Azadism Vs Democracy

Azadist critique of Democracy

Should Sikhs Vote?

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The following is an excerpt from

Section V of the Azadist Manifesto⁠

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Azadism makes a recommendation to do away with a democracy in the form of simply giving everyone a vote. However, firstly, it is unlikely that there will be many issues to vote on anyway since the market itself is responsible for its own economic decisions such as trade deals, minimum wages, welfare or any other policy decision a politician would usually make for them. The Athenians were one of the earliest civilisations who actively worked against the establishment of an authoritarian system. They had learned the lessons of giving too much power to a ruling elite and knew full well the consequences of having freedoms eroded³⁰. Through the establishment of democracy, they aimed to disseminate power amongst the population. Although, an improvement, there were still some serious weaknesses present in the Athenian experiment. What inevitably arose was a system in which those vying for power would use any manner of misleading speech to simply appear better than opponents, rather than having any actual rational policies. The voting populace, who were not educated in the nuance of certain matters, would simply pick the candidate who had the more convincing argument, but not necessarily the rational one. The word given to such people was “demagogues”, who were masters of rhetoric rather than reason³¹. Plato describes an argument presented by his teacher Socrates in his work ‘Gorgias’ on this matter, where he gave an example of a court trial that had indicted a doctor. The accuser being a cook that baked meats and treats, and the jury being a group of young boys. The cook would be able to easily sway the jury’s opinion by highlighting the scary-looking instruments of the doctor, bitter-tasting potions and other practices, claiming that he on the other hand offers sweets. Amongst a population who do not know any better, it is unlikely the doctor could make any substantial counter argument³². Socrates further expands on this in Plato’s “The Republic”, using his famous allegory of the “Ship of Fools”. You wouldn’t let just anyone manage the sailing of a ship and all the other roles involved. Instead, you would want those skilled and educated in these matters to be responsible. The same logic is then extrapolated onto voting and deciding how a nation should be managed. Seeing the inherent flaws of democracy, Socrates advocated that voting should be equally recognised as a skill that requires time and effort to hone. It is not simply a birthright³³.

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There have been proposed improvements for this system. However, as I will explain shortly, these proposals do not address the fundamental issue. Nonetheless, it may still be worth mentioning. One suggestion is that voting rights should be reserved only to those who have a proven ability to think rationally about the arguments presented and have shown that they have indeed thought about their vote. Just like a driving test is required before obtaining a license, similarly, a test could be set up ahead of a vote that those wishing to participate must pass. If the citizens recognise the importance of being educated enough to vote, then they may demand this education in the market. Those that decide not to or are unable to put in the time and effort required to pass this test will simply be barred from voting. The test should be careful to avoid bias and mainly stick to questions ascertaining whether people simply know what certain terminology even means. Those creating these tests should obviously not be allowed to vote. This is all to reduce the effect of demagoguery, whereby politicians manipulate voters by gaining sympathy through rhetorical arguments, where they push policies that are counter-productive but sound nice in order to gain power. The reality is that many people are not educated enough to be able to make an informed decision, and so the rest of the population shouldn’t suffer as a result. But what happens if a single class of people are actively restricted from this education? Who decides what questions to put in this test in the first place? Does having more minds truly solve the complexity of certain decisions? There are many stupid-clever people. And there are many who are truly intelligent but still make the wrong decisions³⁴. By introducing barriers to entry for political representation, do we really reduce the risk of demagoguery, or do we give demagogues a smaller group to influence?

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Azadism sees democracy as a form of mob rule. It is the majority deciding on the behalf of all. Minorities will inevitably have their interest sidelined for the benefit of the majority. This goes completely against the principles of freedom and the NAP on which Azadism stands. The only area in which it may be acceptable is privately. Private democracies can exist if each individual agrees to have their personal will triumphed over by the majority vote. There is nothing wrong with this, and it already exists in social groups everywhere for situations as mundane as deciding where to go hiking with friends. Similarly, private autocrats can exist too as long as adherence to their laws are voluntary to participate in. This is what most businesses are like, which also have autocratic structures and company policy. They are almost states within a state, with a king at the top (CEO) and all his ministers (managers) and subjects (employees of various roles) underneath. However, the difference here is that each member can voluntarily choose to leave at any time. If people do not want to seek employment in that structure, then nothing is stopping them from trying different ways of organisational management such as worker co-ops, provided that they are all still free to leave and join at will. It just so happens that human beings seem to tend towards hierarchical structures, and autocratic systems seem to get things done quicker as there is less deliberation, for better or worse³⁵. As long as this all occurs privately there is no problem with voluntary authoritarianism. In fact, this is what we Sikhs see the Guru as - a private “monarch”, transcending the royalty of the state. Each Sikh is a subject to this authority voluntarily and abides by this monarch's dictates completely of their own volition³⁶. No matter how much in majority, a non-voluntary democracy on a state level in which one group decides on the behalf of another, is always unjust in principle if the other group is forced to comply according to Azadism.

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Similarly, the founding fathers of the US realised these issues too, and instead established a constitutional republic in which the rule of law would always take precedence³⁷. In fact, the word democracy was never used in the constitution or the declaration of independence. They feared the same thing that Socrates had in the sense that a direct democracy will eventually end up in tyranny, as the people will inevitably elect in a dictator after some time. This is exactly what happened in Germany with the rise of Hitler who was also elected democratically. Although a republic is also technically democratic, it introduces a series of measures to ensure the constitution is held in the highest regard, and that a series of representatives are elected to make decisions on the behalf of those they represent. The problem with the early American system, however, was the barring of groups such as women and black people from engaging with any of this. The founding fathers themselves followed along with the thousands of years old tradition of slavery, despite its monstrous social implications as well as economic drawbacks³⁸. But even today, the way in which representation is determined has become completely broken due to a practice known as “gerrymandering”. Elected groups are able to redraw the boundaries in which representatives are chosen so that certain parties are favoured over others, even if they had less votes overall³⁹. Combine this with the shear number of things that the government is responsible for, you get a system arguably as bad as the very direct democracy they were hoping to avoid.

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The comprehensive outline of how exactly an Azadist system would function politically goes outside of the scope of this particular manifesto, and may be expanded upon in later publications. However, for now, these are some of the things to consider when thinking about this topic. Choosing between monarchy, direct democracy, republic or any other form of government may be the wrong approach entirely. What has been proposed throughout this manifesto, is a system in which decisions are made by the people that only affect themselves and those who freely consent to be affected by them. Instead of pushing for any system that aims to decide on the behalf of others, Azadism inherently takes away this ability and places importance on maintaining freedom whilst actively protecting against those behaviours that breach the freedom of others. In other words, only that system of governance is truly acceptable that upholds the NAP. Any government that adopts Azadism as an economic policy is by default condemning itself to become gradually more limited, more privatised and more decentralised. But how would a nation starting from scratch do this? How could an existing government restructure itself to abide by the tenets of Azadism? The next section will explore one hypothetical form of government that is based on many of the principles advocated so far.

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Further Vichaars

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Should Sikhs Vote?⁠

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