With all the ‘debate’ (read: protests, vitriol, insurrection, conspiracy theories, disinformation, etc.) recently concerning equality, equity, representation, power, and democracy, I feel compelled to offer an alternative view that I hope is constructive. In writing this, my hope is to encourage a more productive discussion about the systems we live in. As a person who dislikes to argue trivialities, as someone who cares more for what or how something is than what it is called, I look to understand the fundamental aspects of humanity. The current issue we face, as a people and as a world, is the need for a fundamental shift away from a mode of thinking which is ancient—possibly prehistoric—in origin. While we absolutely enjoy a standard of living far in excess of anything possible before, with medicine, sanitation, literacy, and survival all measurably improved, I submit that life is fundamentally unchanged from those ancient times. In order to demonstrate my thesis I will require your forbearance, as I must start with a broad overview of history. These are all drawn from general knowledge available to most contemporary citizens, and designed to give us a common understanding from which to arrive at the conclusions of this essay. At this time I wish to acknowledge a couple truths, in the spirit of empowerment and consensus. I recognize that I am not the only, first, or even best person to write this; it is simply that I have my own way of understanding and expressing these ideas. Also, that my ability to speak to these matters is made possible by, as well as greatly enhanced by, numerous oppressed groups and individuals who have gone before me. Similarly, that I enjoy privilege accorded me that is not given to others, based on the very systems on which I offer criticism. Herewith, we enter the body of the text.
For much of prehistory—that is the period before we have written records and rely upon speculation based on surviving artifacts—we suppose humans lived as tribal beings. These would be small bands, either nomadic or settled, with little need for governance; generally, we imagine tribal councils or a ‘chief’. Additionally, people often suppose a spiritual leader as a connection to the supernatural. In these tribes, social pressures would protect individuals within the group from each other within the established order. However, in the main, people assume that these tribes were hierarchical in that they had leaders. Once people began to band together, congregate, or converge into groups greater than 150, there became a need for more structured organization. Rather than risk living among strangers who might be killers and marauders, people would likely establish and accept laws—and then bureaucracy—in order to maintain their safety and stability. Sometime around 5000 years ago, Egypt began counting dynasties; we also have written laws from Mesopotamia dating around 4000 years ago. What we know of earliest recorded history is that there were already systems in place that ordered—and, likely, stratified—society. Some of the earliest pieces of writing we have discovered are tabulations of stock, indicating a mercantile system. From that period, we begin to see the characteristic and familiar structures of “civilized” societies. In every human civilization, there were the mass of people (those common to see, or “commoners”) going about their lives. Once agriculture became widespread, specialization followed; this meant people focused on particular trades: farmers, builders, millers, smiths, tanners, and on and on. All these commoners (be they Roman, Aztec, Persian, Celtic, Mongol, etc.) desired security and liberty. The ability to farm, build, mill, and trade without interference from bandits or bureaucrats; to be with family and continue the traditions of their ancestors. These common folk of societies, who were not thinking about conquering or ruling, concerned themselves with how to care for family and enjoy the time they had. Typically, commoners would be subject to a ruler. You will likely recognize the titles pharaoh, caliph, emperor, emir, shah, khan, shogun, or king; when we think of history, these have often been the focus—these individuals who “shaped the world”. We recognize these are non-democratic types of government; the notion that one individual would have total control over an entire nation may even seem “barbaric” to those in a modern, “democratic” nation. However, this system of monarchy was accepted (indeed, expected as the norm) in a wide number of cultures around the world throughout history. Not to exclude those still in existence, of course, however they be organized or labeled. It was oft-purported that these rulers had actually been ‘touched by god’ somehow, and were exceptional. This might nowadays be labeled a theocracy, where the ruler is supposed to be connected to their deity. The laws and structure of such a society would be based on the religion of that god, and thus automatic justification for any action of the government. This demonstrates most clearly how rulers were seen to be—in a fundamental way—different and separate from ‘regular people’. In other cases, the person in charge was ruler because they had the largest army or in some way established rule through military might. This may have been an ancient Roman general or Mongol leader, an African lord or Medieval duke. While it scarcely needs saying, I would be remiss in not including the colonizing forces of European countries here as well. For example, the United States started out as a colony of Britain, justified by both ‘divine right’ and military superiority over the native peoples.
