Meditations on meritocratic democracy
The biggest risk of democracy is the tragedy of the commons and the race to the bottom.
Plato's republic warned about the risk of democracy in this way, and in the cycles of civilization democracy is the last step towards tyranny, as a demagogue will step in promising "freedom" and "justice". Often, they turn against the elite, sometimes taking from them and giving to the people—at least for a time. Once in power, the demagogue consolidates control, turning democracy into tyranny.
According to Plato, we start with Aristocracy, rule by the wise, move to Timocracy, rule by the strong, move to Oligarchy, rule by the rich, to Democracy, rule by the people, finally ending in Tyranny, rule by the tyrant.
To understand discussions of an aristocracy it's important to note that Plato's original definition of aristocracy is not necessarily a hereditary aristocracy. In fact, his model of the progression of governments openly states that the wise rule, and the children of the wise become strong, and then the children of the strong become rich, and only then do things collapse into democracy, which shows that hereditary aristocracy is contrary to platonic aristocracy. Where I speak of aristocracy, I am referring to platonic aristocracy except where I'm specifically discussing historical contexts, but often I will use the term meritocracy because it better serves the purpose of getting across the idea of rule by the meritous.
That being said, although the idea of a structural hereditary aristocracy is definitely wrong, there is merit in believing that a functional hereditary aristocracy could end up coming out of any sort of system because the smart children of smart people are then taught by those smart people who are also wise to also be wise, and so in that way the children of the smart and wise are likely to take up the mantle. It is true that in some ways this is deeply unfair, conferring status by accident of birth. It is also true that regardless of fairness, we want the smart and wise to rule to remain rule by the wise.
Democracy is considered sacrosanct today as one of the founding principles of the modernist west, but much of western history didn't include democracy, and arguably we don't have it today. Athenian Greece spent some time as a democracy, but it was a relatively short time period compared to the much longer periods under rule of a king, and democracy ultimately devolved there. Rome spent time with democratic elements, but ultimately collapsed into an empire. After the fall of the western roman Empire and until the modern period, most of Europe was under rule of monarchs, and constitutional monarchies which provided power to voters were somewhat lacking compared to the power of the monarch.
Republics such as America which most people would argue are the most democratic places as you can tell simply from the name are not democracies, they are in fact republics where the leaders in the Republic are selected by the people. The original American method didn't even have the people selecting all of the leaders in the republic, because for example the Senate was entirely appointed by state governors. The House of Commons in parliamentary democracies also representative form of republic, where only people who have been selected by the people have a chance to affect policy.
One of the major benefits of democracy in both it's direct democracy and Republican versions is substantially increased buy-in in government by the people because they had a chance to select who is in charge or to be directly involved in the decisions. Now this benefit is not a pure benefit, it is only a benefit if the policies instituted by that government are wise. You see, if the government is unwise then it will be able to institute those unwise policies to a much greater level than any other form of government. According to literature, Democratic forms of government are capable of taxing at nearly double the rate in terms of the size of the economy compared to other forms of government.
It is ironic that political operatives who constantly chant about "our democracy" also fear demagogues who may eliminate democratic institutions -- by tipping the scales closer to democracy, they hasten their descent into tyranny.
All the negative above must however be considered alongside the reality that some of the most important, powerful, influential, rich, free, and overall meritorious civilizations of all time often had some form of democratic institutions including ancient Greece, the Roman Republic, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America.
Among such excellent civilizations, the remainder often had forms of meritorious method of elevation for individuals, such as the Chinese bureaucracy based on how individuals did on a state exam or the ability of royalty to mint new nobility or demote existing nobility. Both democracy and meritorious promotion provide a chance for new information to get into the sphere of privileged elites resulting in better leadership.
The purpose of creating a republic is to try to prevent the failure of democracy by having the electric select the best among them to lead. In this way you have both elements, of democracy and meritocracy or aristocracy.
