Something of a bumper crop for this week’s Britblog Roundup! As ever you can make your nominations for next week’s by emailing the URL to britblog AT gmail DOT com. Best posts from British and Irish blogs please, those things

Heh, I’m not sure we disagree here, but I’d just put it differently: that ours is a liberal system of which democracy in the narrow sense of “voting on stuff” is a necessary part (but not the whole). Which is precisely why we need written constitutions. Some things (say, whether to lock someone up without charge for 90 days) should never be subject to a vote, in parliament or by the people.

Unfortunately, these institutions are gradually becoming the dominion of executive government. The onset of democracy was accompanied by a fear of “mob rule”; it seems to me that over time this condition is increasingly realized. Personally, I’d like to see more power devolved to instutions with clear resposibilities, subject to law, but outside the direct control of the executive. It’s problematic, but it seems more hopeful to me.

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
– H.L. Mencken

– Indeed, just my point. Liberalism in the MODERN historical sequence comes first, and subsequent democracy is tempered thereby (as you say, “within a range acceptible to liberal principles”, ipso facto undemocratic as it was not the product of democracy). I do indeed describe democracy in the narrow sense. What you seem to be describing when you use the word “democracy” is not democracy but our liberal democracy – precisely democracy tempered by (undemocratic) liberal principles!

Furthermore, if you wish for a longer view of the chicken and the egg, democracy in the historical sequence from antiquity to the present predates liberalism, and the democracy of the ancient world – being a pure democracy untempered by the undemocratic principles of liberalism — was tyrannical. The fact remains – as you point out – that ours is a democracy tempered by liberal principles. But it is dangerous to forget that democracy and liberalism are two different matters, dealing with two different questions. Now, you may believe that the former ensures the latter, but that is another argument, and one with which I cannot agree.

That ours is a democracy tempered by liberal principles is a contingent fact, not a necessary one, and it is this contingency that has so far saved us from the worst that democracy entails – but there is no necessity that our democracy will remain so tempered. It is evident moreover that our liberal principles have been eroded by democracy, partly because we have come to look upon democracy as the answer to a question that it does not ask.

“Is it possible for human societies to be run any other way?” – It is certainly possible for human societies to be run less. One could say that running human societies is a large part of the problem, that is if one believes that a lack of freedom is a problem. It wasn’t always the case that people thought of societies as being run, at least as strongly as they are today. One symptom of the democratic ideology, however, is the almost immoveable belief that there are no alternatives to it, a false dilemma that sees only democracy or illigitimate power. Thereby, democracy does not answer the question “How can we live in freedom?” but rather postulates as infallible the statement “Only the rule of the people is legitimate”. I am thankful, therefore, that modern western democracy has been tempered with (undemocratic) liberalism. It is not a given, however, that it will remain so, especially as the call for democracy grows ever louder above that of freedom. Indeed, there are some who say that mass movements inevitably become tyrannical.

Indeed so. Politics is inherently about power, whether that’s the power of the ballot box or the power of violence. Is it possible for human societies to be run any other way?