The State of Our Democracy

One of the objectives of a democratic society is to ensure that the interests of all its citizens are represented not equally but fairly. This necessarily requires that all citizens be equally able to express their concerns and have them championed by their servants in government. However, in the United States today this is not the case due to several factors, the main ones being low voter turnout, capitalism, and the two-party system.

Low voter turnout, Rousseau would argue, is a sign of bad government because it reflects a general attitude among its citizens that “the general will will not prevail” and therefore instead of being a servant, elected officials become representatives of their entire constituencies while advancing the interests of only those who put them there, i.e. the majority that elected the official and the contributors who allowed the official to run his or her campaign. And who are the underrepresented parties? Primarily young people and minorities. Young people, before they reach adulthood, are accustomed to being subverted by authority regardless of their interests and have no expectation that this pattern will change; the same can generally be said of minorities.

Capitalism has caused democracy to count votes not by citizens but by dollars. And it is no secret that in elections, especially state and local elections, the candidate with more money wins the vast majority of the time. As such, it meant for the longest time that the chief interests advanced by servants in government were those of corporations. It has been only recently, within the past 30 years or so, that citizen groups have sunk to the level of corporations and begun expensive lobbying campaigns. And when citizens would rather pay another to advocate for them than take to the streets to demand their needs, “the State is not far from its fall”.

The two-party system only serves to entrench the tyranny of the majority within our government. For example, which party is the anti-empire peace advocate supposed to support? Under both Republican and Democratic administrations have we seen our military budget steadily increase, even as our nation falls deeper into debt and recession. The ones who profit are the military contractors who our nation becomes more enslaved by as their pockets swell. Indeed, moneyed interests have captured our public servants, and the media, for the most part slaves to those same interests, serve only to maintain the illusion of representative democracy and distract the public from critical issues at hand. What can we do to reinvigorate U.S. citizens' interest in government and public service?