Human Nature vs. Democracy: A case for ethics and evidence in politics

Dedicated to the future generations of my family,

and all those who strive for social fairness and global peace.

Table of contents

Foreword to the English edition

Foreword to the original edition

Introduction

Chapter I

What is democracy – and is it one?

Democracy in history: philosophy and political facts

Critique from the beginning: Ancient Greece

The Roman Republic

Renaissance of a social concept in modern Europe

Enlightenment

Immanuel Kant and democracy

Enlightenment and Absolutism

17th and 18th century's enlightened politics

The French Revolution and its impact

19th-century philosophy on politics

20th-century democracy: some ideology, philosophy and facts

Democracy: an interim-stage in the history of cultures

Chapter II

Prologue

The nature- based a priori flaws

Xenophobia and territorialization

Aggression and hatred

The source of power - and the dominance trap

Of tribalism, hierarchy and social cohesion

Fraternity - empathy, sympathy, altruism

Equality: All humans are NOT created equal

Freedom

Philosophy versus real life: The ideological flaws of democracy

The a priori ideological flaws of democracy

The paradoxes of tolerance in democratic systems

Flaws in the voting system

The people does not rule itself

Democracy builds upon a virtually pre-existing should-be man

Self-destruction by anonymization of power

Capitalism, the silent dictator

Self-destruction by its own rules and values

The further flaws of liberal democracy

Mediocracy: the dictatorship of mediocrity

The illusion of a common good

The cold war of political parties

Politicians: leadership and responsibility

People: will, tolerance and self-deception

Debt and sales: the late consequences of liberal democracy

The flaw of liberal democratic anti-nationalism

Western democracy and multiculturalism

The media stabs democracy in the back

The flaws in the present philosophies

21st century democracy in recent literature

Democracy only works because it doesn't work

Terminal scenarios?

Post-Democracy

The spiral of polarization

Democracy: the idea and the present true situation

The populism dance

The end of democracy's conflict of classes?

Conclusion

Chapter III

Introduction

Political philosophers and scientists on democracy's future

Curing democracy?

Democracy for the 21st century?

Stop the liberalism– populism dance of mutual demonization

The areas of change

Change of General Social Attitude

The brickwork of social morality

Reciprocity: an honest humanitarianism

Pragmatization: Dealing with The Human Factor

New Equality: Equivalenee and Equal Rights

New Freedom: Curing democracy

New fraternity: democratic social behavior

Trust must win over mistrust

The making of social attitude -based on evidence

Intrduction into society: socialization and education

The end of revenge in criminal law

The end of abuse of power

The end of ruthless capitalism: Control of economy

Separated in peace

Change in political strategy, practice and structure

New social structure and and political decision-making

Amended constitution

Consensus: the antithesis to dictatorship of the majority

Problem-based non-partisan politics replace ideology

Evidence-based politics: dissolution of power

Franchise and citizenship

Professionalization of politics

The structure and functions of departments

In steps towards peaceful futureland

Democracy's global challenge

Cultural sovereignty

The fusion of cultures

Democracy, Europe and the world

The EU-model for the world

A Global Army

Epilogue

Abbreviations & special terms

Notes

Notes to the introduction

Notes to chapter I

Notes Chapter II

Notes chapter III

List of authors

Subject Index

References

Remarks on the text

State will be written with a capital S in the text, if the political entity is meant, to distinguish it from e.g. a state of mind.

Quotations marked with a star * are translated by the author

Superscripted Arabic numbers, e.g. author ³⁵ refer to quotations in the list of references (a detailed list of > 1000 references including individual page numbers is available from the author via [email protected])

Superscripted and underlined Arabic numbers, e.g. example ³⁶ refer to footnotes in the footer

Superscripted numbers with a prefixed N , e.g. democracy N23 refer to text in the Notes section at the end of the book

I apologize for certain inconsistencies in the text, which will unavoidably appear here and there: they are a consequence of the fact that one is not a static entity from start to finish, but changing, in a process of development whilst writing. As a consequence, older shades of opinion hide in corners of the text, unrecognized, after newer ideas have been added in other places. Some of the notes contain repetitions; I left them in place on purpose, assuming that not every reader would read every note.

Foreword to the English edition

and acknowledgements

The current politics of our era are no longer a topic for books. Events, addressed as typical examples of the dangerous situation we are in, chase each other through social media at a speed which outpaces our memory – I could, nevertheless, not resist adding some of the latest events to the original text.

The English text of this book has a history a well-educated British person would probably characterize as being interesting". The reason is that I first wrote it in the English language. After I had started to translate it into German myself, I not only started to make increasing changes to the content of the original – still unpublished - English text whilst translating, but I also noticed a mounting awareness of the difference between the nuances of expression I had available to me in my native language, as compared to the English language. This showed me the poverty of my routine repertoire in English, in terms of publishing in a much more general field of knowledge, as compared to the scientific writing I undertook in my original profession, with its much more limited vocabulary.

Above all, therefore, I am deeply endebted to Susanna Wing, who translated my English text into proper wording for native speakers, treating my hubris with unceasing patience.

I am also grateful to members of the Philosophical Society, associated with Oxford University¹, for their contributions and feedback during our discussions concerning the philosophical aspects and their practical implications of this political topic.

Ludwig M. Auer, Radcliffe on Trent, in spring 2019

¹ Department for Continuing Education.

Foreword to the original edition

"Democrats who do not see the difference between

a friendly and a hostile criticism of democracy are

themselves imbued with the totalitarian spirit"¹

Karl Popper

In an increasing number of countries worldwide, many people see democracy as the only acceptable political system, for a modern society. The Western world consisting of liberal democratic countries proclaims its values as a universal system, overriding all other civilizations and cultures (I explain in N1 how I attempt to differentiate between the two expressions across the cultural areas which use them differently).

