Noun
small-d
democrat
A
democrat, that is, a person who holds democratic views; not necessarily someone
who is a member of a country's "Democratic Party".
The
voter roll at my local polling location has a capital D next to my name, but I may
be more of a small-d democrat. I’m not the only one. Not so long ago the
President of the United States felt much the same way,
"As
a democrat, as a person who believes in democracy -- a Republican democrat, I
might add -- as someone who believes that everybody has a right to live in a
free society. . . January, 2005, is an extraordinary month." George W.
Bush
I
was outraged when my fellow small-d democrat lead my nation into a decade long
war. I rejoiced when he worked accomplished landmark victories in the fight
against AIDs in Africa. And in between I felt rather in different. But recently
I have found my self-labeled as capital-D democrat more and more. My support
for the current president has forced me to suffer through a great deal of
naming calling. From ‘Liberal,’ ‘Progressive,’ to even ‘Socialist’ and
‘Communist’ sometimes all in the same sentence. According to the dictionary
those are to word that shouldn’t even appear side by side. And that is the problem.
Suddenly my support of a candidate or my party affiliation has become more
defining to who I am then my actually beliefs, my actions, or who I actually
vote for. I have awoken to find my self
in a society, where no matter your title, you are forced to be either for
government or against government.
This
is what my Intro to Philosophy professor Schlitz would have classified as a
false dichotomy. We are presented with a choice between to respectively
exclusive options; either we dismantle the government or allow it to expand
with out check. Clearly there are other options. But where do we begin? How
about with a question posed by Ezra Klein during the 2010 midterms? Would
progressives being willing to sacrifice many of their political gains from Gay
rights to the most recent Health Care Reform Act in the face of a new
Republican Majority? His answer is critical to defining a small-d democrat and
the choices they make about how we should be governed. Even though a individual
like my self may strongly support a piece of legislation, it is in the best
interest of the legislative process that the majority still commands the power
needed to reverse past legislation. In 2010 we saw a Republican/Tea Party take
over of congress on the promise or repeal. No such repeal came to be. Although
we are left to ask why the new majority chose to focus its new mandate on debt
ceilings and endless debates about ‘class warfare’ when it could have clearly
have brought repeal to the floor of at least the House? This is because when
faced with the threat of filibuster political actors fail to act in accordance
to the wishes of the majority and by doing so muddy the waters of political
responsibility. As Klein states:
“Strengthening
that crucial relationship between cause (one party got elected) and effect
(they passed bills) is not only better from the perspective of assuring action
on problems. It's also a road to a better-informed citizenry that knows who to
blame, and who to reward, for the condition of the country and the performance
of the most recent Congress.” Ezra Klein[1]
And
this brings me to an Anonymous article written in 1962. The essence of the
article is that in the United States we have what the author refers to as
capital-D democracy. This is a system where individuals elect representatives
and by such process the minority is forced to accept the edicts of the majority
as law.[2] This
is placed in stark opposition to what could be called small-d democracy or
‘economic democracy.’ Individuals go into the market place, and by spending
their money they receive products and services according to their direct
wishes. In essence no matter how large a majority selects Coke over Pepsi those
who choose Pepsi still get to drink Pepsi.
This
is the fundamental problem that arises with defining some people as small-d
democrats and others as ‘Democrats.’ It draws a stark black and white
distinction between to conceptions of what it means to adopt a democratic
system whether it is economic or political. Our anonymous friend fails to
recognize the hidden costs buying a product like Coke. These include economic,
health, and social side effects not accounted for in the actual monetary cost
of a can or bottle of Coke. It also assumes that people act as static agents,
that their desire to be ruled by on individual over another dose not change
with over time. This has been clearly
proven wrong on countless occasions like that of the 10’ congressional
elections. In essence the two stark conceptions of democracy presented by our
anonymous friend represent yet another false dichotomy within American
politics.
There
is one thing we can be sure of in all of this. That our economic system is best
served when individuals are allowed to make economic decisions with as little
out side influence as possible. But without the protections generated by the
political majority there would be no freedom in the market place. The monopolies
once held by Standard Oil and Carnegie Steel proved that unregulated market
places do not maximize individual liberty. Nor is it possible to maintain an
efficient economic system with out a universal form of currency to insure fair
trade of surplus goods and services. A government operated by majority consent
is necessary to maintain the market place just as the market place is necessary
to maintain the liberties protected by government.
The
increasing use of the language of class warfare illustrates this point further.
Not so long ago a phrase like ‘class warfare’ went under a more accurate
synonym ‘economic democracy’ during the
Roosevelt years. Geoffrey Nurnberg in a 2005 commentary on ‘Fresh Air’
demonstrated this quantitatively by pointing out that the number of occurrences
of ‘economic democracy,’ with in the pages of the Times, dropped from hundred
and sixty times over the course of the 40’s to less the twenty times in the
90’s.[3]
Politicians, it seems in general, have chosen to seek out new and more
provocative forums of political rhetoric rather then actually tackle the issue
of what a democratic economy should actually look like. This is a fundamental
issue for all of us, small d-democrat or not. The Constitution provided for us
a system of making decisions and a series of basic protections, check and
balances, to restrain government from over stepping its boundaries. It did not,
nor did or our founding fathers leave us with a good answer as to how to
prevent the wealth of our nation from gathering in the hands of the few. The
top one percent of individuals controls 34 percent of the nation’s wealth. The
next 19 percent of individuals control over half. That means the other 80
percent are left to get by on less then a quarter of the nations wealth.[4]
This
is not democratic. Although as a small d-democrat I have no interest in some
socialist redistribution of wealth. I also would not see the top percent of
Americans, who have the most to benefit from the American economy, protected
and supported by our national infrastructure, health care systems, universities
and armed forces be allowed to go with out paying their fair share. The problem
is many Democrats and Republicans would. And as someone who refuses to pick a
political party or stand idle while our political system grinds to a stand
still are simply left to keep living. Keep voting, working, writing, playing,
loving, laughing, and refusing to allow other to dictate or limit our choices.
We are left to keep democracy alive in our hearts and our personal lives and to
confront every cynic who tells us the end of our nation is nigh or that we must
chose between anarchy or domination. These are not the choices. The choices are
with out limit. We decide what we are and what we will become.
Cheers
[1] http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/11/the_small-d_democratic_case_ag.html
[2] http://www.panarchy.org/anonymous/democracy.1962.html
[3] http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~nunberg/democrats.html
[4] http://www.forbes.com/sites/deborahljacobs/2011/11/01/occupy-wall-street-and-the-rhetoric-of-equality/
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