There is, however, a problem with Democratic republics with universal suffrage, and that would be that if everybody gets a chance to have a say, and people who aren't of merit get a chance to choose their representatives, then there's a good chance that those Representatives will also not be of merit. The fundamental risk of demagogues doesn't necessarily go away if people democratically vote as democrats.
The obvious solution to me is to eliminate universal suffrage. In this way we would want to create an aristocracy of voters who could then select their representatives as the best among themselves. In the past suffrage was extremely limited, and some of those eras ended up being quite prosperous. For example, in England only nobles could vote for a long time, and in America it was land owning white men.
Ultimately limited suffrage was eliminated and universal suffrage implemented, because these forms of aristocracy were self-evidently unfair and non-meritocraric. In Britain, whether your dad was a royal fart sniffer had little bearing on your merit to be making decisions. In America, which race your dad was or what gender you were or whether you were able to grab a cheap piece of land really didn't have any bearing on your merit either (though I'd argue land ownership is more reasonable a metric than any of the others)
So in my view, the answer is a meritocratic Republican democracy.
Under such a system, the vote is not guaranteed, but achieved.
So how would such a system work?
First, we'd need a body who could separate the wheat from the chaff. Our point isn't universal suffrage, but it is still broad suffrage. I don't think we need particularly high standards to solve the demagogue problem. One principle which has been extremely functional in the past for limiting the issues of corruption is having different classes represented in a group to retain a balance of power. You could cover different power centers with a seat for each, from religion to workers to business owners to farmers -- some sized group, and it would likely change composition over time to represent the different power centers composing society. It could be that the council is selected randomly among voters in these blocs and for a very limited time, similar to jury duty. Refusing to participate without very good cause would be a dark stain on you, leading to a review of your voting privileges (and perhaps you could say the same for other public services such as jury duty). In this way who is picking voters is constantly varied so no entrenched elites get to form, nobody knows in advance who will be on the council so they can't be pre-corrupted, and nobody is stuck doing it forever. It could also have checks and balances from the judiciary and republican leadership to ensure massive flaws have a chance to be resolved.
I'm imagining a system that is straightforward.
We'd grant points based on a written competency exam, individual life achievements including financial (has to be you, you don't get a vote because your dad's rich), business, philosophical, practical, spiritual, military, cultural, and general contribution to society at large.
We’d then take away points based on various negative aspects such as being a rich guy who got there through government payments -- sorry, you work for us, we don't work for you -- or welfare payments for a poor person. Doesn't mean you cant be meritorious enough to justify a vote, but it'll be much harder for you to earn a vote if you're a net tax consumer than a net tax provider.
In a separate meditation, I discussed redesigning the school system, and that would be key to this whole system -- instead of creating just disposable workers, we would treat our children as potential meritorious Democrats and so would give them an aristocratic education mixed with a broad vocational education. The point wouldn't be to create a person who can get into a particular job, we'd be trying to create great people who are capable of being broadly successful, with a separate system for specific vocational training as required(but most jobs should be able to train their people). I've defined my terms in that meditation so I won't reiterate here, but the point is that we ought to be pushing people to be the elite class, to be excellent, to be worthy, and to live as if they are part of a nobility because they are (even if it's a minor role in voting)
I want to stress that the education is not that which will make you meritorious, it is solely intended to be a fertile soil from which meritorious individuals may sprout. It is entirely possible that a person who fails or drops out of school becomes meritorious, or that a person who does very well in school fails to become meritorious.
One large counter-argument is that “everyone ought to have a say in governance”, or “everyone deserves a vote”. Universal rights are an argument with a lot of strength, but we can’t assume that it’s the #1 dominant truth at all times. Some people might get their hackles up at this statement, but let me give examples that prove it. The dead have no right to vote (jokes about corrupt elections aside). People in other countries who are not citizens of your country have no right to vote in your elections. We don’t let convicted serial killers vote. We don’t let babies vote. This might seem irrelevant and obvious, but it shows that universal rights is one truth and other truths can override it. So what sort of things could potentially stand in contrast to universal rights? I think there’s a strong argument to be made that existential continuity of a civilization that protects at least some universal rights is a strong contender.
