In defence of democracy

Democracy has often been portrayed as being about freedom. It is, but that the common portrayal is a simplification: I consider it is more accurately described as being based on collective decision making, as opposed to the tyranny of a few or one imposing their decisions on the many.

The advantages of this include being able to access the skills of many. A tyranny, including in its authoritarian state model, imposes rules from the top, and that inherently silences and shuts out and shuts down creativity and innovation and access to skills & knowledge.

The danger, of course, for a democracy is casting out minorities through popularism - through making decisions based on fear of "the other", whether "the other" is a race, religion, sexuality, gender identity or women.

Democracy therefore needs to be moderated by (a) protection of minorities, and (b) education and access to accurate information (which is where the political right of freedom to expression comes in). A strong, free and accurate media is essential for democracy, as is a universal, relevant and effective education (and I would suggest we have further to go on that at present - particularly around recognising fake news, being immune to commercial propaganda, and not being biased).

The strength of a democracy, as opposed to an authoritarian or other tyranny, is that those with the ability to recognise a problem, the intelligence to formulate a solution, and the eloquence to advocate for same, are able to do so.

In authoritarian and other tyrannies, dissent is silenced, and thus a decision may be made and imposed that is either neutral or downright bad.

Let's consider that in the light of the current pandemic.

In the authoritarian tyranny where this pandemic is most likely to have originated, the initial decision was made quickly ("efficiently"), and imposed rapidly. That decision was to deny that there was a pandemic and suppress knowledge of it's existence.

In the thought provoking article "Has coronavirus shown us the limits of democracy, as life in the West mimics China?", by one of our best journalists, Stan Grant, German political theorist and Nazi Party member Carl Schmitt is cited as having opined that the "checks and balances" of liberal governments are a weakness, as they impeded decisive decision making. Well, apart from disputing that checks and balances are the most defining feature of a liberal society, let alone a democracy (a lot of overlap there, but not exactly the same thing), the decisive decision making in China was initially around preserving its power basis. I've read a view that this is around preserving its "basis for legitimacy", but the nature of an authoritarian tyranny is that it recognises no other source of legitimacy than itself, so I consider that argument somewhat specious. In a tyranny, people don't have a ready option for opting out, other than a dangerous, violent and bloody rebellion. Relatively peaceful transitions such as happened at the end of the Marcos regime in the Philippines are rare.

The response in China that has drawn most admiration is the SECOND response, which was a decision to follow medical advice and impose a lockdown that the authoritarian tyranny was forced into by the failure of it's initial, "quick and efficient" decision making. Now, in some aspects that could possibly have been better thought out than some of the lockdowns in the West (especially around things like access to groceries), but it had problems, just as did the lockdowns in the West, and most of those problems in the West are more symptomatic of cut back public services than democracies - or a liberal society. (And in some cases, they reflected individuals' biases towards authoritarianism.)

Those decisions largely reflect the outcomes of the collective decision making made by those democracies at elections - decision making that was flawed through imperfect access to information, perhaps, but we still, as a democratic community, share a collective responsibility for electing those who made that set of decisions - and that is a choice no-one in an authoritarian tyranny has. Furthermore, in a few years, we will have the option of voting them out - again, that is a choice no-one in an authoritarian tyranny has.

Similarly, the imposition of a lockdown, including temporary inconveniences (which most of what is being objected to are) and temporary cession of the relative predominance of some civil and political rights to the third generation human right to health is an outcome of the collective decision making we made.

We, in the liberal democracies of the West, still have the right to express opinions about this - and that right is being exercised online, particularly in social media, every day. Some people are using physical activism, including ignoring lockdown requirements, and that is inherently trampling on - subjugating - other people's rights to health. Others are using their still existing right to freedom of expression, one of our most important political (first generation) rights, to advocate for following medical advice more closely.

We are not, we have not suddenly, overnight become an authoritarian tyranny - despite some of the implementation, including some police responses, being open to criticism (validly so, in my view).

We are not China or China-like because of the imposition of a lockdown nor other measures.

However, some of these measures, including the use of surveillance apps, do have a dangerous potential to be used to move us towards a more authoritarian state - particularly given the level of surveillance and commercial surveillance we have agreed to in recent decades, and it is up to us - all of us, as voters, after this, to be brave enough to choose the socially responsible, collective decision making power of democracy.

As the controversial  Benjamin Franklin is supposed to have said in response to a question on the form of government the newly minted USA had: "A republic, if you can keep it".

We have a democracy - if we can keep it. It is at threat, but not because of our right-to-health based response: it is at threat because we, as a collective, have allowed fear and misinformation to erode our decision making over the last two decades.