Why are democracies unraveling around the world?

There are few columnists with which I disagree more on almost all issues than E. J. Dionne (Washington Post Writers Group). In a recent column titled “Is democracy unraveling around the world?” Dionne implies that many of the world’s democracies are dysfunctional and unraveling.[1] However, his conclusions as to “why” this is happening and the solutions offered are not only wrong but are oblivious to the real cause of societal dysfunction in democracies.

Dionne points to a 2013 survey in which “…63 percent of Americans said government should be doing more to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor, but 59 percent also believed government had grown bigger because it had become involved in things people should do for themselves.”[2] Dionne believes that the world’s democracies are beset by a peculiar set of contradictions. He states that there is a decline of trust in traditional political parties but also a rise in political partisanship. But the larger picture escapes Dionne as he attempts to gloss over big government’s systemic failures by blaming political parties that engage in divisive partisan politics. A second observation was that people want the government to reduce levels of economic insecurity and expand opportunity while at the same time they do not believe government has the ability to do so.[3] Here, Dionne fails to see that mistrust of government extends far beyond its perceived failure to provide economic security and opportunities as demanded. Rather, in the larger perspective, people have been conditioned to expect the government to accomplish the impossible task of providing an ever expanding array of wants, rights, and wishes while at the same time limiting government involvement in their lives.

How is it that America has arrived at this paradox after almost 250 years of democracy? There are two parts to the answer. One is loss of the concept of limited government. The other is the incompatibility of human nature and loss of freedom. We shall deal with the loss of the concept of limited government first.

Limited government

Traditional ideas of limited government were part of the American psyche even before the Founders designed the American system of governance. These ideas prevailed until the rise of the humanistic worldview in the early twentieth century and converged with the economic and societal upheavals caused by the Great Depression and World War II. Under the humanistic worldview there was a seismic change in how mankind and justice were viewed. Man was not fallen but basically good. Therefore, all injustice and inequality in society are the result of defective institutions which the government must correct.

Three generations after this convergence, many Americans now view government as primarily responsible for dealing with an ever expanding array of societal problems. Politicians became the power brokers for providing solutions to a host of newly found social and political demands. However, funding government and the growing list of wants, rights, and wishes of the populous has become a major hurdle because government cannot do everything for everybody. Samuelson called this “the politics of overpromise…the systematic and routine tendency of government to make more commitments than can reasonably be fulfilled.” For decades the irrationality of the politics of overpromise has been glossed over by a misplaced faith in an ever expanding economy that would provide all the income necessary to meet the growing list of demands.[4]

Government became the provider or guarantor of happiness as opposed to making possible the pursuit thereof. After decades of an ever increasing institutionalization of synthetic rights purported to be due to the great majority of the populous, progressive politicians and bureaucrats must find someone to pay for the costs associated with a benefactor government. Because government cannot do all things for a people, it is held in deep distrust.[5] To maintain governmental power in the face of dwindling resources, there is a steady progression towards socialism.

Dionne attributes much of this mistrust of government to the growth of special interest groups he claims have too much influence on government. He quotes one study by a political scientist who wrote of the rise of negative partisanship among the electorate, “…supporters of each party perceive supporters of the opposing party as very different from themselves in terms of their social characteristics and fundamental values.” Dionne states that, “…our current form of partisanship leads us to dislike not only the other side’s politicians but even each other.[6]

Dionne cites Stanley Greenberg who says that this hostility among not only the politicians but the electorate as well is a result of special interest groups having too much hold on government.[7] But Samuelson correctly argues that the growth of special interest groups is merely a result of growth of government.

When government is limited, it can be more easily influenced through elections. Voters can get a sense of where there representatives stand on major issues, and legislators can judge their constituents’ general feelings. As government activities proliferate, this is harder for both voters and legislators.”[8]

In other words, big government begets special interest groups. For years liberal big-government politicians welcomed special interest groups. But now campaign finance reform is always popular with proponents of big government. Until the advent of the Internet, talk radio, and a proliferation of cable TV companies, the proponents of big government weren’t too concerned with campaign funding because by default the bully pulpit was monopolized by the big government-friendly news media, academia, government bureaucracies, big business, and the entertainment industry. But even with the loss of the liberal monopoly over the media to influence public opinion, they are happy to give up campaign funding and go back to the good old days. It is not that the liberal monopoly wants to eliminate special interest groups; it is that such legislation will dry up funds for conservative political action committees, limited-government candidates, and issue-oriented campaigns. Funds for conservatives to access new media outlets are dried up by so-called campaign finance reform, and this leaves the no-cost liberal media monopoly and their government funded emissaries and yes men to spread their big government orthodoxy.

Incompatibility of human nature and loss of freedom through big government

The second part of our answer as to the paradox regarding the unraveling of democracy deals with the incompatibility of human nature and loss of freedom because of the impositions of big government.

Dionne ends his article with a remarkably revealing statement as to what he believes is the first task of politicians in democratic countries—the aggregating of sustainable majorities. He quotes Daniel T. Rodgers’ 2011 book Age of Fracture which proposes that, “…if the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s were a time of political and social ‘consolidation,’ the dominant tendency now is ‘disaggregation’ which is a big problem for self-government.”[9] If Dionne is correct, then our elected representatives are not to be primarily concerned about the opinions and wishes of the electorate but to merely aggregate sustainable majorities. It appears that much of the elected leadership has been following Dionne’s prescription since the 1960s. Could this be the cause of the electorates’ anger and mistrust of government which is “…undermining faith in the public endeavor and unraveling of old loyalties”?[10]

The conflict between big government and limited government as well as the frustrations and anger expressed by the electorate are merely a microcosm of a larger conflict of worldviews in America. On the one hand we have the biblical worldview upon which the nation was founded. The biblical worldviews of its citizens collectively became the central cultural vision of the nation and reigned supreme until the first part of the twentieth century. In a society built upon the biblical worldview, men join together and voluntarily limit their freedom. But the imposition of limits comes from a group of like-minded individuals whose central cultural vision reflects the biblical worldview of freedom (lack of coercion) resonates with the nature of man. By the mid twentieth century, those of the humanistic worldview had risen to leadership levels in all institutions of American life, and their humanistic policies, laws, and initiatives are being imposed (coercion) on a nation whose citizens still cling to the biblical worldview of the Founders. This is the essence of the culture wars—the conflict for supremacy in the American cultural vision between those holding the humanistic and Christian worldviews.

To answer the “why” of Dionne’s question regarding democracy’s unraveling around the world we must look to John Adams, Founder and second president of the United States.

We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.[11]

In other words, democracy cannot be sustained without a moral populace. Morality in government must flow upward from the morality of its citizens. By morality and religion Adams meant Christian morality. Without a moral citizenry, there is no hope for a sustained moral and just self-government. However, in Dionne’s world, morals are a matter of interpretation and decided by man and not God. Self-government flows downward from the humanist elite or, as C. S. Lewis called them, the “conditioners” of society which are more interested in aggregating sustainable majorities to maintain their power rather than representing the wishes of the people. But such a government eventually erodes into a totalitarian state and a loss of freedom so essential to man’s nature.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] E. J. Dionne, “Is democracy unraveling around the world?” Tulsa World, May 2, 2015, A-16.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Robert Samuelson, The Good Life and Its Discontents, (New York: Vintage Books, 1995, 1997), p. 143.
[5] Ibid., p. 188.
[6] Dionne, A-19.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Samuelson, p. 193.
[9] Dionne, A-19.
[10] Ibid.
[11] William J. Federer, America’s God and Country, (Coppell, Texas: Fame Publishing, Inc., 1996), pp. 10-11.