I think there’s also an argument that without arbitrary barriers to suffrage, meritorious democracy still has universal suffrage. Anyone *could* put the work in and potentially become meritorious if they wanted suffrage. With a diverse variety of ways to show merit, it’s just a matter of trying to become more meritorious and people who don’t only have themselves to blame. Not meeting the mark? Study for the exam harder and get a higher mark. Volunteer in your community more. Spend more time in church. If you refuse to do everything, then in the end I think there’s an argument to be made that if you aren’t willing to work for political power, you don’t deserve it anyway.
A person might say that if voting is a “right,” it shouldn’t be contingent on meeting a certain level of virtue or social utility—that to do so subverts it from a right into a privilege. In reality, all rights are contingent on their manifestation by the person who has them. You may have a right to speech, but refuse to speak ever, meaning you never manifest that right. You may have a right to bear arms, but refuse to buy a gun, meaning you never reach the qualification for bearing arms and thus have no right to bear arms because you have to arms to bear. Many individuals who may cry foul about "voting rights" would be perfectly ok with requiring a protest permit to limit the time, place, and manner of protests, or for requiring a gun license to own and operate a firearm, or for requiring individuals pay property taxes to own property and not have it seized by the government.
Some people might then want to discuss rights vs. responsibilities, but I would argue this is an outdated modernist view of the world. Voting is in fact both, and it must be treated as both. It is a right afforded to individuals under a democratic system (whatever conditions that right comes to manifest under in a particular system), and it is a responsibility to act with virtue and merit both in pursuit of manifesting that right and in using that right.
Another valid argument is that the system can be corrupted, and there’s no doubt that’s true. As I’ve argued in other essays, the counter to state corruption can only be state checks and balances to a certain extent, but beyond that it must be culture which defines the reality of a society. The state influences culture and culture influences state, but the key here would be strong social institutions outside of the state that would help keep people honest.
The biggest risk of democracy is the tragedy of the commons and the race to the bottom.
Plato's republic warned about the risk of democracy in this way, and in the cycles of civilization democracy is the last step towards tyranny, as a demagogue will step in promising "freedom" and "justice". Often, they turn against the elite, sometimes taking from them and giving to the people—at least for a time. Once in power, the demagogue consolidates control, turning democracy into tyranny.
According to Plato, we start with Aristocracy, rule by the wise, move to Timocracy, rule by the strong, move to Oligarchy, rule by the rich, to Democracy, rule by the people, finally ending in Tyranny, rule by the tyrant.
To understand discussions of an aristocracy it's important to note that Plato's original definition of aristocracy is not necessarily a hereditary aristocracy. In fact, his model of the progression of governments openly states that the wise rule, and the children of the wise become strong, and then the children of the strong become rich, and only then do things collapse into democracy, which shows that hereditary aristocracy is contrary to platonic aristocracy. Where I speak of aristocracy, I am referring to platonic aristocracy except where I'm specifically discussing historical contexts, but often I will use the term meritocracy because it better serves the purpose of getting across the idea of rule by the meritous.
That being said, although the idea of a structural hereditary aristocracy is definitely wrong, there is merit in believing that a functional hereditary aristocracy could end up coming out of any sort of system because the smart children of smart people are then taught by those smart people who are also wise to also be wise, and so in that way the children of the smart and wise are likely to take up the mantle. It is true that in some ways this is deeply unfair, conferring status by accident of birth. It is also true that regardless of fairness, we want the smart and wise to rule to remain rule by the wise.
Democracy is considered sacrosanct today as one of the founding principles of the modernist west, but much of western history didn't include democracy, and arguably we don't have it today. Athenian Greece spent some time as a democracy, but it was a relatively short time period compared to the much longer periods under rule of a king, and democracy ultimately devolved there. Rome spent time with democratic elements, but ultimately collapsed into an empire. After the fall of the western roman Empire and until the modern period, most of Europe was under rule of monarchs, and constitutional monarchies which provided power to voters were somewhat lacking compared to the power of the monarch.
