The tyranny of too much democracy: Confucius’s answer

The post-Soviet “end of history” euphoria seems to be long gone, and the panic that democracy is in peril has taken hold among many. The recent rise of right-wing populist parties among Western democracies — thought to offer the end of history — is often considered a sign of the decline and fall of democracy. Yet the irony is that many of these parties are rising through democratic elections. In several countries, they have even won the largest share of votes, only to be kept out of power when coalitions form, all in the name of defending democracy.

Their success, in fact, is not a sign of democracy’s collapse but a product of it. If anything, their influence might be even greater if democratic competition were allowed to run its course. The possible confusion that results from this stems from how the term “democracy” is used: it has become a loaded concept that often conflates two distinct ideas — liberalism and democracy. 

Democracy is about rule by the majority, and liberalism is about the rule of law and the protection of certain liberties. Conceptually, they are different. Historically, proto- and early liberal thinkers sought to protect liberties from oppressive powers. For proto-liberal thinkers such as Montesquieu, the threat was from the rise of absolute monarchy. But in the 19th century, early liberal thinkers such as John Stuart Mill realised that with absolute monarchy disappearing in the UK, the new threat to liberties was democracy, or the tyranny of the majority. That is, the emergence of liberalism was actually a response to the challenge of democracy — the motivation for Mill to introduce and defend liberalism was to save liberties from the threat of the opinions of the many.

In this fight, liberalism and democracy achieved a balance — what we call liberal or constitutional democracy.

With democracy and its first cousin, equality, advancing continuously, however, this fragile balance is now being broken. What is declining is not democracy, but liberalism. Anything different from the “herd” is considered unequal, elitist, and undemocratic, and “we the people”, left behind in globalisation, wish to disrupt the status quo with the power of the majority, hopefully unchecked by any laws. If this is the case, and if you love liberalism, the only hope, then, is to limit democracy and equality, in order to regain the balance.

But why do we think about regaining the balance? We could simply save liberalism by eliminating democracy completely, and this is doable. After all, in an aristocracy, the few, who are defined by birth, enjoy freedom, and the many labour for them. But if we believe that one’s status should not be defined by pedigree, and that the state exists to serve the well-being of all, we should reject this alternative. 

Facing a world where the old order that was built on aristocracy collapsed, early Confucians (roughly between 500 BCE and 200 BCE), believed that the state exists to serve the people. For them, the service to the people offers the ultimate legitimacy to the state. That is, the state is for the people. Arguably, they also believe that the state is of the people as well. More importantly, the state should be held accountable for its service to the people. Whether the people are served or not has to be decided by the people, and a government that fails to satisfy its people’s needs should be removed.

A crucial difference between Confucians and democrats, however, is that the former do not think that the state should be by the people. Like democrats, they believe that all human beings have equal potential to govern themselves, and are the best judge of how they feel about their lives. But unlike democrats, Confucians also believe that in reality, only the few can actualise their moral and intellectual potentials to govern for all, and the masses are not competent to make political decisions even for their own benefit.

Thus, Confucians would endorse a mixed regime that combines democratic elements (so that the people can express their satisfaction or the lack of it with the government) with meritocratic elements (so that political decisions that are good for all can be made). One example of this is a bicameral legislature with a democratically elected lower house and a meritocratically selected upper house. 

In this Confucianism-inspired mixed regime, there are three ways to select members of the upper house. First, the meritocrats of the higher level can be elected by members of the legislature one level lower. Second, we can use the passing of certain exams as the qualification for voters to vote for the upper house, or as the qualification for candidates for the upper house. Third, we can find proxies that indicate the virtue of the candidate. For example, a one-term only position in the upper house on the national level can be given to a two-term governor who has maintained a 40% approval rating during his or her terms, has not been caught with any criminal activities, and is to be retired. All these three ways are not mutually exclusive and can complement each other. 

This regime should be firmly built on liberal ground, that is, constitutionalism that protects rights and liberties. Constitutionalism is perhaps the real contribution the West has made to humans’ search for an ideal regime, and as I have argued in my book, Against Political Equality, Confucians can embrace it.

For example, for people’s voices to be heard and for wise decisions to be made, the right to free speech has to be endorsed. Although traditional Chinese regimes are not full-blown constitutional ones, traditional Chinese thinkers do warn against the oppression of people’s voices. In one ancient text, the writer says that to seal the mouth of the people is worse than blocking the river flow (which would lead to a disastrous result).

Now, why can this constitutionalism-based Confucian hybrid regime restrain the excesses of democracy? To see this, we have to realise that the present democratic institution, especially that of one person one vote, has four problems. 1) It encourages radical individualism and anti-intellectualism. 2) It gives all the political authority to the present voters, although domestic policies, such as environmental policies, can affect non-voters, such as foreigners and future generations. 3) It often encourages the majority to silence the minorities, eroding liberties in a liberal democracy and leading to ethnic cleansing in fledgling democracies. 4) It builds upon an unrealistic premise that voters are rational about their own self-interests, a premise that is considered a myth by many economists and political scientists.

It is unrealistic for two reasons. Almost all modern states are way too large for common people to understand state-level affairs, and the majority of people who are so busy working do not even have time to understand them. By de facto limiting the voice of the people, the Confucian mixed regime may address these problems.

Conflating democracy with liberalism and taking equality as sacred, many democratic thinkers still wish to strengthen democracy and equality in order to solve the problems that are actually created by democracy and too much equality. Montesquieu once argued that democracy would be ruined by the lack of equality and too much equality. Mill suggested that the votes of more informed people should be given extra weight.

The Federalists designed many institutions to check and balance the power of the people, and the American regime at its founding (minus the lack of suffrage and the discrimination against women and minorities) comes closest to the Confucian hybrid regime in reality, although these institutions have been weakened and even eliminated in the progress of democracy and equality.

Therefore, the proposal of a Confucian mixed regime is a reminder of a Western tradition that has been lost or neglected, to the detriment of liberal democracy that has been developed in the West, and the resonance between China and (the neglected) West shows the universality of these ideas.

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