The media vehemently praises and defends liberal democracy as the core of our common good. In doing so, it often attacks the people of its own countries by demonizing the right-wing parties, voted for in a democratic process: some 20% of voters in the Netherlands (PVV), 34% in France (FN), 26% in Austria (FPOE), 12.6% in the UK (UKIP) and Germany (AfD). Liberal politicians across the Western sphere ignore their peoples' anxieties and turn for their part to populistic demonization, creating a new wave of anti-populism populism, instead of taking this development as urgent advice to renovate democracy. Even those voters believed to be complacent and disinterested start waking up, irritated and confused; a political era described as democracy of not wanting to know ² seems to have come to an end rapidly.

Many politically interested and active individuals and groups are increasingly frustrated with their politicians' inactivity. Some wish to progress to true democracy, others to its future, whilst others want to Occupy it and make it real, in the same way that Norwegian and British groups stand up for real democracy or plan to derail neo-liberalism and fight against corporatocracy.N2 Thus, democrats start fighting their own political system and dividing their countries. What has gone wrong?

In this book, I will argue that democracy was destined to go wrong in the first place due to many inherent flaws and defects in its political construct. My criticism is not new: democracy has been demonized and mocked ever since its existence and first description in history, starting with Socrates, who ridiculed not democracy per se, but its democratic leaders. Similarly, Plato did not have a high opinion of democratic politicians: He wanted democracy altogether replaced by a wise king as a leader.³⁸⁰

Since its very early days, the idea of the people ruling themselves' was a contradiction in itself because it ignored the conflict taking place between individuals and social classes in the real world. Modern democracy was initially characterised by republics that did not want to be democracies, as seen in the early days of the United States of America, the revolutions and slaughter which took place in France, the murder of old and new leaders, and regression into old regimes or dictatorships, as seen in other European countries.

In our era, after a seemingly stable episode in the post-WW II Western countries, there is increasing unrest and uncertainty about democracy, as reflected by critical publications on a political system in need of repair, or altogether obsolete: Among political scientists, A.C. Grayling, in his Democracy and its Crisis, writes that in two of its leading examples in today's world, the United States and the United Kingdom, representative democracy has been made to fail. Notice these words: made to fail ... by a combination of causes, all of them deliberate";¹¹ and Jason Brennan calls democracy a flawed tool,³ and according to . Mounk ⁴ Donald Trump's election is the most significant manifestation of democracy's crisis. Several more recent authors put their abgesang into the title of their books – I listed them on p. →.

However, none of the recent authors commented in detail on the most important far-reaching (not a commonly used phrase in English, could be replaced with far-reaching cause of the dilemma: the increasing discrepancies between political and philosophical ideology on the one side, and human nature on the other, – both the individual as such, and its behavior in tribes and crowds. Knowledge about the human factor' has been extensively investigated during the past 120 years by biologists, human ethologists, psychologists and sociologists, but the most fundamental facts have been widely ignored in politics - except for the purpose of exploitation. Therefore, I have made them one of the main topics in this book. Besides, evolutionary factors of individual behavior, tribalism and crowd phenomena are of the same interest as the political activity which uses them: populism is one intriguing example.

I will show that present democracy is virtually built on contradicting rules and institutions – I call them a priori flaws -, as well as being built on paradoxes, both of which, if not changed, guarantee its early decay and disappearance into chaos. The most dangerous development is, however, the desperate neo-liberalists' increasingly populist aggression against their secessionist co-citizens, creating an anti-populist populism, instead of seeking common interests.

I did not spend 10 years writing this book, like John Keane,⁵ and certainly not the 35 years reported from Nahum Capen,⁶ however, I did spend a lifetime on human nature, its physiology, pathology and psychology, and I researched these political issues and their history for about 3 years.

A deeper look into the fundamental ideas, hypotheses and ideologies about democracy revealed an alarmingly large number of further flaws it is riddled with. Since they help to explain the present dissatisfaction with the malfunctions of the political systems in the Western world of liberal democracies, I made these many flaws the second focus of the discussion about the present situation. I considered their analysis essential for the preparation of the third chapter, which includes a discussion of the various proposals for improvement of the present political situation, resulting from the comparison of knowledge of science and philosophy. I hope to have made this final part the most interesting and challenging one of the book.

My major motivation for this work has been a feeling of getting dragged towards the maelstrom of a vortex, which appears to be seizing the ongoingly polarized and divided countries that dominate the daily news. Initially, it motivated me to address the responsibilities we have to our descendants. The pace of events, however, has started to accelerate at a rate which makes the written words reality as I write them and forces me to make amendments and additions, while being dragged into that increasingly dark area. The politics of the last weeks and months, which have appeared hectic and hysterical in some regions – whilst alarmingly silent in others – show that:

It's time to act now

Considering the behavior and reactions of the protagonists, those involved in politics and the media, I have to ask myself, in view of this book: who I am addressing when criticizing those politicians and their parties and strategies whilst at the same time talking about the urgent need for a change in politics? If we want to achieve a peaceful change, decided but patient, then reassessment is required by all of us, dear reader, and I really mean ALL of us, in order to reverse the politicians' attempt to square the circle. It is a call to come to our senses regarding our true situation and its causes, a call on all citizens and officials of all countries whose democratic system is in danger of breaking apart. The call is about a change in views with respect to one decisive circumstance: a democratic State can only exist according to the extent of which its citizens actively contribute to its livelihood. The time has come where it is more important to think of the survival of the community than of one's own advancement, and to consider the others' interests on the same level as one's own. Today's liberal democracies are on the verge of collapsing, undermined and hollowed out from the inside, because too many of us have taken too much for ourselves and contributed too little. Only a change in our basic attitudes will be able to restabilize the political and social imbalance, which is about to spiral out of control.

