Democracy and Liberalism: Modern Challenges

  I recently participated in a discussion club, and the topic for discussion was this: Do you consider democracy to be the best form of government for the prosperity of the people?
  And you know what? In the heart of a democratic European capital, the majority voted “no” — a paradox, and a rather dangerous one at that...

Democracy, by its very nature, is merely a form of electing a government, but the nature of the consequences of the policies of the elected leaders can vary greatly.

 In particular, people rightly pointed out the flaws of democracies:

  - slow decision-making within the system due to the need to find a compromise among several political forces that have comparable levels of influence, support, and resources;
  - the adoption of decisions that are popular with the people but harmful or useless, which will nonetheless ensure re-election in the short term;
  - after being elected, politicians often do anything but what they actually promised the people in order to win the election;
  - manipulation of the minds and emotions of gullible people through media controlled by the ruling elites;
  - the formal ability to completely ignore the opinion of a minority of society (even if that minority is 49.999%) and impose any repressive legislation.

  But at the same time, we must remember the famous saying: “Democracy, of course, is a bad form of governance, but people haven’t come up with anything better yet”:

  - When those in power do unacceptable things, they may lose the support of the majority of society, and then the democratic process allows for a peaceful transfer of power — both through purely electoral mechanisms and through the pressure of mass protests. The very fact that a change of the political system is possible without violence is its greatest advantage.
  - Democracy ensures the rotation of elites, which reduces the risk of degradation both among individuals in power and within the governing hierarchy as a whole, which, in the absence of change, becomes overgrown with corrupt ties.
  - Arguments are often made in favor of authoritarian systems like China’s, claiming that their command-and-control and staffing systems are sometimes significantly more efficient, including economically.
   But no efficiency is worth the bloodshed, death, and suffering on which it is typically based there (criminalization of any disobedience, Laogai & Laojiao labor camps, gulags, oppressive labor regulations, social credit digital system, propaganda, etc.).
  - In democracies, on the other hand, because politicians are to some extent forced to take the views of the mass voters into account, the most universally recognized human rights and freedoms are generally upheld.
  - This creates conditions for active citizens to put their ideas into practice and establish horizontal structures in various spheres of public life. But if people are passive, politicians become overconfident, and democracy easily slides into authoritarianism even when electoral procedures are formally complied with.

  Therefore, I believe we should focus not on whether democracy is the best form of government, but on how we can improve it.

  Reforming the electoral system is a relatively straightforward path.
  Unlike in antiquity, most modern democracies are based on universal and equal voting rights, which ensures the legitimacy of the elected government; however, this is also the main motivator both for the manipulation of public opinion by those in power and for the lack of political will on the part of leaders to implement necessary but unpopular changes. It is futile to hope that all voters will rely on reliable information and logical arguments when voting, but the direct introduction of any kind of electoral qualification carries significant risks of abuse by both the authorities and various interest groups.
   Therefore, the most optimal solution, in my view, is to create parallel institutions with comparable powers (such as an upper house of parliament or a vice president) based on a specific meritocratic criteria — for example, by passing a specific open examination — with this filter applying to both voters and candidates. Such a dual system could ensure a balance between “heart” and “mind” and prevent democracies from being so vulnerable to emotional swings in society.
   Some democracies have the institution of lifetime senators (peers) and so on in order to have leaders who are independent of the need to be re-elected, but this is not enough, as it also automatically makes them vulnerable to degradation and corruption.
  Therefore, the efforts of some bitterly experienced countries to impose time limits for the duration of service in the state system — not only for the president, but also for others - the prime minister, members of parliament — deserve special attention.

  However, if a society has enough proactive citizens who are willing to take responsibility for their own lives, liberalism — the classical kind, not the modern leftist variety — can come to the rescue.

  Liberalism is an ideology and a type of public policy that prioritizes the preservation of individual human rights and freedoms over any other objectives.
  What, then, should we understand by “rights”? There are many philosophical concepts. In my view, rights (like duties) are the rules of interaction within human society, through which, over the course of history, society has embodied its vision of freedom and responsibility.
   In the modern world, they are formalized and enforced through the state apparatus, including coercion. Outside of society, however, it makes no sense to speak of rights or duties — only the laws of nature (physics, chemistry, biology, etc.) apply there.

