Paul Eidelberg on radical democracy

In an extended restatement of the thesis of Plato and Aristotle, Paul Eidelberg gives a compelling description of the transition from the democratic to the tyrannical phase of the "political cycle". It is from his Discourse on Statesmanship (1974), pp 63–68.

In the worst variety of democracy, there are no qualifications for voting or for holding office (apart from age, citizenship, and perhaps residence requirements). Accordingly, each individual has a right to an equal voice in public affairs. This fact alone has profound moral and intellectual consequences. First of all, it fosters the notion that one individual is as good as any other, that his opinions, or his likes and dislikes, are as valid as another's. Such a notion is utterly destructive of morality and even of rationality. The problem of morality -- the question of how men should live -- becomes a matter of personal taste, from which it would follow that there is no more rationality in choosing to live like a Socrates than a de Sade. Rationality, hence truth itself, requires an aesthetic awareness of limits, moral as well as logical. In the absence of limits, the bare statement that each individual should have an equal voice in public affairs is palpably absurd. This absurdity is acknowledged by the fact that a person is required to reach a certain age before he is deemed qualified to participate in the deliberative or elective process called "voting," an activity which presupposes some experience with different types of human character on the one hand, and some understanding of public issues on the other. Notice that the mere specification of an age requirement for voting confirms a principle of nature, that adults ought not be governed by children, a principle, we have seen, which bears the implication that the wise should not be ruled by the unwise. It can be argued, therefore, that the age requirement for voting is in tension with the notion that each individual has a right to an equal voice in public affairs, for it goes without saying that age is not absolutely determinative of the line to be drawn between maturity and immaturity. But from this it follows that the question of how men should live is not reducible to mere opinion or personal taste. Required is knowledge, which is not equally accessible to all and is not to be achieved without experience and the proper cultivation of the mind over a considerable period of time. All this applies with greater force to the different age qualifications for holding various public offices: think of the progressively increasing age requirements for being a Representative or a Senator or a President of the United States. These differences -- related to the increasing complexity of each office -- suggest that politics has or necessitates what may be termed a "wisdom principle," one which makes moral and intellectual distinctions among citizens and which thereby imposes some limits on what men may or may not do. The tendency of radical democracy is to level these distinctions, hence to break down the distinction between wisdom and unwisdom, between maturity and immaturity, between adulthood and adolescence. But this is to undermine all limits; it is to give men an unbounded liberty.

Liberty is indeed the first aim of democracy. It is to be noted, however, that Aristotle distinguishes between two forms of liberty. One form may be termed "political," and consists in ruling and being ruled in turn. This form of liberty, of course, is not peculiar to democracies alone. What distinguishes democratic liberty is that it is based on an egalitarian conception of justice. As Aristotle puts it: "The democratic conception of justice is the enjoyment of arithmetical equality, and not the enjoyment of proportionate equality on the basis of desert". As a consequence, in the worst variety of democracy, where this conception of justice is most pronounced, all citizens, whether rich or poor, wise or unwise, may have an equal voice in public affairs. Or as modest men now teach, the egalitarian conception of justice requires dogmatic adherence to the principle of "one man, one vote." From this it follows that, in a democracy, especially of the radical type, the wise who are few will be ruled by the unwise who are many -- and as a matter of principle as well as of policy.

The other form of liberty prevalent in radical democracy may be called "personal" liberty. It consists in "living as you like," free from the restraints of government, law, or custom. This is an individualistic as well as an egalitarian conception of liberty. In democratic societies where this view of liberty prevails, the individual is virtually autonomous, a law unto himself. He need defer to no one, for his opinion as to how men should live, and, therefore, as to how he should live, is as valid as anyone else's. Why, indeed, should he defer to any established standards of personal conduct when, in the political domain, not qualitative, but quantitative criteria are decisive? Or if the vote of one person is to count neither more nor less than the vote of another on public matters affecting the way of life of an entire community, on what grounds, other than force of mere numbers, should the individual feel constrained as to the manner in which he governs his personal life? Stated another way: If there are no rational and objective political truths regarding how men should live, then there are no theoretical limits as to how any individual should live. From this it would follow that politics, as an intellectual discipline, can be nothing more than a descriptive as opposed to a normative science. Neither the political scientist nor the statesman can provide the ordinary citzen any rational grounds for preferring one way of life over another. Indeed, it would be absurd for the ordinary citizen to defer to their judgment, since his likes and dislikes are as valid as theirs.