Equal rights for All is a grossly simplified circumscription of what needs to happen now, in a time where equal rights means equal duties. Nothing in the world concerning orderly social life happens by itself, effectively, everything has to be done: the most important action necessary to rectify the current situation would be to show consideration for the others in one's State, and to consider that all have interests, not only one's own clan or company, and that this clash of interests, instead of fair agreements, is about to bring both the State and the environment to a collapse. History teaches us, that we make a big mistake when continuing on a 'business-as-usual' basis, which we use to reassure ourselves that our daily life is more or less normal anyway. Most of the major changes in social systems have happened explosively until now, to everybody's surprise – and we all know, that our understanding of it will come too late once the explosion starts.

Self-evidently this call also addresses professionals in politics and media, who are themselves citizens, as we all are. For them, it can only mean to forego partisan and personal interests and to truly focus on the common good as their primary duty. Moreover, the call reminds them to stop their mutual demonizations and to collaborate on common interests and impending threats. This part of my appeal equally applies to the media: polarization is often further increased, and the situation becomes further heated through excessive partisan and repeated reporting of single events which stir up competing groups against each other instead of encouraging people towards considerateness in the interest of the common good.

Whoever believes that my own words contrasts this call is invited to relay the words of François de la Rochefoucauld quoted in the introduction on the next page to him- or herself and to forgive me.

Whatever applies for one's own State is also true for the globalized world as a whole in the same way that an attempt to satisfy only our own interests within our own State and to exploit all possibilities in reach can lead to failure. We will not be able to live in peace in the future if we do not treat people in other, weaker States, in the same way as we need to treat each other internally, in order to keep living in a friendly atmosphere. To arrive at such global stability, we will have to reduce our private consumption. Moreover, we will have to contribute to the development of the living standards of people in countries with catastrophic conditions, which motivate them to migrate towards our wealthy Western countries. Unfortunately, however, the history of exploitation and contempt of many of these countries – most of them former colonies of today's Western democratic world – has led to a situation which requires a great effort to regain trust by the West. Only after the Western countries have become trustworthy again, in terms of behavior within and between them, will a dignified life for all the peoples of the world become possible.

The length of my text confirms an endowment repeatedly criticized by reviewers of my publications, namely that I am not a master of short and clear messages, rather one of hiding core messages well in the text. In this case, I hold the notes responsible for the total length, although some messages are indeed hidden there – by doing so, on the one hand, I find myself in the good company of Machiavelli; on the other hand, however, some of the notes are indeed a hideout for cherished wording. Above all, however, I excuse myself with the complexity of the topic, and I hope for the forgiveness and the patience of the reader.

Radcliffe on Trent, Autumn 2018

Introduction

...the best approach for the reader to take would be to put in his mind right from the start that none of these maxims apply to himself in particular, and that he is the sole exception, even though they appear to be generalities. After that I guarantee that he will be the first to endorse them and he will believe that they do credit to the human spirit.

François de la Rochefoucauld ⁷

Democracy is about you, and me, it is about all of us on earth; for most in the Western world a matter of course, self-evidently – or not? No longer? Too self-evidently maybe?

Democracy, the idea, the ideology of self- rule by us, the people, the all, or at least the many – on a deeper look, democracy unveils itself as a political endeavour on the mysterious grounds of togetherness in crowds, conflict of tribes and classes, of social phenomena which seem independent of political systems by synchronizing individuals' dreams of freedom. These peculiarities of the humankind in crowds were impressively described by a 19th-century traveller between the worlds, a man who studied people in Europe, Africa and Asia: Familiar with human biology as a medical doctor, he absorbed the very initial scientific knowledge about evolution, anthropology, psychology and sociology, only to merge it into his own interpretation of the behavior of humans in crowds - while academia widely ignored him, the implications of his views influenced politicians who would set the stage for history in the first half of the 20th century, like Lenin, Hitler and Mussolini, but also Roosevelt: The late Gustave LeBon saw men like Henri Bergson and Sigmund Freud refer to his work, the same as Emile Durkheim, one of the founders of sociology²: Gustave LeBon, who described in his 1895 work on the Psychologie des foules (Psychology of the Masses)³ the effect of the image, which a word provokes in our minds, a specific meaning in the public opinion of a specific era. One of these words today is certainly democracy; pronounced in a demanding tone in the politically correct environment, though already with a slightly fearful vibration in the voice. To speak critically about democracy today is therefore still not far from antisocial, suspect, probably very far right, if not extremist. Criticism about democracy is not what the majority in the Western world wants to hear today, Western universalists keep teaching the rest of the world and don't listen to the others - something to worry about in my opinion: but who is right and who is wrong? First of all, intolerance against criticism contradicts one major creed of democracy. This is why I consider today's democracy to be in danger, certainly neither a safe-haven nor even uniformly understood globally in its meaning, not even in Europe, as again LeBon points out by his remark: Democracy for the latin people means to erase will and drive of the individual, with the State being increasingly laden with tasks ... For the anglosaxons, especially the americans, democracy means the contrary, namely development of will and personality, stepping back of the State, that is not allowed to lead anything except police, military, diplomatic activity.*⁸, N3 Thus, it seems, democracy is also an expression of a people's character and temperament. But does liberal democracy in itself create a better man, a better society, a better life; or does it lead peoples into decadence and decay via liberalism, libertinism, hedonism? If the former is true, as believed by some political theorists, why do we have to deal with so many flaws we increasingly start to list and to discuss? In this book, I will show by a number of examples, that democracy is a contradiction in itself in many ways and starts dividing countries - as demonstrated in our days by ongoing events in Spain, Czechia, Poland, Turkey, and the US and Britain, as well as in all other Western European countries, Germany, France, Italy, Holland, Austria ...

