TMA 01 - 11/3/98 J.P.BIRCHALL PO194869
What are the significant differences between the liberal democratic and the Marxist models of democracy?
A model is a simplified representation of part of reality, useful for revealing insights and improving understanding. Inevitably accuracy is lost but without simplification analysis and comparison is moribund. Models may get better as knowledge progresses but they are also eroded by prejudice and change; good models adapt and evolve (1).
Any model of democracy is particularly suspect because the concept itself is difficult (2). The etymology of democracy is deceptively simple; rule by the people. But what is the extent and depth of rule, are all activities included and is coercion involved? Who are the people, everybody or experts?
The history of rule by the people can be explained as a struggle to reconcile the requirement for collective decisions in societies where co-operation is essential and the different individual preferences of human beings.
As history unfolds it is expected that there will be similarities between political ideas because evolution is always building on past success. The interest lies in identifying differences. John Hall has said of evolved civilisations - ‘since similarities almost certainly outweigh differences my interest is in the small but crucial institutional differences which matter in the long run’ (3).
The task is to compare the different solutions to these problems of essential co-operation and inherent individual differences in models of liberal democracy and Marxism.
By 1850 democratic ideas and practice had evolved into a relatively successful liberal democratic tradition which constitutionally separated individual liberty and the freedom to choose differently in competitive markets from the political sphere of collective action though representative government of Nation States.
In 1848 Marx was fundamentally critical of this tradition and embarked on a twin pronged attack which criticised both the market mechanism for exercising liberty and the role of the state as a neutral arbiter of the general good.
The subsequent history of democracy in the 20th century has involved attempts by liberal democracies to come to terms with Marx’s criticisms.
Although the revolutions of 1989 exposed the impractical nature of the socialist experiment it still left the liberal democratic tradition with the criticisms which evolutionary science is, only now, beginning to solve.
Co-operation is at the root of civilisation. William McNeill (4) has described the history of hunter gatherers who settled, irrigated and cultivated land in Mesopotamia exploiting the division and specialisation of labour. Most worked on the land, but others specialised in irrigation works or defence from pillaging barbarians. When surpluses were available further specialisation enabled craftsmen to produce valued artefacts of civilisation. This process continues to underpin the development and protection of civilisation, resulting in extensive interdependency.
In the 18th century the Nation State emerged as the pinnacle of co-operative development exploiting specialisation and adding scale economies which proved very effective in terms of both defence and production.
The political question arising during this economic development was how best to co-ordinate and control the increasing specialisation and scale involved.
Political history suggests that co-ordination and control was exercised through commands from despots of one sort or another. Their authority legitimised through proclaimed expertise, hereditary, military might or majorities.
However, as Darwin and more recently Dennett have suggested (5), the world is built by evolution where progress results from evaluating differences. Human beings have different natures, different nurtures and different specialisation resulting in different perspectives and preferences. These inherent differences make autocratic command of any complexion tyrannical and oppressive.
Democracy was a response by innovative individuals to these problems of tyranny and oppression. But democracy proved to be elusive in practice. The debate is about both the extent of government and its impact on individual freedoms and, also, the depth of participation and how minorities are enfranchised. Whether girls, youngsters, slaves, immigrants, the poor, or whoever, the problem is the same, how do different minorities participate?
Churchill famously referred to the difficulties, ‘Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.' (6).
Understanding the liberal democratic and the Marxist models of democracy demands addressing these insights of history and how best to achieve co-operation amongst differing individuals.
The ideas of democracy developed progressively into a sophisticated liberal democratic tradition. Ideas themselves are seldom truly innovative and a concept ‘trajectory’ ran from Plato’s criticism of direct democracy in Athens as ‘mob rule’ and the emasculation of the wise through to Machiavelli who exposed the problem of deceit and the immoral basis of political life.
Hobbes exploded the myth of the active citizen supporting the ‘public interest’ and suggested a powerful state was necessary for order and control.
For Locke, natural rights were immune from government interference. Locke stressed there must be limits to government, there was no reason to assume government would act in the ‘public interest’.
Montesquieu, took the idea of protection further and proposed the separation of administration and law making powers with differences resolved in faction forums.
In the USA James Madison developed a coherent political theory from Hobbes’ self interest, Locke’s protection, and Montesquieu’s separation of powers.
In England Jeremy Bentham and James Mill emphasised the reality of an economic process which delivered the greatest happiness for all. A process which was largely laissez faire and required protection from government interference, a protective model of liberal democracy.
But it was John Stuart Mill who articulated the established liberal democratic tradition prior to Marx. His basis was twofold. Firstly, individual freedom was exercised in competitive markets and circumscribed only by avoiding harm to others. Secondly, where collective decisions were necessary, a representative government, based on free and fair elections, universal suffrage, free speech, free conscience and free association, acted within constitutional constraints.
However Mill firmly believed Government action was needed to enhance excellence, uphold law and educate and develop citizens, thus fulfilling individual potential through participation and contribution in a developmental democracy.
Direct democracy was impracticable, representation was essential because of the success of the Nation State in exploiting specialisation and scale.
These ideas and institutions were generally accepted prior to Marx as a response to the tyranny and oppression of Bishops, Princes, Generals and majorities.
The outstanding question was where to draw the line between the circumscribed state and individual liberty.
