Classical theory of Democracy and its fatal consequences

"unscientific application of social sciences can be fatal to a society"

This is continuation of my analysis on Democracy (1, 2). At this point, i strongly advice you to read Schumpeter's book - 'Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy' - to understand the material of my analysis. The early section of Schumpeter's book is advanced philosophy on political economy. Reader may skip it and read the standalone section on Democracy although it's recommended to read the book in its entirety to understand the full concept of Democracy. 

In last few years, intellectual curiosity drove me to research on economics and political economy. I discovered that neoclassical economic theory and Neoliberalism is a destructive doctrine. The tenets of neoclassical theory - Unfettered markets & laissez faire, arbitrariness & instrumentalism (like arbitrary debt & deficit limits), rational choice theory & rational expectations, confidence fairy, crowding out theory, NAIRU and complicated but unrealistic mathematical models have done tremendous damage to countries worldwide. I came to believe that Neoclassical theory in post war world is the most destructive doctrine today. 

But perhaps there is even more destructive doctrine in the world - the political doctrine of classical democracy. In a previous article, I've articulated how tenets of classical democracy are as absurd and unrealistic as neoclassical theory of economics - rational and sovereign electorate, political equality, self correction of Democracy etc are all bunkum points. Classical democracy doctrine spread like wildfire in the world and especially in post colonial nations which implemented this doctrine after liquidation of empires in 20th century. Even the developed nations like USA and UK are not spared by the fallacies of this doctrine. 

It's naive nature of political & economic elites to emulate 'models of governance' for managing state. Simplistic approach of emulating political doctrines resulted in blanket application of classical democracy to many nations which otherwise were thoroughly incompatible with it. Many of the post colonial nations emulated the political doctrine of their colonizers, thinking that they will also become modernized like the colonial powers. Similarly, nations tried to emulate 'Washington consensus' economic doctrine but results in many developing nations were disastrous. 

All this brings me to further expand my analysis on democracy. But let's start with an analogy of a peculiar phenomenon in India - the 'Jholachap doctors' (read 1, 2, 3) or simply quack doctors. What is it? India is a poor underdeveloped country and there're gross scarcities in public healthcare system and trained medical professionals. Since poor people don't have access to healthcare system and doctors, they fall prey to 'other' avenues of medical treatment. 'Jholachap doctors' is system comprising of snake oil salesmen, untrained quacks, Homeopathy/Ayurveda pseudoscience experts as well as practitioners of witchcraft and magic. 

If people are lucky, they only fall to the scam of placebo treatment. However, in many cases, the unscientific treatment by the quacks aggravate the underlying health conditions of patients and even cause death. The point is that unscientific application of medical science can be fatal to human body. On grand scale, unscientific application of social science can be fatal to a society. We already know the tremendous damage caused to society by unscientific economic doctrines like Neoclassical economic theory and Neoliberalism. For example, the failures of IMF policies is evident in countless countries which have become trapped into further economic decline, debts and poverty.

This problem of unscientific application of social science is also very much applicable to political doctrines as well. Unscientific application of political doctrines can also cause tremendous damage to societies and nation states. By unscientific application, it means creating political systems in society by disregarding ground realities, practicalities and feasibility of political blueprints of society.  Political systems are social experiments that have objective scientific basis. Political system also require certain requisites and environment to succeed in a society. Some political systems may be successful in one country while they can cause disasters in others. Some political systems may be failure at a particular time (on historical timeline) while they can be successful in a different timeline. A system which suited a nation in past may become obsolete in future. Political systems have to be continuously reformed and adapted as per needs of the time. Sometimes, the whole systems have to be junked and created afresh. 

Most of Indian activists and thinkers i have encountered are mechanical thinkers and disciples of classical doctrine of democracy. These activists are unaware of heterodox theory of democracy. LeBon was likely the starting point of heterodox view of democracy and Schumpeter expanded it further. I won't get into all details of my analysis on Democracy in this article as i have already written lengthy analysis. These articles can be read as elaboration and supplement to Schumpeter's thesis on democracy. To be brief in context to India & similar nations. There're no such thing as 'will of the people', 'rational thinking of electorate', 'political equality' etc - things which many Indian activists & intellectuals of today and India's founding fathers of the past always clung to. 

I have vehement critique of founding fathers (Gandhi, Nehru, Ambedkar etc), for they were religious disciples of classical theory. They were agitators, not statesmen. Agitation against British colonizers is one thing and actually governing a nation state is entirely different. Referring to Hobsbawm's thesis on 'narrative of history' in post colonial nations. Indian activists and intellectuals have mostly grasped the fictitious historical narrative of India in which founding fathers are presented as national heroes.