The resulting question is: are today's institutions of democracy good enough to master today's challenges? When assessing the reliability and sustainability N4 of democracy, many forget to consider, that this system is only a few decades old in the true sense of our today's understanding. Nevertheless, political parties in the West already develop an increasing dividedness on the one side, but also a poorly defined uncertainty about the present political construct on the other side. In contrast, ever more countries worldwide are said to be attracted by democracy – are the ones becoming tired of their freedom, complacent and disinterested, while the others strive for this dream of freedom?

What exactly are people expecting from democracy?

Democratic systems pride themselves of separation of power, unaware even of their unawareness of the real value, or at least not courageous enough to concede its actual goal at the outset: there is no reason to be proud of the fact, that humans tend to exploit each other so badly, that preventive measures like separation of power seem mandatory; but there is also no need to be ashamed of our behavioral heritage from evolution, for qualities we are not responsible for in the first place. Is separation of power sufficient and effectively working?

Political ideologies are mainly aimed at demonizing some human qualities for the sake of producing an idealized man, hammered to size by the introduction of rules. But did they create a better man, or better life? No ideology, not even democracy – and I will show how above all not democracy –improved human living conditions, not today and also not in ancient Greece; today's welfare is based on achievements of science and technology, not politics – except for the fact that federal debt, the source of artificial welfare, is a result of politics. Thus, democracy is dependent on a state of welfare it did and does not create itself. While absolutist regimes offer safety for the obedient, democracy is in danger of causing chaos, counteracted only by archaic social order for the period of democracy's survival.N5

Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) are one of the characteristic entities of democratic systems and their chaotic missionary activity: started in goodwill, NGOs act within a system declared to be introduced by the people for the people. et if such a system were successful, wherefore did it need other, supplementary and sometimes competing systems, which at times even work against each other – and against democracy, though praised as subsidiarity? We all know it is politically correct to commend and to laud charity work, and not to criticize it – but the critique here is not directed against NGOs but against democracy that admits the necessity for additional activity to compensate for the insufficiencies of the rule by the people for the people. Politicians of democratic countries like Britain proudly and loudly declare that nobody will be left behind, only to keep leaving behind 5-10% of their population in a state of absolute poverty and misery and another 10% in relative poverty and misery.⁹, ¹⁰

An unsettling breeze makes people shiver in their hazy jar of welfare. They start crowding and sheltering around appeals – echoed from their dreams, daydreams, mental states. Is it awakening, or are they flocking together in a sense of doom?

As a child of immediate post-war Europe, brought up in Austrian, French and English education,N6 I took little notice of a phenomenon called democracy, or the United Nations; they appeared as the self-evident basis of daily life, an ever existing stage for the exciting political events enacted by single outstanding personalities such as the Shah of Persia, the Queen of the British Empire, solemnly and elegantly pacing and speaking President de Gaulle, blustering Nikita Khrushchev and inspiring John F. Kennedy. War was always taking place somewhere, but in dreamlands far away. The resurgence of Europe was only briefly interrupted by youth protests culminating in 1968 – some say that our juvenile enthusiasm for social justice was probably reinforced by the undercover activity from the Soviet communists, starting in the 1950s. The Cold War, involving nuclear threats and first ecological concerns, remained in the background in terms of attention, in the daily lives of people within rapidly progressing technocracy. Criticism was limited to the behavior and activities of the political middle class, never of the heroes. The political system itself, however, democracy, never came into question; hardly ever mentioned, it seemed so self-evident and obviously irreplaceable, that people seemed to not even think of its existence.

This situation has changed over the past few years.

Change has been at the center of many speeches in recent election campaigns, in the US, the UK, and countries on the European continent. Politicians of some center parties became aware of peoples' discontent, worries, uncertainty and unrest, which had started spreading - and feeding the populist parties. Two factors seem to be responsible for this: erosion, undermining, and excavation from inside, as well as a feeling of becoming invaded from outside.

This development becomes intermingled with a, for the most part subconscious, feeling of absurdity, that makes people lose orientation as they see themselves involved in a confrontation of variations of populism: patriotism versus nationalism, democracy, the rule of the people, thus a kind of populism in itself: a politically correct populistic language stimulates aversion against what is officially to be called populism (the one that the center and left-wing parties demonize their right-wing competitors with). Spreading confusion initiates questions. How to save us, the people, from self-damaging erroneous beliefs? How to manage the introduction of evidence-based decision-making free of party-politicking? How to protect us at the same time from exploitation by those who provide this evidence, but abuse the power resulting from their knowledge?

The basic questions have all been asked, and answers have filled libraries and mass graves for millions. And yet, every era, every generation, every culture needs their own orientation. I want to take up the challenge which Austrian-British philosopher Sir Karl Popper, set almost 80 years ago:

Great men may make great mistakes... some of the greatest leaders of the past supported the perennial attack on freedom and reason. Their influence... continues to mislead those on whose defence civilization depends, and to divide them. The responsibility for this tragic and possibly fatal division becomes ours if we hesitate to be outspoken in our criticism of what admittedly is a part of our intellectual heritage. By our reluctance to criticize some of it, we may help to destroy it all.¹

Whoever these great men are or were, and whatever they said or say, whether in politics, in philosophy or in science, our orientation is our own responsibility. Critical reasoning, in fairness, reveals those errors and makes us seek the next reasonable step, again shown in the words of Popper's proposal of "... the principles of democratic social reconstruction, the principles of what I may term a piecemeal social engineering in opposition to Utopian social engineering.¹

And it is again in line with Popper's decision that I decided to yet again start at the beginning of our written cultural history, to unrig the myth of democracy, to point at its ugly side, and the risk of its short-lived nature and its susceptibility to self-destruction. In contrast to 1939, when Popper started to write his book The Open Society and its Enemies, sitting in New Zealand, far away from the events of WW II, today's danger is not – yet – the autocrats (and I mean the Western democracies, not the entire world, but the combination of exploitation of the common good by uncontrolled capitalism, social neglect and decay in individualism and isolationism, a combination of entities which destroys societies from inside and invites autocracy.