It is the power of ideas in context and comparative differences that illuminate. Marx was exposing problems with liberal democracy as child of his time. As expected there were many similarities between the liberal democratic and Marxist analysis of a shared history, particularly the problem of tyranny and oppression but there were significant differences. The evolved institution of market exchange for goods, labour and capital was the focus of Marx’s criticism.
The trajectory of Marxist thought started with direct democracy in Athens where the assembly of citizens was sovereign. It reappeared in Northern Italy during the Renaissance as Marsilius tried to break the absolute power of the Pope in Padua. Rousseau, particularly, developed ideas linking justice, liberty and equality. He exposed the tyranny of Princes but relied on majorities in assemblies to co-ordinate. Wollstonecraft destroyed the myth of elitism as democracy in one leap by exposing the position of disenfranchised women.
Marx was more radical, the market was undemocratic because the bulk of the working population got a raw deal. The mode of production was dictated by capital, workers had only their labour to exchange for subsistence wages and received none of the surplus value created. The system inevitably led to a concentration of capital and further dominance by a class structure. But Marx went further, dominance in the market resulted in dominance in government. Conflict was inevitable, it was inherent in the system. In separating state and market, John Stuart Mill was attempting to reconcile the irreconcilable!
Marx attacked the twin pillars of Mill’s democratic model, individual freedom to exchange in the market and the capacity of the established state to enhance conditions. Both the market and the state were controlled by capital. His solution was the elimination of politics and the elimination of markets.
If Marx was a democrat he wanted to build on the progress from despotism and address the residual problems. But if Marx’s analysis was right but his prescription proved wrong.
The 1989 Marx’s idealism was exposed as impractical. The problems of co-operation and individual difference had not been resolved and as the liberal democracies grew and prospered, state socialism collapsed.
Marx proposed to use revolutionary state socialism as the vehicle for the transition to direct democracy in communes. Perhaps he was ambivalent about the role of the state but he had no doubt about the problem of market exchange and capital.
However the use of command to achieve objectives confronts two insuperable problems. Firstly, how do you know what to do, who decides? Knowledge is complex and uncertain. Secondly, how do you ensure compliance of a sceptical population? Compliance involves interminable compromise and goodwill.
The significant advantage of markets is that they exploit dispersed and tacit knowledge from all sources, aggregated in prices, to inform a discovery process which employs voluntary exchange. Through an evolutionary process markets avoid the knowledge and compliance problems of command.
The logical essential is that if the evolutionary process of experimental trial and error and discovery is not involved the only alternative is some form of decision making and implementation based on command. Nation state planning by command is fundamentally flawed because of the issues of knowledge and compliance.
It was the impractical nature of state planning which proved to be the significant difference between liberal democracy and Marxism.
The liberal democratic tradition is now moving ahead, an international consensus of left and right is emerging which accepts markets as the evolutionary solution to the problems of knowledge and compliance and tackles the Marxist issue of inequality and economic exploitation by empowerment through participation.
In the UK the New Labour manifesto (7) makes explicit the prospect of building on the market reforms of the 1980’s and increasing participation through education.
The current question for democracy is the extent to which participation and contribution is inhibited by markets? Particularly, does everyone have the capacity to participate? And what is to be done about the hard areas of political choice where markets cannot operate?
The Christian belief that each human soul is uniquely valuable and different suggests that everybody does have a contribution to make. However, in democratic markets the rewards for contribution are not judged by Bishops, Princes, Generals or majorities but by each and everyone of us by everyday choice as social agents and customers.
Difficult areas of policy persist where markets cannot operate because of personal incapacity or absence of property rights. Collective decisions are still be necessary for protecting the environment, national defence, law and order and social compassion. But because of the knowledge and compliance problems the onus is on planners to demonstrate superiority through experiments and not monolithic command, alternatively, by definition, evolution will produce other ideas which more readily survive.
The significant difference between liberal democracy and Marxism is the role of planning and command. Modern evolutionary science explains how specialisation and difference powers co-operative progress without command. Science makes mistakes but it is the best process we have, look around for the evidence.
There is no prerequisite for knowledge, evolution is blind (8). But, crucially, it pays to co-operate, and co-operate with everybody because specialisation and scale deliver benefits (9). Complexity science and evolved institutions; successful cultures, families and transnational corporations are already communicating this reality across generations and across the globe.
Mill’s separation of markets and politics was deemed irreconcilable by Marx and he hoped to abandon both markets and politics. The future of liberal democracy may be a similar abandonment of politics but the erosion of politics is likely to be through extending and deepening democratic markets as universal participation is enabled and property rights expanded.
The people will truly decide, and Marx’s problem of economic power becomes a less intimidating part of evolving democratic meritocracies.
(1) Bignell & Fortune (1984) Understanding System Failures, Open University.
(2) David Held (1996) Models of Democracy, Polity Press
(3) John A Hall (1985) Powers and Liberties, Basil Blackwell.
(4) William McNeill (1963) The Rise of the West, University of Chicago.
(5) Daniel Dennett (1995) Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, Touchstone.
(6) Sir Winston Churchill (1947) Hansard.
(7) New Labour Manifesto (1997) Britain will be better with New Labour.
(8) Richard Dawkins (1986) The Blind Watchmaker, Longman.
(9) Robert Axelrod (1984) The Evolution of Co-operation, Basic Books, New York.
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