[This is my response to a short essay appearing in Academia.edu.]
“We need to revive, promote and develop citizen-centered democracy, democracy as a way of life, is also crucial this moment of our history.”
Harry Boyte, The Two Meanings of Democracy https://www.academia.edu/114992334/Boyte_Two_meanings_of_democracy?email_work_card=abstract-read-more
Mr. Boyte provides us with a short, yet succinct, summary of a classical argument, namely the distinction between a Democracy and a Republic. He quotes Madison’s description of a Republic as a representative form of democracy where the chosen few act on behalf of the many. He then contrasts this view with that of Jefferson, describing his view as more akin to classical, Greek democracy where the people themselves can reconstruct the public realm through action. Even so, Jefferson did not advocate for direct democracy, but he did advocate for universal White, male suffrage. He believed in representative democracy, but felt the closer politics was to the people, the more likely democracy would prevail. Madison believed in a strong federal government, but only with regard to “national” matters, including not only defense but areas that required or benefitted from uniformity. Jefferson believed in a minimalist federal government, with most power residing with the states and local governments. He also expressed acceptance of the possible need for rebellion from time to time to restore democracy and root out corruption. He specifically downplayed concerns prompted by Shay’s rebellion (a rationale of some framers for restricted popular sovereignty), stating that the “tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
In a position that John Dewey and others would adopt, Jefferson believed in the agency of the governed and, to the extent that there were deficiencies, those should be recognized and overcome, not by repression and regression, but by transparency and civic education. This liberal belief in people and their capacity to politically participate, was then used in Boyte’s paper to demonstrate the founders’ intent to memorialize that belief by starting the Constitution with the phrase “We the People.” As opposed to a deep-seated belief, it is difficult to view the framers of the Constitution, and their sense of full citizenry, as representing anything more than a presumption that what was right for White, propertied men was right for all.
It would seem that the only way to reconcile the preamble of the Constitution with the sense that individuals were to be the controlling factors in American democracy, would be to align it with the phrase, “all men are created equal,” from the Declaration of Independence. But although the phrase has come to mean that all “men” have natural rights to “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness,” its original intent more likely meant that the colonists, as a separate group comprising the body politic of the thirteen colonies, should be seen an equal to their counterparts in other countries to collectively decide on their sovereignty.
These discussions are worth having and intellectually stimulating, but in the absence of economic considerations most likely of no use. When all is said and done, economic power provides the means for, and control of, political power. We can look at this from a Marxist perspective: “The mode of production in material life determines the general character of the social, political and spiritual processes of life.” Alternatively, we can look at it from a market perspective. As elaborated upon in Buttonwood, the finance column of the Economist, “to the extent that groups gain economic power, political power will follow.” As understood by Jefferson, a decentralized economy leads to decentralized political power. However, as understood by capitalists, a centralized economy leads to centralized, oligarchic political power. And so, we are politically, in many ways where we have mostly been from the start of our nation. With Trump in office, we seem now to have explicitly accepted the political beliefs of one of our nation’s foremost founders, John Jay, who said, “those who own the country, ought to govern it.” That is where we seem to be at present, on the threshold of our 250th anniversary as a nation, regardless of whether we call our system of government, or the system we believe to be under attack, a democracy or a republic.
The question then, to me at least, is how can a representative democracy, or republic, work? We can go back to John Dewey, who said so eloquently that “only when we start from a community as a fact, grasp the fact in thought so as to clarify and enhance its constituent elements, can we reach the idea of democracy which is not utopian.” And what are those constituent elements? As far as I can tell, Dewey never explicitly defined them. In my 2008 book, Concept of Community, Lessons from the Bronx, available for free download at www.communitycivics.com, I proposed that those three elements are commonality, interdependence, and collective capacity.
Commonality is the easiest to understand, usually satisfied through geographical proximity. But commonality can be satisfied in other ways as well. Interdependence is a concept lost on Western society, isolated as we are from one another, disenfranchised economically and marginalized politically, the only interdependence that is pervasive is that which may exist within a family unit. To be interdependent, we must feel bound to one another. As Spinoza explains, what we want for ourselves we want for others. My pain is your pain; your pain is my pain. Conversely, my benefit is your benefit and your benefit is my benefit. This ethic is well described by the Ubuntu philosophy, “I am because we are.”
The third element is collective capacity. No community can be entirely self-sufficient, but to the degree that it is, to that extent can it find meaningful expression within our political economy. It is also an important part of being free. As Wendell Berry has written, “if you are dependent on people who do not know you, who control the value of your necessities, you are not free, and you are not safe.” To function as a community, there must be some capacity to accomplish collective goals.
Before concluding, it is helpful to discuss the concept of power. Power, like community, is a word that is most often used casually and without regard to how it differs from authority. Hannah Arendt has provided us with a useful definition of power, which relates directly to our discussion of community and democracy. She states:
“mutual contract by which people bind themselves together in order to form a community…Such an alliance gathers together the isolated strengths of the allied partners and binds then into a new power structure….power comes into being only if and when men join themselves together for the purpose of action, and it will disappear when, for whatever reason, they disperse and desert one another. Hence, binding and promising, combining and covenanting are the means by which power is kept in existence…”
Power can be developed for a specific purpose, and once that purpose is realized and people part company, the power will dissipate. But in a community, power is a constant, a continually functioning attribute of community. What power the community has cannot be revoked. It can only be destroyed or voluntarily abandoned. This is in contrast to authority. As authority is granted, it can also be rescinded. If people in a neighborhood are permitted to govern their affairs, they can just as easily be forced to give up those concessions. The only way for them to counter is to join together, contribute resources, and fight the decision, a much more difficult proposition, and one that is nearly impossible unless the neighborhood residents are very well off and have free time and disposable income they are willing to part with. The absence of community not only deprives us of self-determination, but it is a threat to our freedom.
In conclusion, there is no democracy without some degree of local economic control, and the power that comes with it. There is no democracy without community. Citizen-centered democracy is critical in this moment of our history. But it will not happen without changing the way we live, work, and organize ourselves socially, economically, and politically.