One of the questions will be whether in order for modern representative democracy to survive, one will need "to understand the logic of it",¹¹ or to integrate the phylogenetic patterns of behavior of the people, as I hypothesize because the ideology itself which democracy is built on with all its inherent contradictions, is not fit for purpose. Numerous philosophers are of the same opinion as I will outline in due course.N7

Perhaps democracy is indeed condemned to fail as long as its followers believe that one needs to understand the logic of it, instead of trying to understand us humans as individuals and crowds, and adopt a political system according to the biological and psychological facts. Will of the people is one of the expressions in this context which immediately catches fire in the heat of a debate elicited by these questions: does, can a people have a will? If a will is defined as some kind of a conscious phenomenon, then it should have to be bound to a system capable of producing this phenomenon. The only such system we know in the world is a human brain – but where is the brain of a crowd of people? – We will have to accept, that the people, people, a crowd or a mass of individuals does not have a brain, or something such as a hyper-, meta- or super-brain which would be capable of developing will. Thus, what we are doing here is silently anticipating a function that does not exist. We introduce an error into our debate that propagates any resulting strategies or plans, and predetermines failure, – or do we intend to say that politics should be purely a matter of emotions?

Before any system can be improved, be it economically, scientifically or politically, its weaknesses and flaws need to be identified: both, discouraging criticism and a number of attempts by idealists as well as by realists to accompany the concept of democracy through the history of the past 2500 years. In 70 years of modern Western liberal democracy with general suffrage, the social structure has not changed in the way one might theoretically expect, when considering democracy's promises. Society seems widely unchanged from three basic perspectives: 1- The only difference to most previous monarchies is that the few rich, then considered the aristocrats, - compared to the majority of the rest of the population - are now moneyed aristocrats. 2- In any deliberating group of democrats, opinions are often not made on the basis of rational arguments, but rather follow the archaic social structure divided into hierarchies of leaders and followers. 3- Humans keep exploiting what's useful, irrespective of the threatening consequences. Surrounded by warning signals, we complacently rely on a vague feeling, which emanates from the misleadingly comforting belief in having democracy. Increasing social divide and mass migration in a globalizing world accelerate destabilization. I will attempt to throw some more light on this issue in chapter II.

There appears to be a way out of this dilemma between a top-down political ideology, requiring the pre-existence of a should-be man and the actual human factor which I will explore in chapter III.

As made clear by its introductory quotation, this book is not meant as a plea against democracy – on the contrary: it is meant as a warning not to purposely misinterpret liberty as the individual freedom to proceed into libertinism without social responsibility. I do not consider any other previous, or present, political system better than modern democracy, but I do see today's Western social world in danger of destroying itself instead of using its inherited capabilities for amendment. Therefore, this book is meant as a plea for better democracy, as a warning to make it finally work properly, before it gets lost for generations to come.

The social process over the past half century, which has evolved at the background of the political process, has been observed and commented on by political scientists and sociologists who have an interest in humanities; they used with all kinds of -isms to describe it, in order to categorize the shades of postmodernism - the German politologist Ulrich Menzel penned a brilliant summary of these studies in 1998, entitled Globalization vs. Fragmentation.²² In his summary, the two phenomena, globalization and fragmentation, necessarily had to appear quasi opposed to each other, the reason being that this contemporary cultural evolution could not be simultaneously examined from a biological – or more precisely from a human ethology – perspective. It is only from the latter, however, that the necessary synchronicity of the two events becomes readily apparent, caused by the ambivalence of xenophobia which pushes in the direction of both: towards curious and eager exchange with neighbours on the one hand, whilst repulsing any threatening proximity, and defending one's own territory, and property within it, on the other. With my contribution, I propose a solution for a possible peaceful future of humankind: it combines an appreciation of our evolutionary creatureliness, with the recognition of the imperative requirement to develop intelligent methods for the socialization of this creatureliness, in the spirit of reciprocal altruism – the only escape route which evolution caused us to recognize, in order to escape from the trap it had itself run into: after all, the strategy of the genes of animal creatures is to survive at the cost of the others. An intelligent reaction to this recognition would be to develop a democracy of democracies, on the basis of reciprocal altruism, the narrative of which is what this book is about.

If you already know all about democracy's history or consider it irrelevant from today's perspective, and if you do not want to listen to yet another interpretation of today's situation, you are welcome to proceed to the third chapter right away, to see, what is really behind this approach of mine that makes it worth producing a new book, and what the new proposal for future steps and actions is supposed to be about. I tried to summarize and discuss other recent opinions and to compare them with my own view: it definitely moves quite a way beyond today's understanding of democracy, with respect to voting and decision-making. The question will also be posed as to whether future generations will still want an amended system to be called democracy in the end, because they may well end up despising and ridiculing our present behavior.

² besides Max Weber, Karl Marx and Karl Mannheim.

³ His first book on the topic, L'homme et les sociétés (man and societies), was published in 1881.

Chapter I

Questioning definitions

Answers from history

What is democracy – and is it one?

If we take the term in the strict sense, there never has been a real democracy, and there never will be.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau ¹²

Before I go along the well-beaten track of history with you, I will let you see some more of the jumble of questions that exist at the beginning, and appear recurringly throughout my own thoughts, as well as the convictions, opinions and doubts of others, hoping that this will stimulate your doubts, shake up your convictions, and open your mind to change.