Republics such as America which most people would argue are the most democratic places as you can tell simply from the name are not democracies, they are in fact republics where the leaders in the Republic are selected by the people. The original American method didn't even have the people selecting all of the leaders in the republic, because for example the Senate was entirely appointed by state governors. The House of Commons in parliamentary democracies also representative form of republic, where only people who have been selected by the people have a chance to affect policy.
One of the major benefits of democracy in both it's direct democracy and Republican versions is substantially increased buy-in in government by the people because they had a chance to select who is in charge or to be directly involved in the decisions. Now this benefit is not a pure benefit, it is only a benefit if the policies instituted by that government are wise. You see, if the government is unwise then it will be able to institute those unwise policies to a much greater level than any other form of government. According to literature, Democratic forms of government are capable of taxing at nearly double the rate in terms of the size of the economy compared to other forms of government.
It is ironic that political operatives who constantly chant about "our democracy" also fear demagogues who may eliminate democratic institutions -- by tipping the scales closer to democracy, they hasten their descent into tyranny.
All the negative above must however be considered alongside the reality that some of the most important, powerful, influential, rich, free, and overall meritorious civilizations of all time often had some form of democratic institutions including ancient Greece, the Roman Republic, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America.
Among such excellent civilizations, the remainder often had forms of meritorious method of elevation for individuals, such as the Chinese bureaucracy based on how individuals did on a state exam or the ability of royalty to mint new nobility or demote existing nobility. Both democracy and meritorious promotion provide a chance for new information to get into the sphere of privileged elites resulting in better leadership.
The purpose of creating a republic is to try to prevent the failure of democracy by having the electric select the best among them to lead. In this way you have both elements, of democracy and meritocracy or aristocracy.
There is, however, a problem with Democratic republics with universal suffrage, and that would be that if everybody gets a chance to have a say, and people who aren't of merit get a chance to choose their representatives, then there's a good chance that those Representatives will also not be of merit. The fundamental risk of demagogues doesn't necessarily go away if people democratically vote as democrats.
The obvious solution to me is to eliminate universal suffrage. In this way we would want to create an aristocracy of voters who could then select their representatives as the best among themselves. In the past suffrage was extremely limited, and some of those eras ended up being quite prosperous. For example, in England only nobles could vote for a long time, and in America it was land owning white men.
Ultimately limited suffrage was eliminated and universal suffrage implemented, because these forms of aristocracy were self-evidently unfair and non-meritocraric. In Britain, whether your dad was a royal fart sniffer had little bearing on your merit to be making decisions. In America, which race your dad was or what gender you were or whether you were able to grab a cheap piece of land really didn't have any bearing on your merit either (though I'd argue land ownership is more reasonable a metric than any of the others)
So in my view, the answer is a meritocratic Republican democracy.
Under such a system, the vote is not guaranteed, but achieved.
So how would such a system work?
First, we'd need a body who could separate the wheat from the chaff. Our point isn't universal suffrage, but it is still broad suffrage. I don't think we need particularly high standards to solve the demagogue problem. One principle which has been extremely functional in the past for limiting the issues of corruption is having different classes represented in a group to retain a balance of power. You could cover different power centers with a seat for each, from religion to workers to business owners to farmers -- some sized group, and it would likely change composition over time to represent the different power centers composing society. It could be that the council is selected randomly among voters in these blocs and for a very limited time, similar to jury duty. Refusing to participate without very good cause would be a dark stain on you, leading to a review of your voting privileges (and perhaps you could say the same for other public services such as jury duty). In this way who is picking voters is constantly varied so no entrenched elites get to form, nobody knows in advance who will be on the council so they can't be pre-corrupted, and nobody is stuck doing it forever. It could also have checks and balances from the judiciary and republican leadership to ensure massive flaws have a chance to be resolved.
