The Benign Dictatorship of Democracy
Seemingly democratic structures can be corrupted to become despotic and stifling.
Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood; it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided that they think of nothing but their rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labours, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and sub-divides their inheritances; what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living.
Alexis de Tocqueville from Democracy in America
de Tocqueville's critique of the growing power of central government in America in the nineteenth-century can be amplified many times in the twentieth-century, but with some new twists. For, of course democracies, are not interested in everybody's interests to the same degree. Political leaders need votes - and some votes are more equal than other votes. For instance, in the United Kingdom successful political parties must capture the swing votes - so the interests of swing voters matter more than those of anyone else. This distorts political judgement and is particularly damaging to the interests of the poorest.
An even more fearful risk is that, when times are tough, central government will stop being benign. It may find that some people - perhaps Jews, perhaps disabled people, perhaps immigrants - can usefully be blamed for problems that central government can't solve, perhaps even blamed for the very problems that central government itself caused.
Democracy is the only acceptable political form for citizens, but the current democratic system is failing both to treat us as citizens and our leaders seem to be losing the necessary self-discipline to ensure that hunt for power is not carried on at the expense of justice.