In my critique of its existing flaws, I do not intend - in accordance with Popper's quotation in my foreword - hostile criticism of democratic politicians, nor of democracy. Instead, my aim is to try and build on the good will of those who truly work on the realization of democracy's idea, and its potential. The question, however, of what democracy actually is, and what it is that distinguishes it from other forms of government, has remained a matter of considerable debate over the centuries. This being said, I have already defined it as a form of government. Nevertheless, it remains largely unclear, what the term government is supposed to mean in the case of democracy. After all, the people, the sovereign, the ruler, that is the one originally assumed to govern, does not govern in its modern version, but delegates this function to a group of people, and lets itself be governed in today's representative democracy. Others do, however – interestingly enough -, not see it as a political issue, but believe that democracy recently became more of a way of life.¹³

From its development in history, we see that modern democracy did not start as the consequence of a rational decision of a people to suddenly rule itself from that point forward; but rather, it erupted as a chaotic and brutal outbreak in unrest, overturning and civil war.N8

There is, of course, an easy definition, seemingly clear and straight- forward, with preconditions to be met if a country wants to be called a democracy: rule by the people, separation of powers, free elections, free press, freedom of speech, liberalism, and a constitution including human rights. In real life, things are much more complicated: today's Western democracies are by no means equal: two thirds of Western European democracies are constitutional monarchies; the majority fulfills only a part of the above conditions. This raises the question:

Where on earth is there democracy?

„In the last decade, democracy became virtually the only political model with global appeal, no matter what the culture."¹⁴

Can we really trust this statement by political scientist Costa Georghiou? While the author of this sentence keeps listing countries and percentages,N9 he himself finally concludes, that "... paying lip service to democracy does not necessarily prove that people genuinely support basic democratic norms ...".¹⁴ Global studies confirm that over 90% of people prefer and appreciate democracy, whilst at the same time calling for strong leaders ¹⁵ – the contradictory nature of opinions from the people could not be greater. And beyond lip service, the situation looks very different indeed: according to EIU (Economist Intelligence Unit),¹⁶ a mere 4.5 % of the world population live in full democracies, with Canada, Australia, and the Scandinavian countries ranking highest, and Germany, Britain, Spain, Austria and Paraguay being listed as full democracies, however, with some deficiencies, thus second class democracies. Countries like the US, India, France, Portugal, Italy, Chile, Greece, Japan and South Africa are ranked as flawed democracies, amounting to 45% of all countries globally; 18% of the world population live in hybrid regimes, and the remaining third in authoritarian regimes. Thus, 3.3 billion people live in autocratic States. According to the EIU's latest analysis, Democracy is in decline in countries all over the world, and the EIU points to Free speech under attack.¹⁷ Topping the EIU's report on the quality of US-democracy, and above all regarding the issue of Gerrymandering, several authors even say that for this reason, the US can no longer be considered a democracy: "... a third reason [besides Gerrymandering (p. →) and the unrepresentative nature of the Senate] is that a Supreme Court ruling allows billionaires to give unlimited amounts of money to campaigns at all levels: political office is bought and sold like pairs of socks".¹¹ (see also note N152).

Republic vs. democracy – what is what?

Ironically, Rousseau, in line with Machiavelli and the fathers of the US, when talking about republic, actually described essential aspects of democracy. The difference between the two is based much more on the historical connection than anything else: democracy with Greece vs. republic with Rome, between its kingdom and empire. Modern democracies started as republics, which became democratic in stages, thus becoming democratic republics. They started more as an idea of a revival of the republic in Ancient Rome, i.e. of a non-monarchic government without hereditary leaders, along with some form of involvement of the people, as described by Nicolò Machiavelli in Florence, John Milton in England, and Montesquieu as well as Rousseau in France, then taken up again by the founders of the United States of America. In 1792, the English political philosopher Thomas Paine, who had emigrated to America, defined democracy as government by the people, of the people, and for the people.

So what does it mean today to be democratic?

It does not get easier: rationalising arguments may turn viewpoints into volatile stuff: one of which has been that two disputing parties claim to be democratic and blame the other of being populist and undemocratic (Spain, Austria, Britain, US ...); a more recent example is illustrated by British negotiator David Davies' words a democracy is no longer a democracy, if it is not allowed to change its opinion, reaffirmed by Donald Tusk saying, that he agreed with these words, that Britain was welcome to change its opinion once again, and stop Brexit, showing that the hearts of the Europeans were still open for Britain.

Another example: the boundaries between free speech and political persecution for sedition are becoming increasingly blurred: Here, democracy starts showing its true, most ugly face, a grimace that the eternal minorities know from their daily lives. It is the true face because of its a priori contradictory aspect, where democratic liberalism fights its own paradigm and demonstrates its impracticability: for the majority states to be the only legitimized democrats, declares the others populist and tries to deny their right to free speech.

The American Democratic Party defines itself according to social liberalism, explained as an ideology that seeks a balance between individual liberty, social justice and the common good. Like classical liberalism, social liberalism supports a market economy and expansion of civil rights to all citizens.¹⁸ The development during the past 50 years, and above all the recent political events raise important questions, as the balance has evolved into a divide, a deep trench between two separated halves of the population – the same is happening in several other countries.

How many democracies live together in one democracy?

Democracy as a political system surely must be flawed, if its values, summarized in the constitution, are not a sufficient basis for a peaceful life together in a social system, which at the same time is divided in a class conflict, divided into a multiplicity of interest groups which are represented by political parties with different values. Thus, the people, supposed to be one in democracy, are in reality divided within a multipolar group conflict, each party considering itself democratic and populistically demonizing the others as undemocratic or populist – an attempt to square the circle. And there are many more flaws to discuss: the right for self-determination clashes with the voting system and its domination or even dictatorship of the majority. Individualism, rule of the majority, freedom of religion, tolerance, capitalism, and common good, are all values which are partly in conflict with, or contradictory to, each other, as far as they are not altogether caught in the paradoxical situation of claiming to be democratic and blaming others for not being so.

