Democracy: Friend or Foe?

You can't go through a world history class without hearing that the ancient Greeks came up with the idea for democracy. An interesting fact that a lot of these classes leave out is that the Greeks said that democracy was a BAD system of government. See, the Greeks came up with three "good" systems of government. They ranked them, from good to bad, as follows:

1. Monarchy - The ultimate form of government. The country would be unified under one leader, who would strive to work for the good of the people. The idea was that this one person was groomed their entire lives to be the best leader possible. They would be well-educated and they would be trained to be a good ruler.
2. Aristocracy - The next-best thing. The elite class, which in this case was the educated, virtuous class, would rule the country by way of council. In the council, majority ruled.
3. Polity - The educated people in the community vote on candidates based on their individual character and virtue. This was considered the least desirable of the three.

The Greeks also realized that all three of these systems of government had the potential to become corrupt.

• Monarchy <-----> Tyranny
• Aristocracy <----> Oligarchy
• Polity <----------> Democracy

When they became corrupt, they would also switch places in the ranking of good to bad, so the monarchy, the best of governments, would, when corrupted, become the worst of governments.

1. Monarchy
2. Aristocracy
3. Polity
   --------------
4. Democracy
5. Oligarchy
6. Tyranny

Some people might argue that democracy and polity are synonymous, or that an aristocracy and oligarchy are one and the same. This isn't so.

• Democracy - There is one big difference between polity and democracy: partisanship. All of a sudden, you're not looking at candidates based on their individual merits. You look at them in terms of political party affiliation.
• Oligarchy - Oligarchy and aristocracy are both centered in the idea of an elite class being in power. The difference is in who this elite class is. In a Greek aristocracy, the elite class were the well-educated and the virtuous (ideally). In an oligarchy, the people who hold power do so by way of wealth, powerful friends, or birthright.
• Tyranny - The worst possible government. In a tyrannical government, the country has a single ruler who governs not for the good of the people, but for the good of himself.

Unfortunately, in modern day you see mostly governments 4, 5, and 6. In a way, you can see all three of them prevalent in modern-day America. It is undeniable that the United States is a democracy. Everyone votes, and there is definitely a lot of partisanship in our government. You fit into two categories: red or blue. Sure, you can vote on a third party candidate, but let's be realistic. If you do that, you've wasted a vote on a candidate who will never win. So you may very well have people who are much better candidates for office than the Democratic and Republican candidates, but who will never win the Presidency and help our country because it is impossible to battle these political powerhouses. In addition, many candidates get in not because they are especially liked by the people, but just because that party has such a massive amount of members. One of my friends, for example, was very displeased with how Bush served his first term as President. In 2004, HE VOTED FOR HIM AGAIN. Why? Because he's a Republican. Easy as that.

You might say that you'll give me that our government is definitely a democracy, but you don't see how it's simultaneously a democracy, an oligarchy, and a tyranny. Okay. An oligarchy is a society in which a small elite group governs the masses; specifically, the small group of the wealthy. Let's be honest. Elections in the United States are not won by votes. They're won by corporations. If you have money, politicians are your friend. Or they want to be, anyway. If you don't have money, they don't give a rat's ass about you. The corporations' lobbyists can push nearly any bill through Congress, with enough money. The corporations also fund Presidential campaigns. Wonder why Bush is in Iraq? A good chunk of his funding comes from oil companies. Wonder why he's lax about environmental issues? Corporations, specifically oil refineries, are big contributors to the Republican party. Partisanship leads to an oligarchy because when the party gets money from a certain contributor, they cater to that contributor. You're not going to bite the hand that feeds you. Thus, the people running Congress are not the politicians, but the corporations who put them there; the elite class of America, our CEOs.

The tyrannical state argument is actually probably the easiest to prove. When you have people who are elected by the masses based on partisanship, the parties look to the wealthy, the corporations, for funding. When they are elected into office, thanks to the corporations and the wealthy, they take care of the people who made this investment, in order to make sure that their sponsors, if you will, don't cut the funding off. Congratulations, you now have the leader of your government governing in such a way that he's making sure HE'S taken care of, rather than his people. It's kind of a chain reaction, really, and America is the poster child for this chain of events.

In my opinion, the ancient thinkers and philosophers of Classical Greece that we so admire would have been very disappointed in government today.