The idea of direct democracy is capturing the masses. More and more texts are appearing online, in which authors explain how convenient it will be for all of us to vote on everything we want, pressing buttons on our iPhones and without any Supreme Rada. And this cannot but sadden, because direct democracy brings a much greater misfortune than crooked democracy.
Let me explain. How does direct democracy differ from representative democracy? In the version we’re familiar with—primarily by the absence of these very representatives. The thesis sounds something like this: given current technological development, there is no longer any need for the guys in the Rada. We can do it ourselves, without leaving home, voting at any convenient time on whatever laws we need.
I should note that, for example, in the Russian-language Wikipedia, all this looks exactly like “people’s power”—that is, a process initiated and existing in society. That is, we are supposedly doing it ourselves, for ourselves, in our own interests. However, it is not at all difficult to convince oneself that this is not the case, and in this sense the idea of direct democracy is useful: it allows one to better understand where and why democracy came to exist in the form in which we observe it today, and to realize the threat posed by its “improved” version.
However, let us go step by step. Let us imagine a free society. Here, let us say, I live in such a society and earn my living by driving goods from China and selling them in Ukraine. My standard of living depends on how well I manage to satisfy the needs of Ukrainians with goods from China. I conclude contracts, and conflicts are resolved by a (private) court, and if some coercion is necessary, (private) police come into play, with whom I also have a contract, or which acts within the framework of my insurance and the insurance of contracts and property—there can be a million variations, but the point here is not about them. In general, everything is going well, and suddenly some weirdos “vote” using iPhones for “tariffs on imports from China.” That is, it turns out I should pay someone simply for the fact that I transport goods from China and sell them in Ukraine. This payment is not a sanction for an unfulfilled contract; it is not connected at all with my activities. It is just the private opinion of certain weirdos about the benefit that a spherical-in-vacuum “import from China” brings—not even to these weirdos themselves, but to someone altogether unclear. Where do you think I’ll send the weirdos with their iPhones and voting? You think correctly. If we are serious, then it is completely obvious that in a free society not only is no direct democracy needed, but it is also impossible, and especially crooked democracy. That is, the premise of its adepts—that “we here decide for ourselves, and the bosses run around doing our bidding”—is deeply erroneous. The voting of weirdos makes sense only when they know that there are (monopolistic) courts and (monopolistic) police who will not only come to me to ask where the tariff on imports from China is, but I also will not be allowed to resist them, because for resistance to authorities the Cyclops beats you with a stick at night. Moreover, the voting of weirdos makes sense only when there exists the granary of the Motherland—a place where industrious monopolistic bees bring all these tariffs, taxes, and other exactions. Thus, we get a quite familiar picture of the state. And it becomes clear that it is not the bosses who run around doing the weirdos’ bidding, but the weirdos work to fill the bosses’ granary. True, they do this voluntarily, joyfully, and with enthusiasm, since they feel themselves in the kingdom of freedom. This is precisely how direct democracy also differs from crooked democracy.
Moreover, it is obvious that only the state benefits from such a state of affairs, because armed people whom you cannot resist since you are deprived of such a right could not care less what exactly our weirdos are “voting” for. They can vote for this or that; as a result, different groups lose one after another, but the state always wins, because without its monopolistic “drag and don’t let through,” this entire cozy festival of iPhone voting simply will not exist.
That is, the causes and effects look the reverse of the picture that forms in the minds of direct democracy supporters. Namely, direct democracy (like representative democracy before it) is simply a tool in the hands of the state—for extracting taxes, of course. And yes, direct democracy is more effective than representative democracy. For the state, not for you.
Actually, history quite clearly demonstrates this process, which, of course, is not a planned action or conspiracy, but the natural behavior of a complex system called “the state”—its attempt to adapt to changes in another system, society, on which it parasitizes.
It is no coincidence that representative democracy in the form we know it today arose in wealthy societies, replacing a regime that can be conditionally called republican. This regime was distinguished by the fact that the state was quite effectively controlled, and in the only possible way—financially. In Britain, for example, Parliament approved taxes every year. There did not exist “taxes in general,” to which we are accustomed and consider self-evident. The taxes to which we are accustomed were called extraordinary, because the “ordinary” ones were considered to be the king’s income from his lands and other perks. Everything that went beyond these bounds was extraordinary and required Parliament’s approval, which indeed occurred every year. The state lived on a starvation ration, which allowed society to grow and develop, and Britain to rule the seas and half the world. Representative democracy was the state’s response to this situation. Under the guise of caring for the orphaned and unfortunate, under the guise of creating police, universal education, and social insurance, the state took its due. The expansion of the franchise and other reforms like these deprived society of the ability to control the state, and already by the end of the 19th century, Dicey in his “The Law of the Constitution” wrote that although the procedure of voting for extraordinary taxes still exists, progressive public need not worry—it is a pure formality, and the budget necessary for its progressive needs will always be collected. Worse still, representative democracy drew the “broad popular masses” into political struggle, promising them various perks at the “state’s” (actually—their own) expense, and turning the political process into the very struggle of all against all, which Hobbes so feared. This is perhaps the most terrible result of representative democracy.
Thus, by the 1930s, the conditionally republican system was replaced by a democratic one. Let us note that outwardly it seemed like nothing changed, but functionally it is a completely different system, somewhere even opposite to the previous one. This is clearly visible in the role of parliament. In the “republican” parliament, taxpayers sit, whose function is to limit their own expenditures; in the democratic one, tax recipients and representatives of hostile groups of tax recipients sit, whose function is to maximally expand taxation in the broad sense and defeat competitors in the struggle for budget expenditures. The Ukrainian parliament is an excellent illustration of this state of affairs. The “oligarchs” and all sorts of representatives of the orphaned and unfortunate play the same role in it—to increase the distribution of the national product through the budget.
Direct democracy and its companion in the form of electronic government is simply a continuation of the process of adaptation and improvement of the state. Over the years of representative democracy, the “broad popular masses” never understood the essence of what was happening, but acquired distrust of its institutions. That is, they suspect that something here is not right, but what exactly—they do not know, and therefore do not trust “all these deputies.” As a result, the collection of tribute falls; the public does not want to pay the state they do not love. In this sense, the idea of direct democracy through an iPhone looks extremely encouraging for the state, since it again allows the state—the sole beneficiary in all this business—to appear “merely” as a tool that good people use for good deeds.
I think that the content of the political conflict in the near future will precisely be the struggle between direct and crooked democracy—“transparency and progress” against “archaism and embezzlement.” That is, the struggle between groups accustomed to slicing up money seized from the people through the budget, legislation, and direct regulation, and groups that understand how this can be done without sessions in parliament. That is, the history of the late 18th and 19th centuries will essentially repeat itself, when the less effective feudal method of appropriation gave way to the more effective democratic one.
And last. I did not pointlessly draw attention to the fact that representative democracy arose in wealthy and prosperous countries, because it is a quite effective blood-sucking organ, into whose work its victims are directly involved. Weak societal organisms cannot withstand such loads. The fact that democracies have not really taken root anywhere except in Western countries (that is, wealthy countries), and everywhere lead to perpetual troubles and conflicts—a well-known fact. And therefore it is obvious that a more perfect model of blood-sucking—direct democracy—will simply be destructive for them.