We as individuals - and democracy

What then is the political power of the individual in democracy? For the vast majority of us, it is basically – and more or less exclusively - about voting. The new power resulting from expression of opinion or of will in social media is as yet widely undefined.N10 Political scientist Jason Brennan, in his book Against Democracy, says that Democracy empowers collectives, not individuals, states that voting rights have only symbolic value, and that They generally fail to show that democratic rights have any real value to us,³ and finally: Democracy isn't meant to empower individuals; it's intended to disempower all the individuals in favor of large groups or collections of individuals. Democracy empowers us, not me.³ Yet, make no mistake: we as individuals do have importance, more in democracy than in any other socio-political system, just not primarily as voters, but as individual conscious minds with our individual gifts – and everyone of us has special abilities to contribute to society. Proposals to make this change from passive voter to conscious citizen come true will be one of my major points in chapter III.

Is representative democracy never real democracy?

If collectives, tribes, gangs and parties hold the power, then democracy is nothing but a hidden variation of oligarchy, governmental power discretely hijacked by power-groups and their natural leaders. Indeed, what takes place is that natural talents in leadership convince their party members to elect them as their leaders, in order to be able to convince the general population during general elections to elect them as leaders. Thereafter, these leaders rule the country, widely in accordance with the constitution, yes, but using all the spaces left between those rules, effectively acting like sovereigns, never really held accountable for their actions, even when asked whether they acted in the interest of the common good.N11 However, any political system exists – and cannot exist in any other way than – in a balance between the people and its government. Accordingly, it is the type of education of the individual, and the resulting socio-culture, which makes a political system, with charismatic leaders doing nothing more than mirror its momentary emotional state. This kind of reality is convincingly described by LeBon's 19th-century observation of people from colonial States, as well as from the colonies: "Crowds never want truth. .... They prefer to adore the error, if it manages to seduce them. Whoever understands how to deceive them, becomes easily their master, whereas those who attempt to illuminate them, will become their victims."*⁸ This is a description of a mad crowd in a state of trance, commanding their leaders to entertain them, however, not noticing when they are misled and betrayed, or when they mislead themselves, a crowd unsound of mind, let loose into democracy, an open field where predators can easily hunt. It is this mankind in its childhood and early youth, unable to deal with power, both exploitative and abusive. The challenge is to find out, what can be done. The question is not, who has the power, but, how is power wielded, says Karl Popper.¹

We can of course argue, that we do not care about all those artificial constructs of the always unsatisfied grumblers, and say: look around, and accept that we are living in unprecedented welfare and safety! Why should we worry about concerns such as democracy causing political anarchy, meaningless voting systems, mediocracy, who is ruling, the people or oligarchs from political parties, powerless politics causing social divide in uncontrolled capitalism... a process that can only have a good end if human beings "... overcome their suicidal aggressive cupidity".* ¹⁹, N12 Besides the fact that this only means turning a blind eye to a biological fact, the question is not why bother, as long as we are better off than the others, but the point is: how long will such a system survive, in view of all the warning signs around?

The welfare-democracy?

The distribution of wealth per se cannot be an argument for democracy today, because there are at least as many billionaires and multi-millionaires today as there used to be aristocrats in the earlier centuries. In history, the trend of the rising social divide did not change in any way, other than due to war; it did also not change in modern democracies, as we will see later.

Today's welfare for many in the Western world – and I say many, not all, because in Europe alone there are some 50 to 100 million people living in poverty – is a welfare that is not due to democracy, but due to science and technology – and exploitation – and constitutional debt, which means living on tick This level of madness can only be topped by the other secret, known and ignored by the majority: the system only works as long as there is economic growth; this means, we have to believe that there will be eternal growth in oder to believe that democracy is a stable political system.

Democracy: the irrational State?

Objectivity and truth have never played a role in politics, except when its goal has been to satisfy the wishes of ruling individuals. Therefore, it is not helpful to believe that objectivity and truth no longer play a role.²⁰ LeBon's advice regarding peoples' character, i.e. emotional state, being the actual ruler of the country seems to have remained largely unheard. The question now, is whether modern democracy was able to make a difference – the answer by and large is: no.

Modern democracy was expected to become a child of the Enlightenment and of rationality. Seen from the perspective of a benefit for society, the common good, however, the results of democratic elections, are based entirely on irrationality, due to several factors: one is the uninformed individual voter, another is external influence (e.g. weather on election day) or manipulation, and a third is the end result, often random, unexpected and in itself causing another unexpected consequence: a government nobody wanted (e.g. coalition). Due to liberalism as a driving force, present democratic systems build societies based on exaggerated individualism* and a culture of hedonism "dressed up as self-realization".* ²¹ Political scientist Ulrich Menzel indirectly describes this contradiction, by saying that „rational cartesian logic"*²² failed, probably for the same reason as any other ideology transferred into social politics, because social phenomena are, by their nature, irrational; consequently, any social system is destined to fail unless the causes of irrationality are considered and dealt with. This deplorable irrationality has been described from philosophical and scientific standpoints: Brennan describes what he calls Burkinian conservativism,³ when he writes: Society and civilization are fragile. Society is held together not by reason but rather by irrational beliefs and superstitions, including irrational beliefs in authority and patriotism ... Society is ... more complex than our simple theories can handle – and our attempts to fix things frequently have deleterious unintended consequences. And he goes on to argue, that These findings are frightening. People can be made to deny simple evidence right in front of their faces ...just because of peer pressure. The effect should be even stronger when it comes to forming political beliefs.³

B. Caplan calls it: Rational irrationality.²³ N13 Unfortunately, the argument to be rationally irrational, or irrationally rational does not help, as the same extent of madness can be seen in all political systems, and therefore it is not a peculiarity of democracy. The point here is, that present liberal democracy does not seem to make a difference, or even worse, to find a way around life-threatening slopes towards self-destruction. The prime example is undoubtedly the manifold nuclear overkill introduced by democratic nations (see also p. →). But another hell has started rapidly catching up since the end of the Cold War: the ecological crisis safely managed by ecolocracy's strategies (see p. →) to the bitter end, if change does not become effective in the last minute.