I'm imagining a system that is straightforward.
We'd grant points based on a written competency exam, individual life achievements including financial (has to be you, you don't get a vote because your dad's rich), business, philosophical, practical, spiritual, military, cultural, and general contribution to society at large.
We’d then take away points based on various negative aspects such as being a rich guy who got there through government payments -- sorry, you work for us, we don't work for you -- or welfare payments for a poor person. Doesn't mean you cant be meritorious enough to justify a vote, but it'll be much harder for you to earn a vote if you're a net tax consumer than a net tax provider.
In a separate meditation, I discussed redesigning the school system, and that would be key to this whole system -- instead of creating just disposable workers, we would treat our children as potential meritorious Democrats and so would give them an aristocratic education mixed with a broad vocational education. The point wouldn't be to create a person who can get into a particular job, we'd be trying to create great people who are capable of being broadly successful, with a separate system for specific vocational training as required(but most jobs should be able to train their people). I've defined my terms in that meditation so I won't reiterate here, but the point is that we ought to be pushing people to be the elite class, to be excellent, to be worthy, and to live as if they are part of a nobility because they are (even if it's a minor role in voting)
I want to stress that the education is not that which will make you meritorious, it is solely intended to be a fertile soil from which meritorious individuals may sprout. It is entirely possible that a person who fails or drops out of school becomes meritorious, or that a person who does very well in school fails to become meritorious.
One large counter-argument is that “everyone ought to have a say in governance”, or “everyone deserves a vote”. Universal rights are an argument with a lot of strength, but we can’t assume that it’s the #1 dominant truth at all times. Some people might get their hackles up at this statement, but let me give examples that prove it. The dead have no right to vote (jokes about corrupt elections aside). People in other countries who are not citizens of your country have no right to vote in your elections. We don’t let convicted serial killers vote. We don’t let babies vote. This might seem irrelevant and obvious, but it shows that universal rights is one truth and other truths can override it. So what sort of things could potentially stand in contrast to universal rights? I think there’s a strong argument to be made that existential continuity of a civilization that protects at least some universal rights is a strong contender.
I think there’s also an argument that without arbitrary barriers to suffrage, meritorious democracy still has universal suffrage. Anyone *could* put the work in and potentially become meritorious if they wanted suffrage. With a diverse variety of ways to show merit, it’s just a matter of trying to become more meritorious and people who don’t only have themselves to blame. Not meeting the mark? Study for the exam harder and get a higher mark. Volunteer in your community more. Spend more time in church. If you refuse to do everything, then in the end I think there’s an argument to be made that if you aren’t willing to work for political power, you don’t deserve it anyway.
A person might say that if voting is a “right,” it shouldn’t be contingent on meeting a certain level of virtue or social utility—that to do so subverts it from a right into a privilege. In reality, all rights are contingent on their manifestation by the person who has them. You may have a right to speech, but refuse to speak ever, meaning you never manifest that right. You may have a right to bear arms, but refuse to buy a gun, meaning you never reach the qualification for bearing arms and thus have no right to bear arms because you have to arms to bear. Many individuals who may cry foul about "voting rights" would be perfectly ok with requiring a protest permit to limit the time, place, and manner of protests, or for requiring a gun license to own and operate a firearm, or for requiring individuals pay property taxes to own property and not have it seized by the government.
Some people might then want to discuss rights vs. responsibilities, but I would argue this is an outdated modernist view of the world. Voting is in fact both, and it must be treated as both. It is a right afforded to individuals under a democratic system (whatever conditions that right comes to manifest under in a particular system), and it is a responsibility to act with virtue and merit both in pursuit of manifesting that right and in using that right.
Another valid argument is that the system can be corrupted, and there’s no doubt that’s true. As I’ve argued in other essays, the counter to state corruption can only be state checks and balances to a certain extent, but beyond that it must be culture which defines the reality of a society. The state influences culture and culture influences state, but the key here would be strong social institutions outside of the state that would help keep people honest.
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