What, then, was life like that makes these civilizations non-democratic? First, rules came from the top, as mentioned above; also, that rulers were not beholden to the citizenry. Once the monarch made the decisions, those policies were sent out to regional and then local officers. In medieval Europe, the monarch could have barons, dukes, lords, and princes on down to locals such as burghers or sheriffs, these would be the “nobility” or “aristocracy”. The enforcement of royal edicts depended on each local magistrate (and the enforcers they would retain). Wealth and property would be concentrated in and collected by nobles, often with the understanding that ultimately it was owned by “the monarchy”. Conversely, all local decisions were backed up by the threat of force from higher-ranking nobles. If a mayor abused their position there was little recourse available to the citizenry. Officials would likely only be removed if they displeased their superiors, i.e. by embezzling monies those superior nobles wanted for themselves. Information and education were similarly restricted to the wealthy; at times, the only literate persons were those educated and beholden to the established religious order. Mistrust of outsiders or differences was common; therefore, most folks would have stuck to what and who they knew. This relates to the ability and desire to relocate, as most people would remain near their birthplace generation upon generation. For information on the larger world, locals would need to depend on news (or gossip) from travelers or merchants who visited other places. Often, there would also be rigid enforcement of roles; if not de jure caste, then title or trade were handed down from parent to child—similarly keeping people trapped at particular levels of society. Additionally, commoners would be subject to conscription into militia or other forced labor. This could be as punishment for infractions or due to the local magistrate’s desire for greater holdings (property). Fealty (a legal obligation to a lord) or loyalty to town, country, church, or cause could be invoked to bestir commoners to the rulers’ ends. Truly despotic rule meant citizens could not criticize publicly or privately, as doing so would result in fatal, and often public, retaliation. Likewise, meetings would be prohibited or subject to approval and restriction, so as to curtail expression of dissent or discontent in the more oppressive regimes. Finally, slavery has existed since time immemorial. Certainly never as organized and institutionalized as the Atlantic slave trade of the mid- to late-1000s. However, the forced use of another’s work for one’s own benefit has been used to the ends of those in power throughout history. Since we have established the limitations of the citizenry, what did freedom (the lives of the aristocracy) look like? In contrast to the harsh lives of commoners, the “nobles” were able to travel, learn, own, choose, participate in government, were treated with respect or deference, and lived in abundance; food, shelter, clothing, social acceptance and standing, self-improvement, and ability to care for others. If we use a psychological hierarchy of needs, it was only the “upper class” who had access to all the components. This illustrates quite clearly the difference and divide between the “have’s” and “have-not’s”, which is not only obviously non-democratic, but also unjust and immoral to modern sensibilities. These are the conditions which lead to the ‘revolutions’ of the 18th century, and our modern ideas about democracy. In a sense, it was a change purported to allow more of humanity to experience what previously had been reserved to the ‘nobility’.
During the 1700’s (in a period now called the “[Age of] Enlightenment”) a number of political philosophers were writing and talking about government and what legitimacy it had, based on “natural laws” and a presumed “state of nature”. These discourses were, in turn, based on much earlier theories from more ancient civilizations’ philosophers. Written works like Leviathan, Common Sense, and The Social Contract are the results of these Enlightenment thinkers. In the Declaration of Independence, the justification for cutting ties with the British monarchy is almost wholly based on the king’s breaking of this “social contract” between ruler and ruled. It is important, therefore, to familiarize ourselves with these reasonings in order to understand how we have reached the state of today’s societies and governance thereof, which is presumed to be democratic. The essential part is that notion of “contract between ruler and ruled”: that there exists an implicit and/or explicit agreement that the ruler will protect the ruled and, in return, the ruled provide support and obedience to rule. This is considered necessary because the supposed alternative is an “anarchic state” where “each one is against every other” (this is the “state of nature” previously mentioned). The reasoning essentially becomes, “rule by a government is evil, but necessary when weighed against the alternative of bloody, murderous barbarism”. This disingenuous and self-serving argument rings hollow given adequate perspective and understanding of context. However, it is not important in this section to explore criticism of the construct, as we only need understand that this “social contract” has been used as the “justification” for government over the past 250 years. Contained in the theory is a kernel of new thinking: that rulers owe something to the ruled. Still not democracy (since they were not proposing citizens’ involvement in governance), just the notion that the monarch was not all-powerful and inerrant. This thinking then lead to the democratic revolutions in the Americas and Europe, as countries began overthrowing the established monarchies. These changes supposedly resulted in democracy. As if doing away with a figurehead was sufficient to eliminate non-democratic systems and thinking. Given that hundreds of years and numerous laws were required to bring persons of color and women into this “democratic system”, we can begin to see the shift was neither automatic nor immediate. This betrays the underlying truth to the history we’ve been exploring, and we will return to that topic in our last section. At this juncture, I also wish to clarify a fundamental aspect of all this discussion of democracy, which is the relationship between our subject and capitalism (said relationship deserving a separate discussion). While there is much linking of democracy and capitalism, it is a spurious and dangerous equivalence. Democracy is a system of governing a body of participants whereas capitalism is a set of economic precepts by which people conduct trade. In a democratic government the goal is the betterment of life for all citizens rather than just a few, and this is accomplished through a willingness of those same citizens to agree on laws and be governed by them. The economic model of capitalism, in contrast, is predicated upon competition between private holdings with the goal of extracting capital from customers in order to expand those holdings. Because of this fundamental difference, they are analogous to the water and electrical systems in your home: they are both important, but serve distinctly and incompatibly different purposes. Additionally, they cannot be linked and continue to function as intended. After all, you would not plug a cord into the toilet or run a water pipe into the junction box. At best, things just do not work; at worst, you burn down the house. In saying this, I wish to allow us to continue this essay without being further distracted by the conflation of democracy with capitalism.
To complete this first section, I wish for readers to recognize that we are reviewing most societies over the course of thousands of years; it is, admittedly, difficult to picture much beyond the past hundred years. Additionally, the numbers of persons involved stagger the imagination. For context, the estimated total number of humans who have ever lived is 108 billion. With a current population estimate of 7.5 billion, that leaves over 100,000,000,000 persons having lived through the millennia under the historical conditions that we are considering. While the names and outward particulars may have differed, we are viewing these systems in order to understand their underpinnings—the structure that supports the structure we see. If there are any, the few exceptions serve to prove non-democracy as the general rule. Finally, it is not my conjecture that this is the natural or only form that societies can take.
Edit October 2022: for excellent examination of historical information, see The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman times to the French Revolution, by Francis Fukuyama
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