Democracy and the United Nations: one a model for the other?

The ultimate achievement of the idea of democracy seems to be the United Nations, UN: however, the UN represents all the flaws of present democracy: it has members that definitely disregard major articles of the UN, human rights - e.g. China and Russia. The UN is also the platform for the clash between Western universalism and the rest of the world. Thus, comparing the articles of the UN with what China is doing regarding the internet control measures placed on individuals, shows the UN as being a toothless tiger. The power of veto by permanent UN council member States renders it absurd, so the Security Council is ineffective – in contrast to institutions like the UNHCR. The US, China, and Russia, define the range of actions of the UN, which, however, remains, the only hope for those left behind in individual countries. The UN has no power to pursue whoever acts against its articles. Major players such as the US refuse to sign up to the International Court of Justice.²⁴

Which democracy?

This question is almost identical to, and as complicated as, the previous one what is democracy?: as we will see in a short survey of its history, democracy did not develop anywhere overnight, but on a complicated path strewn with setbacks over decades and centuries, depending on the country's existing system and – strangely enough for a government by the people – the fathers of its foundation, who told the people what they were expected to have in mind. What the vast majority of them have in common, is that they no longer follow the model of a direct democracy like in Ancient Greece, but its modern representative version in one or another form. Accordingly, there is presidential democracy as seen in the US and France, or parliamentary democracy like in Britain and Germany. Some of them are democratic republics, but most of them are democratic so-called constitutional monarchies. What they all have in common is that they are not administrations of the people for the people, but political representations of various interest groups trying to get the upper hand over one another.

But is an analysis in further detail really worth it, does it make a substantial difference? Looking at various opinions I have collected from recent literature, we are presented with questions such as: is Britain more democratic than the US, or France more or less than Germany? The development and accelerating changes in recent years – and meanwhile months - indicate that this is not one of the pressing questions; rather, we want to know about the flaws and weaknesses they all have in common, besides specific national issues. In the course of my analysis and discussion, I will come back to these questions repeatedly. Here, I just intended to briefly address the two countries claiming the longest tradition of modern democracy, each an example of parliamentary and presidential democracy, respectively:

Democracy – and Britain

Considering political systems globally, and the British constitutional monarchy, it seems to me to be the most successful endeavour to date, in its honest attempt to create fairness between a certain number of layers of society (excluding the lowest in irreversible poverty and the rich in unreachable spheres beyond any system), also in its honesty in retaining a monarch, as a symbol of the should-be shape of man, and as a symbol of stable protection and leadership despite democracy. Honest enough to openly live out the fact that people do indeed wish - deep in their hearts – both private majesty in democracy, and safety at the bosom of a wise, protective and gracious monarch. On the flip side of this coin, Britain is also a prominent example of the risk democracy faces at present: proudly presenting itself as one of the oldest, longestgrown and therefore most stable democracies, knowing that it is far from being so, knowing that it is not really and not merely a representative democracy, as recently described by Grayling,¹¹ thus demonstrating the stubborn delusion of democratists. This degrades the present Western world in liberalism, dragging it down into libertinism, anarchy and chaos. Neo-nationalism and isolationism in an unstoppably globalized world, caused by angst due to excess foreign immigration, starting to draw on the country's economy, while social divide keeps growing, seemingly unstoppable, too, with their hands on the rudder of a capsized ship, the official captain of which is the people, who delegated their power to politicians busy lauding democracy, busy serving economy, busy keeping their positions in place, while the world around them falls apart in small, rapid, steps.

Democracy - and the US

As we have seen before, the United States of America is not considered a full democracy today. The independence of the US from motherland Britain started, as what was a republic excluding its own people.N36 When Alexis de Tocqueville visited America, mediocracy was already a concern for him around 1840 (see p. →). Today, some describe the US as a timocracy ⁴ rather than a democracy,N³⁶ with mostly millionaires as politicians, and billions spent on lobbying, politicking and Gerrymandering.

Seen from today's perspective, the US - constitution does indeed not seem to be effective for all of the people: it anticipates a high moral standard of its leading politicians, however, the US Electoral College does not seem to work when necessary. The way State institutions persecute individual citizens sometimes resembles a police State rather than a democracy.N141 This presidential democracy gives the president power over the military and allows the nomination of Supreme Court judges, which means that separation of powers is not really substantiated. Some even believe in a tendency towards slowly increasing presidential power and independence from Congress,²⁵ as recently confirmed in an interview by James Comey, former FBI-chief.²⁶ For the US-history of doctrines, see.N268

For myself, first of all, these examples indicate that amendments and overhaul are urgently necessary. But as a short answer, I agree with Popper's statement: There are actually but two forms of government those, where it is possible to get rid of them, and those where it isn't... because it does not matter, who is ruling, as long as one can get rid of a government without bloodshed. ....²⁷

As a short answer, Popper's statement also serves for the next question:

Why democracy?

For the rest, however, the answer is biased, as democracy, as a whole is biased, because man wants both: to be guided and protected, but to be free from oppressive guidance. It is biased also because man is both, driven by his individual creatureliness, but is also aware of the others' and of his opportunistic as well as altruistic stirrings. This confusing mix of human driving forces is at the origin of the three basic motivations for introducing democracy pursuing a threefold gain, but each with an inherent flaw, as they shout, the pragmatic realist: more for myself, the moralist: the system alone will make man a better man, the idealist (mentored, and at the same time manipulated by, his political leader), who cries: freedom

Democracy has also been understood to be bringing an end to political personality cult and self-adulation, only to end in a system with a political class mainly busy with the latter, and mutual demonization.

World politics – the power game between nations – was almost unchanged after the introduction of democracies in the Western world: a few leaders of the biggest countries, the big bosses of politics, decide over peace and war, create allies, build blocks; which means that many developments and events in the world depend on whether a few individuals either like or despise each other –