To what extent do liberals support democracy (45 marks)

Democracy is the ultimate political form of ideological liberalism. It refers to the ideal form of state, and is common to both classical and modern liberals.

In the 19th century, liberals often saw democracy as threatening or dangerous. Political theorists such as Plato and Aristotle viewed democracy as being a system of rule at the expense of wisdom and property. The principle that the will of the majority should prevail over the minority may have negative effects. In Northern Ireland, a very divided religious country, if the 51% get their way, the other 49% will be in outrage. Democracy thus comes down to the rule of the 51%, as French politician Alexis De Tocqueville described it, ‘tyranny of the masses’. Individual and minority can be crushed in the name of the people.

Another reason why liberals are wary of democracy is it gives a voice to the uneducated, ignorant and property less. Robert Lowe saw democracy as a potential threat. Linking rationality with education, he wanted to restrict democratic rights to those qualified to use them. This echoes the views of J.S Mills who believed political wisdom was unequally distributed, and so educated people should get more votes. Examples of this was in the UK when up until 1948 certain ‘educated’ people were allowed more than one vote.
The Spanish social thinker Ortega y Gass in his book ‘The revolt of the Masses’ warned that the arrival of mass democracy had led to overthrow of civilized society and the moral order, paving the way for authoritarian rulers to come to power by appealing to basest instincts of masses.

However it could be argued that democracy is also a means of personal development. The electoral process educates electors about important issues and improves their ability to participate in the future. For J.S Mill, the central virtue of democracy is that it promotes the ‘highest and most harmonious’ development of human capacities. By participating the citizens will enhance their understanding, strengthen their sensibilities and achieve a higher level of personal development. Furthermore it could be argued that all citizens will be rational, and are capable of understanding the world and making decisions on basis of logical thought processes.

One of the earliest liberal justifications for democracy was founded on consent. The idea that citizens must have a means of protecting themselves from the encroaching government as liberals see liberal democracy as the ultimate protection against tyranny.
In the 17th century John Locke developed a limited theory of protective democracy, voting rights shoud be extended to the propertied, to defend their natural rights against government. During American revolution, the idea of ‘no taxation without representation’ was taken up. Utalitarianism theorists as Bentham and Mill developed notion of democracy as form of protection for the individual into a case for universal suffrage.

However a drawback of democracy is that it may mean that the government have to intervene more, something that classical liberals oppose.
A further reason of why liberals may be wary of democracy is that all power, even ‘power people’ tends to corrupt innately self-seeking humans. This was first developed by German socialist Michels, whose ‘Iron law of oligarchy’ states that all complex organizations, regardless of how democratic they originally are when constituted, eventually develop into oligarchies. Michels observed that since no sufficiently large and complex organization can function purely as a direct democracy; power within an organization will always get delegated to individuals within that group, elected or otherwise. Therefor although citizens may vote for a leader, they will then make decisions based on a small number of peoples view for the majority of the people. The minority ruling the majority.

However a reason why liberals support democracy is that it shows each individual is equal- one vote per person, gives everyone equal influence on how countries governed. Since voting is done individually, it constraints the collective pressures of groups within society.

To conclude, liberals are now staunch advocates of democracy as it provides personal development, consent and all individuals are equal. Modern liberals embrace democracy, but only in the specific liberal form. They reject other forms of democracy, which may be less pluralist or more participatory, as downright dangerous.