India hasn't achieved anything remarkable after independence (1, 2, 3). The exploitation and abuses as happened under Colonizers now continues to happen under the democratic regimes in post independent India. The country is marred by abject poverty, backwardness (social, political, economic) and anarchy. The lofty ideals on which country was founded on - secularism, classical democracy, rule of law, natural justice etc have vanished. India is a failed state. 

Schumpeter states certain requisites for functional system of classical democracy. These requisites can be called as building material for classical democracy and they never existed in Indian society. The seeds of India's paralysis, dysfunction and destruction were thus actually laid by founding fathers by creating an infeasible and unworkable political system - a scathing critique of founding fathers which Indian activists find indigestible. 

LeBon and Schumpeter were great thinkers of the past. Indian activists and intellectuals live in their microcosm of colonial subject thinking. The starting point of all intellectual thought for Indian activists are people like Gandhi, Ambedkar, Nehru etc. For those who think on level of macrocosm of world history, know well that Indian founding fathers were just colonialized 'agitators'. There are great thinkers in world history whose ideas Indian activists are unaware of - thinkers like Schumpeter, Veblen, Marx, Leibniz, Keynes, DeGaulle, Galbraith, Hobsbawm etc to name a few. 

One of most interesting point of LeBon & Schumpeter on Democracy is that Democracy is a religion. People only associate religion with faith in gods, ancient texts and related culture. But broadly speaking; religion is a subset of a dysfunctional mentality, more like a cognitive impairment and psychological flaw in humans. Referring to thesis of Veblen, religion is animistic belief system in certain things - a blind faith. This type of animistic belief system can take any form. The subject of animistic belief can be a god and religion (Christianity, Islam etc). A subject of this type of animistic belief system can also be a political doctrine. For example, 'Marxism' is well recognized as a kind of a religion. Laissez-faire capitalism is a kind of religion among Libertarians. Similarly, Democracy is also a kind of religion.

There are many intellectuals who project themselves as atheists while they are disciples of classical democracy. Their animistic belief system is no different than that of a conservative christian or a Mohammedan. A person with cognitive impairment and psychological flaw of animistic belief system cannot recognize his own impairment. No amount of rational persuasion and objective argument can convince a religious person of irrationality of his animistic beliefs. I've come across activists who swear that Indian founding fathers and their classical democracy was the best system that could be made. How so? They have no argument beyond that. They will always demand for a counter example about what possible alternative system could've been possible. In reality, countless number of permutations and combinations of political systems are possible. I will get to more on this point below.

Another crucial point of Schumpeter is that Democracy is a capitalist concept. This critical assertion has several foundations based on heterodox theory of democracy. On historical timeline, the early institutions of capitalism emerged first and Democracy emerged by polity endogenously co-evolving with these institutions at later stage. Also, there is no such thing as 'political equality' which most classical theorists religiously believe in. Under heterodox theory of democracy, democratic political system is as competitive and as unfair as capitalist economic system. There's no equality in political opportunity, appreciation of constructive ideas is not guaranteed, the playing field is highly uneven and policy outcome in national interest is only incidental. 

India emulated British parliamentary democracy with addition to a constitution. One of the beliefs of Indian activists is that western political system is the best possible system even when building material of democracy is non existent in India. India takes democracy and universal suffrage as the starting point of our institutional political setup. But this is not how Democracy was established in west. For example, the universal suffrage came to Britain only after a sizable propertied middle class was established, industrial revolution was underway and early capitalism had established its roots. Only after a group of economic and political institutions were established, the universal suffrage was introduced. In addition to that, there was also a whole set of things in western society that could nurture classical democracy - more generally, western society was civilized when universal suffrage was introduced. In India, we put cart before the horse.

The western society had more cohesive and uniform culture, language, religion etc and a more healthy social attitude for politics. Industry, institutions, capitalism, political maturity came first in western nations. Democracy and universal suffrage came later. Even when western society had strong social foundations of democracy, it still had many challenges and shortcomings in their Democratic systems. For example, US had to fight a tragic civil war. Voting rights for slaves and women came more than 100 years after their Independence. Even today, the US democracy is facing unprecedented crisis (rise of MAGA movement). A similar crisis has also occurred in UK (Brexit). Even those nations which are conducive to classical democracy are marred by major crisis and dysfunction. 

