in the media decide what is on the political agenda. This problem is known, but because free media are deemed so important nothing is usually done about it. While it would be easy to have surveys amongst people to get to know their problems, few political parties bother.
- One can have all democratic laws and bodies in place. But if other countries by sheer power can put you in prison or abuse your rights of freedom of speech and so on, and your country cowardly hands you over to such a country, the democracy in your own country becomes irrelevant. Of course it is again the USA where the governments is bound by many laws to protect its ow civilians. However, since these laws do not protect foreigners, USA-based government bodies can bluntly celebrate their need to control and rule the world uncontrolled. If you think I am overreacting consider these facts:
- The USA has a law that officially enables them to invade the Netherlands when the international courts there hold any prisoners from the USA.
- The USA has a project (echelon) that monitors and analysis email and other information streams from all countries over the world. They cannot do this with their own citizens, but they do it to all other people of this world. It is said that this information is also used for industrial espionage.
- The USA tries to get foreigners handed over to their custody for crimes according to USA law committed in other countries. They thus want their own laws to be enacted all over the world: this is pure colonialism of course. The other way around they do not accept the international courts in the Netherlands.
Similar problems exist in Europe. Many European laws overrule national laws. The European parliament however does not have a full control power of a parliament. While they are elected, they cannot control the European council (in fact an executive power) and therefore Europe is no democracy. This undermines the national democracies of course.
- One can have all democratic laws and bodies in place. But if politicians are payed by big corporations (fund raising for instance for campaigning) and they make in return laws to protect these corporations, democracy can become a farce. This is basically a form of corruption. A very good example is of course the USA, where you can basically buy your own law (Disney does, microsoft does).
The DMCA, software-patents, and the failure to protect civilians from obvious forms of monopoly (Microsoft) are all directly due to this form of corruption. In the USA another factor that enables this is the appointment of the judges of the highest level by the president and the parliament.
Many democracies are a few hundred years old now. Often this results in very elaborate bodies of law. Besides the growth a the body of law because of the age of a system, there is also growth because parliaments and administrations have made a habit of passing laws: to solve problems or not. If the body of law is not pruned and becomes more and more complicated, professional help is needed if you need to take a problem to court.
If professional help is costly and not guaranteed by the government, civilians will not be able to get their right. The same argument goes of course if the laws are not so much complicated by their volume, but by other factors as well. If people cannot get their right because they do not have the money democracy and freedom is undermined.
In the USA we can see this problem in its worse form: if you have money you can buy your right: if you don't you can be arrested and be found guilty because you cannot afford a proper defense (check Amnesty International for registered cases where this has happened in the USA). If you don't have money and your opponent does he will win in most cases, no matter what the law says. This system can also be detrimental to economic systems, where rich firms can simply put others out if business by suing them until they simply go broke because of the costs of defending themselves in court.
While this all sounds terribly simplistic, it is in essence what happens. A kind of feudal system is back: now not based on descendance and the ability to hire men with swords, but based on if your money and you can hire good lawyers. But in its core as barbaric as the middle ages (especially if coupled to the death-sentence).
Democracy can seize to function all together if governmental bodies seize to function. While this sounds weird it is very common.
Bureaucracy is a common word for many diseases in the government. The core is that the government does not give the voters what it should: good solutions for problems for a little money as possible and with as little interfearance into voters' lifes. This has many, many causes. Bureaucracy means that the organization of civil cervants, in ministries and other organs of the state has gone out of controle so much, that the politicial process can not steer it anymore (if ti should desire so). So much energy and money is put toward internal struggle, power-games and so on that voters are an annoyance. It is my beliefe that the modern state has no good way to evaluate what it is doing at all: ever spending more money to establish nothing.
So when does a governmental body seize to function:
- when its output has nothing to do with the reality of problems of voters: thus ministries that produce plans that do not solve important problems malfunction. Ministries that fight amongst themselves for power are common. A general lack of evaluating a range of good ideas is common. In the Netherlands some ministries (education) are known to produce plans, then badly implement them, and produce the next series of plans, beginning to do this again because the former plans did not work. Simply a case of too many civil servants coupled to the habit of making many and detailistic plans, while at the same time they have little notion of what is going on, if they care at all. Again, although this sounds simplistic, it is pretty much the core of what happens.
- organizations always want to expand their power and size. When organizations are powerful, such as ministries are, they usually do not care at all for democracy: they care for themselves. They do not strive to work better, as firms must do if they do not want to go broke, but strive to maximize power. If the parliament does not steer these vast masses of civil servants, ministries will grow and grow.