The denial of politics as preeminently the science of the best regime logically points to what Aristotle regards as the worst regime, insofar as the worst variety of democracy is a form of tyranny or its immediate precursor. As a form of tyranny, radical democracy involves two factors corresponding to its two-fold conception of liberty. On the one hand, its egalitarian conception of liberty -- which is to say, its egalitarian conception of justice -- eventuates in majoritarian tyranny, or what Madison called majority faction. On the other hand, and in tension with the preceding, its conception of liberty as "living as you like" or "doing as you please" eventuates in the tyranny of the individual. It is precisely for this reason that Aristotle denies that radical democracy is even a regime. For a regime is nothing less than a commonly shared way of life governed by law; and by law Aristotle means not only written but moral law -- habitual ways of doing things or well-established modes of conduct. Where, however, the individual is autonomous, a law unto himself, he ceases to be a citizen with duties and obligation. He becomes, instead, a consumer of "rights," and his "rights" multiply with his wants and appetites. Dignified by the term "rights," his wants and appetites become demands made against society. And since there are no public standards regarding what is right -- not even a common sense as to what is reasonable -- the most extravagant demands made by individuals against society may be taken seriously or may become objects of negotiation. This is what is meant by saying that the egalitarian conception of personal liberty culminates in the tyranny of the individual. Conceptually, however, this "justifies" tyranny pure and simple. For if it cannot be rationally and objectively determined as to who should rule, it does not only follow that no one should rule. Equally logical is the conclusion that anyone may rule. No longer may we speak of the right of the individual to do as he pleases: he may very well please to tyrannize over others. To be sure, this seems to contradict the notion of liberty. But this only means that liberty has become a paralogism, a self-contradiction; it only means that liberty has become irrational. This is the inevitable consequence of denying the power of human reason to discover objective political truths. For truth, as noted earlier, is a limit without which there can be no conceptual constraints, not even the constraints afforded by the law of contradiction. Without such limits the individual is thrust wholly upon himself, cast upon the sea of impulse and desire. In the process, society becomes a vast Bedlam and Bridewell.

Before insanity and criminality reign supreme, or before the tyranny of the one erases the political arithmetic of "one man, one vote," the individual enjoys considerable freedom. He is more or less able to gratify, with little delay, his appetites and desires. Indeed, quick and successful self-indulgence becomes a matter for praise -- almost a virtue. Meanwhile, moderation becomes an object of scorn, a sign of cowardice. Moderation, of course, imposes limits on the individual's freedom to live as he like, and he lives to enjoy his freedom. He does so, however, only to the extent that he is protected by law or lawfully constituted authority. Without these the individual is defenseless, a prey to the appetites of others. But the law imposes restraints upon him no less than upon others. It stands in irksome contradiction to the notion of liberty as "living as you like"; and in a radically permissive society, the individual has been indoctrinated from childhood to believe in, and to act upon, this notion of freedom. Accordingly, he will look upon the mildest of externally imposed restraints with impatience and with outright hostility. Any attempt by government to place some limits on his freedom to say and do as he pleases will be denounced as tyrannical (or as "authoritarian"). Even the rule of lawfully constituted majorities will appear to him as a form of tyranny. Such is the extent of his self-righteousness or self-serving conceit that he will seek to overturn any law or institution or moral code -- indeed, all "establishments" -- that hinder him from saying or doing whatever he pleases. Self-expression is the only law he will recognize. Any other would be condemned by this opinionated and nondeferential individual as placing him in a position of inequality or as engendering within him oppressive feelings of inferiority. Such individuals, animated against all privilege, preeminence, and authority, are ripe for the demagogue, who will know how to intensify and direct their negative passions, in particular, the passion of ressentiment. With their support, the demagogue will seek to maximize liberty and equality by leveling all legal and moral restraints on desires on the one hand, and all vestiges of inequality based on wealth and merit on the other. Laws will now be overturned with every breeze of popular passion; or they will be ignored, [flouted], unenforced. Political instability, along with ceaseless change in society at large, will nurture a profound insecurity in the private and solipsistic world of the individual. The lawless rule of men will replace the humane rule of law. No one will quite know who he is or where he is going. He will need someone to tell him. Someone will.