India is an uncivilized society with no building material for democracy. There is no social and cultural cohesion. There are countless barriers due to diversity of religion, culture, tribes, languages etc. India always lacked middle class population with rational temperament as vast majority of society was marred in abject poverty and social backwardness. There were no political institutions to run democracy. As i mentioned above about western nations, there was a degree of economic progress before democracy that led to political maturity for operating democracy. Classical democracy works when society has attained a high degree of social consciousness. 

Democracy in India means a mob rule with 100 different hostile, ignorant and incompetent political groups in a battle royale. The country has always been paralyzed under such infighting. Modi, Shah, Rahul Gandhi are endogenous variables of this political system. More precisely, they are outcome of systemic failure of our political system of democracy. Any political analysis of Indian elections and democracy from classical narrative is pointless. To begin with, there is no 'will of the people' in nation like India which can be expressed through democracy. Indian activists and much of Indian intellectuals don't grasp this reality. 

Religious mindset of Indian activists is on display when they demand counter example of a political system. This is because Indian activists can't think beyond literature of founding fathers and classical doctrine. Just as an example, China has a political system which is completely different from India and it has delivered good progress. China creates policies and govern itself in very different way. Book by Yuen Yuen Ang - 'How China Escaped the Poverty Trap' provides good insight on Chinese political and economic system. I am not saying that China's system should be emulated in India or that it's the best system. My point is that a political system can be created in any shape and form as China has created its system through extensive experimentation and reform. China was also once trapped in ideological thinking of 'Maoism' for two decades but it transcended beyond that. 

An interesting point made by Yuen Yuen Ang is that people see political and economic systems as static functions. People have this conventional thinking that we create a political system and it lasts forever with some tweaks and fixes. But systems are dynamic and different systems are needed at different stages of historical timeline for governance of state. Yuen Yuen Ang charts the changing dynamics of Chinese bureaucracy, politics and economic system in last 7 decades and especially since 1978. Such theory of dynamism can be generalized. The democracy is actually a pretty advanced political system which works well in affluent nations. Maybe, we in India might reach that stage of affluence and social-political-economic advancement in future. But we were far lagging at time of independence and still we lag greatly. Simply put, we are not yet ready for Democracy.

Indian political analysts and intellectuals are religious disciples of classical doctrine of democracy. They are no different than Jholachap doctors, the quack practitioners of medical science. Indian activists, analysts and intellectuals continue to apply classical theory to interpret Indian political affairs and policies. This is same like applying quackery, witchcraft and magic to analyze diseases of human body. The political doctrines of founding fathers like Ambedkar, Gandhi, Nehru etc is same like Homeopathy. We know that pseudoscience like homeopathy cannot provide any real cure for illness (perhaps except placebo). Similarly, the classical democracy has no solution to India's problems. 

As i mentioned earlier, Modi is an endogenous variable of this failed political system. But since Indian activists are deeply 'religious', they cannot understand this assertion. Another flaw of Indian activists is that they cannot understand the characteristic of endogenous and exogenous nature of things. They will continue to agitate about EVMs, deliberative democracy, free & fair elections, parliamentary formalism etc. They mistake many flaws in Indian democracy as exogenous problems - things that have somehow infiltrated the wonderful classical democratic model. 

A structurally flawed system even if operated with full transparency will generate dysfunctional outcomes. If Ballot paper is replaced with EVMs, there won't be any difference in quality of politicians and political parties. Activists complain about lack of deliberation and parliamentary formalism. But Indian political elites are incompetent gangsters, criminals & anti-social elements. There is no constructive deliberation possible and even if deliberation is carried out among these cretins, there won't be any positive results. Can bunch of monkeys sit on a round-table to create constructive policies? 

Many of the flawed and dysfunctional legislation have actually been created by deliberative consensus. Activists complain that India is becoming a uniparty dictatorship with consolidation of power in handful of politicians. But this is very nature of Democracy which like capitalism tends towards monopoly and abuses (refer to heterodox theory of democracy). Most importantly, the worst deficiency in Indian democracy is its electorate who are overwhelmingly uncivilized, uneducated and ignorant. The 'will of the people' and 'rational electorate' - two critical tenets of classical democracy fail spectacularly in India. 

I don't expect Indian activists and intellectuals with their 'religious' mindset to grasp this analysis. The animistic belief system in Democracy is as worse as animistic belief system in any religion. Regardless, I continue my research & documenting India for my intellectual curiosity. 

Suggested reading

Parallels of mainstream political theory and mainstream economic theory

India, Democracy and Political future

The Great Transformation by Karl Polanyi

Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy by Joseph Schumpeter

Crowd - A study of the popular mind by Gustave LeBon

How China Escaped the Poverty Trap by Yuen Yuen Ang

Musical coda 

Far Cry 2 (2008) Main theme