- Governmental bodies are often very poor in finding good solutions. It is often in their nature not to discuss things. There is often no strong mechanism that generates good ideas. In memetic terms: the variation of ideas is extremely poor, and the ability to select good ones dangerously impaired by all kinds of political and power-games: because people in the government are often very able to play political games for power and prestige. The culture is often one of competition between all kinds of people and parties when cooperation would often be needed. They often lack the good engineering skills of understanding problems and seeing the need to cooperate to get results.
In conclusion bureaucracy is perhaps one of the main causes of probems in democratic countries. Ministries always keep growing: there is no mechanism to prune parts that are not needed. In the economy competition and variation takes care of many malfunctioning structures. Not so in government and law. And we all know who pays the bill. If you think this is a bit negative you are damn right. While democracy is certainly not the worst form of government and society, it is certainly not perfect and considering the problems and its relatively young age it might see a revolution or to if problems are not faced.
In recent years we have seen many extreme actions against the USA. While I loathe all terrorist actions and extreme/fundamentalist forms of religion (and state)it seems that the USA government and people do not really know how they are perceived elsewhere. On this page I would like to explain how I and others see the governmental structures in the USA: as rather barbaric.
Let me first state that I and probably most europeans like Americans when we meet them . America has a good ring to it. However, we do see ourselves as culturally smarter, or rather more evolved. We would like to live for a few years in the USA, but certainly not forever (we rather go to Canada or Australia). Also I know that as much as I would like to change things in Europe and I can't, this is also true for Americans. You can vote for a president, but not for or against a legal system, or corruption.
How come we do not want to live in the USA? Well, we do not like the USA government and the USA cultural/social system. The core of this feeling I think is that we are more civilized as a society. In what sense? Well I see a society, or an individual or habits/culture as civilized when it has the ability to use force, but does not. I could potentially go out and rob people less strong than I am, but I do not do that. I can drive my car over a pet on the road, but I use the break. Thus habits that carve of sharp edges of life are civilizing. No tooth for a tooth. No survivial of the strongest. But rather be kind to the weakest, so when your time comes and you are weak, you will not get burned other. A good illustration to paint this difference is the story of the "American dream". Americans use this story to tell that everyone who really tries can get rich and successfull. This means that if you are poor, you probably did not try hard enough. European culture is more based on the feeling that some may make their success, but the vast majority does not have the power to make their sucess at all: in most situations the environment and events around an individual determine what will happen: no matter how hard one tries. So according to this second story, it makes sense to protect the majority form hazard. So what is so civilized in Europe?
We have social security: when you loose your job/get sick/get old, society takes care of you (although this is diminishing). We try to set criminals straight and teach them to be usefull, and don't have an prison-industry where criminals an teach each-others the ropes. Punishing hard may sound nice, but when petty theft gets you in prison, society structurally breads people who made little mistakes into hard-criminals. I have the opinion that smoking drugs that are not very dangerous to the body or others should be legal: that is real freedom. Why lock teenagers up in prison and enhance chances they will become real criminals. Being hard is often no solution: being kind might help now and then (however, at this time in the Netherlands we are cathcing up on some too soft habits: you should not be nice to everyone).
We make sure everybody is insured for diseases and so on. We do not have getto's of armed people that kill eachother. We do not allow guns, so children generally do not kill eachother with it. We disapprove of the death-penalty. We do not have juries but rather see those as modern lynching mobs. We (not England) have direct elections, so those that have the most votes get the most seats in parliament. We do not want your legal jungle, where monopolists can strangle small companies unpunished. We see top-managers that earn a lot of money not as succesfull but as thiefs. We have history in every city and almost every street: buildings of hundreds of years old are common. Castles of centuries old too, but less of course.
Of course this is very, very, very generalizing. But I do think this list can give Americans an idea why we like to live in Europe just fine. Apart from these differences in what we see as a good social system the USA government is also increasingly seen as stupid, blunt, dangerous and despite all that as arrogant.
Europeans, and if not all atleast me, are not anti-American at all. But we have a very different opinion on what civilization means. We see the USA governmental system as too blunt and harsh. This feeling might not matter too much to us if we did not feel threatened. At this time I feel my personal freedom is being attacked by actions of the USA government. Most notably I dislike laws like the DMCA and the like. (I am an IT-professional). They mean that the USA government can sue me, as European, for doing something that is legal where I live. It also means that through corruption in the USA (Disney bribes Bush), my freedom is being taken away. USA firms take my freedom away and the USA so-called democratic system approves of this. Through the USA lawer-circus (that has nothing to do with justice at all) microsoft can drive its monopoly and Disney can pass laws that take away my freedom. In the mean time the USA passes a law to invade my country the Netherlands. Also microsoft is planning