2023 FUTURE OBSERVATORY
2023 FUTURE OBSERVATORY
Let us look at the key assumptions supposedly underpinning much of Western society; and let us start with its proudest boast - that it alone knows the secret of true democracy! As early as 1780, Edmund Burke - in a speech on economic reform - made the definitive statement that 'The people are the masters'. It is, thus, assumed that the Western 'democracies' have long-since found the means for 'government of all the people by all the people for all the people'. Indeed, how many times have you heard this philosophy proclaimed by politicians of all persuasions? It must by now surely represent one of the most widely accepted truisms. Yet, it is too often forgotten that this ideal was first declared - by Theodore Parker - at an anti-slavery convention in Boston in 1850. Parker went on to 'call it the idea of freedom', and - indeed - the two concepts, of democracy and freedom, have long been so intertwined in the West as to be almost inseparable.
Surprisingly, in view of the hype of past centuries, the United States constitution actually has surprisingly little to say as to the individual's rights in this context; and even the rather more idealistic Declaration of Independence has nothing to say beyond the one, most memorable and so often quoted, sentence seeking the rights of 'Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness'. Indeed, that professed revolutionary document sets the true precedent by very clearly entrenching the power of government over the individual, with the much less memorable words 'Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes'. The individual, even here, in reality comes at the bottom of a long list of priorities. To be fair, this was written two centuries ago; and was a genuinely radical document for its time, as well as being a visionary one - and an immensely influential one. The problem is the absence of any updating by equally visionary politicians in modern times. Poor Bill Clifton even had difficulty in trying to remove the right of individuals to carry assault rifles in public; which may have been important when such arms were needed to guard the eighteenth century rebels against the wroth of George III, but now very obviously leads to mayhem in the inner cities and beyond - without seeming to add greatly to the security of a nation which still holds stocks of thousands of nuclear warheads!.
This model, of government separated from the people - but held in check (albeit only of the grossest excesses) - still remains a basic assumption of Western 'democracy'. The kings and emperors have long since been replaced, but their mantles - of an almost absolute right to govern - have been assumed by the leaders who have followed; not by the mass of the population they would claim to represent. This became particularly clear, to me personally, when I found myself in the middle of a heated debate between the Ethiopian government and the ambassadors of the Western nations. The former - as part of its move from Marxism to Social Democracy - was trying to write a constitution which genuinely enshrined the rights of individuals (very much along the lines of those declared by Theodore Parker). The latter had been instructed to promote their governments' much narrower versions of representative democracy - based on competition between opposing political parties. The ensuing debate was very revealing; in terms of how western governments really saw democracy working.
The democracy so proudly claimed by Western governments is, in fact, just one - quite limited - example of a wide range of options available. Indeed, it is now - in terms of any legitimate claim to represent all of the people - a rather ineffective form. This basic Western model of democracy will, therefore, come under increasing scrutiny - eventually in the Western nations themselves
The fundamental premises behind western democracy are rarely challenged. They are generally accepted, albeit unconsciously as quasi-religious beliefs, and were so accepted by our own groups as much as by other futurologists.
Brian Beedham suggests that "The coming century should see, at last, the full flowering of the idea of democracy", though he also notes the current position that it "...so far has been living, for understandable reasons, in a state of arrested development" but he adds more optimistically "...these reasons no longer apply; and so democracy can set about completing its growth."
The modern version of this ideal vision of democracy has been summarised, in rather more complex, and perhaps somewhat diluted terms, by Brian Beedham as "The basis of democracy is the proposition that every adult person's judgment about the conduct of public affairs is entitled to be given equal weight with every other person's...all men and women have an equal right to say how they wish to be governed." Even so, I suspect that the 'all the people' objective is not just simpler but far more powerful in practice - so let us stay with that Lester Thurrow simply states "Even in America, it is clear, the founding fathers did not intend to give the vote to everyone. Slaves and women were not allowed to vote..."
Brian Beedham, indeed, suggests that "The places that now consider themselves to be democracies are, with a handful of exceptions, run by a process generally known as ‘representative’ democracy. That qualifying adjective should make you sit up and think...This is part-time democracy."
Andrew Adonis - correspondent at the Financial Times - and Geoff Mulgan - director of Demos - are able to state that "...modern government is exclusive and elitist. It generates unreal and largely ignorant expectations on the part of voters, and encourages political elites to trade simplistic, cut-and-dried solutions to problems as the currency of electoral politics. Political alienation and ignorance are systemic."
Alvin Toffler makes the fundamental point - about the new political realities - that "The first, heretical principle of Third Wave government is that of minority power. It holds that majority rule, the key legitimating principle of the Second Wave era, is increasingly obsolete...In place of a highly stratified society in which a few major blocs ally themselves to form a majority, we have a configurative society - one in which thousands of minorities, many of them temporary, swirl and form highly novel, transient patterns..." He adds his own solution to the problem which "...lies in imaginative new arrangements for accommodating and legitimizing diversity - new institutions that are sensitive to the rapidly multiplying minorities...'semi-direct democracy' - a shift from depending on representatives to representing ourselves...if our elected brokers can't make deals for us, we shall have to do it for ourselves."
Geoff Mulgan even suggests that "...election is not the only source of authority. Other bodies may be able to claim authority if they can display integrity and commitment to human values."
Adonis and Mulgan make the point that, for the United Kingdom at least, "...fewer than 100,000 people each decade play a direct part in deciding which of the 7,000 would be MPs - that is the number on the major parties approved lists of candidates - occupy the 651 seats in the House of Commons." This is, despite the proud boasts of the politicians, much less than 'government by all the people'
Judith Squires - lecturer in politics at Bristol University - makes much the same point "It is largely because of the slippery nature of the concept of representation that our MPs can claim to be representative despite the fact that the majority of citizens do not vote for them and that whole sections of 'the people' are not represented in age, class, gender and ethnic terms." She makes the important additional comment, about the changes taking place, that "Our current MPs are deemed to represent both their constituents (a territorially defined group) and their party (and ideological agenda), even as geographical location becomes less central to citizens ideas of who they are."
Stewart Lansley offers one further explanation for this strange docility "Politicians are increasingly functionaries rather than ideologues. The potential winners today are those who offer the most effective management of a market dominated economy...Capitalist mixed economies have no rivals. The only question left in politics is how best to manage them...the general elections in 1992 and 1993 - in Britain, France and Spain - were in essence about the ability to govern, rather than about different social visions."
Brian Beedham says, succinctly summing up the position, that "...democracy is in a state of arrested development."
The Economist reports that "...in elections that the voters [now] judge relatively insignificant - by-elections, local elections, Euro-elections - the likely result is more successes for regional parties, personalities (such as Ross Perot), racists, greens and others outside the mainstream. Where opposition parties look as inadequate as government parties these outsiders may even triumph in general elections."
15 May 2003
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