  Among the most fundamental rights, I would include a persons' right to live and to manage their own bodies and the fruits of their labor to the extent that their actions do not objectively threaten the exercise of this right by other specific, peaceful individuals.
  Only the brain (as a living neural network created by nature) can issue commands to the body. All means of coercion boil down to inflicting a certain type of suffering, but the action itself can be carried out only through a direct act of will, which defines the sovereignty of the individual—or the principle of self-ownership. The right to the fruits of one’s labor also extends to the right to private property, thus giving us the classic triad of rights: Life, Liberty, and Property.
  You can read more about fundamental rights, for example, in Locke’s "Second Treatise on Government". Other rights and obligations are often defined as elements of a certain social contract; however, no one has ever signed such a contract — on the contrary, states automatically impose it on their citizens... And while restricting access to public goods due to a failure to fulfill obligations can be justified, violating these fundamental rights — by no means, since they are not linked to those obligations. As a result, coercion exercised by the state may be legal but not legitimate, because its purpose is against the natural order of things.
  Alberto Benegas Lynch also defines liberalism as "unrestriced respect to life project of others", as Milei cited in his Davos speech.
  In addition to purely moral and ethical arguments in favor of liberalism, there are also utilitarian ones — which were explored in particular by followers of the Chicago (Friedman) and Austrian (Mises and Hayek) schools of economics, who emphasize that free individuals most fully utilize their skills, healthy competition between them boosts progress, and all that benefits both individual and social well-being, and that delegating the adoption of most decisions and rules to the local level facilitates a more complete use of distributed information (according to Hayek’s “Constitution of Liberty”).
  Central authorities, however, not only ignore the views of the minority in order to implement their chosen policies (at least in areas where compromise is impossible), but also formulate those policies based on generalized data that abstracts from local details (if they formulate them in good faith and guided by logic at all...).

  As I mentioned above, even a democratically elected government can rule arbitrarily, pursuing anti-liberal policies — for example, by prioritizing abstract ideas of the collective good over individual rights. As a rule, the Constitution (if one exists) imposes certain limits on the government; however, even there, the powers of the branches of power are defined quite broadly.
  Therefore, given the aforementioned flaws of democracy, the Constitution should explicitly define a limited scope of issues that legislators and government are generally permitted to regulate and address (in peacetime) — using a “white list” approach, to prevent interference in other areas.
 This would reduce:
  - the potential for the use of state coercion and the imposition of values and rules alien to the people;
  - the harm caused by erroneous decisions;
  - the number of issues requiring a nationwide compromise;
  - government spending, and consequently the budget and the need for significant tax collection;
  - financial temptations for officials and the number of people seeking to govern purely to feel a sense of power
 Ironically, autoritarian governments often create such white lists for citizens, but never on themselves. Shouldnt the state serve society, and not vice versa?

  Among the areas that are more effectively organized centrally through the state apparatus and are critically necessary for collective well-being, I would include, first and foremost:

  The military — for defense against external threats from other states
  The courts — to resolve disputes and isolate aggressors
  The police — as an enforcement apparatus to ensure compliance with national and local laws and court decisions
  Basic education — teaching scientifically proven laws of nature and society
  Basic healthcare — immediate access to specialists with general medical knowledge
  Antitrust authorities — the state, having monopoly on the use of force, must justify its existence by balancing other independent entities (corporations, labor unions) that have accumulated sufficient resources to become sectoral monopolies and abuse that power to the damage of particular individuals
  This is not an exhaustive list, but a significant portion of other institutions could be created by local communities if they so desired. Obviously, this approach runs counter to the ideas of the “welfare state”, which is supposed to care for people in difficult circumstances; however, we are now seeing that the expansion of such welfare states leads to the suffocation of society through taxes and regulations, the quality of public services declines, and costs are rising — and this will ultimately lead to the collapse of the system, in my view. Caring for those in need should be the responsibility of local communities, though of course society must be prepared to organize itself for this purpose.

  Some libertarian philosophers believe it is necessary to further reduce the role of the state, limiting it to that of a “night watchman” (Nozick) or replacing it with private security firms (Rothbard), but I am in favor of a moderate and gradual approach to the process of minimizing government functions, one that would be based on thorough research rather than a pursuit of utopia, and that would also take into account the current external situation and public sentiment. Also interesting is the idea of the “chained Leviathan”, in which a large and powerful state is balanced by a large and powerful civil society that, through its own institutions, limits the state’s abuse of power. However, such an approach would mean living in a constant struggle for freedom, so it seems to me that the idea of a minimal state is more optimal in the long run.
  A separate consideration is required in situations where a free society and state face aggression from another state (or, in the case of migration, from organized groups of people) that is based on a more authoritarian worldview and employs all available methods — including military, hybrid, and cultural means — to destroy that free society. It is clear that countering such a threat requires a significantly greater number of regulations and restrictions, but mentioned fundamental rights must not be violated under any circumstances. The State must find ways to motivate people to find their role in the collective defense in a field where each person will be most effective, rather than undermine the very idea for which the struggle continues.