Pragmatism and Democracy: Dewey

The application of Pragmatism to democratic political philosophy was particularly important to John Dewey. In his book entitled Intelligence in the Modern World he argues in behalf of democracy from the perspective of Pragmatism:

“The keynote of democracy as a way of life may be expressed, it seems to me, as the necessity for the participation of every mature human being in formation of the values that regulate the living of men together: which is necessary from the standpoint of both the general welfare and the full development of human beings as individuals....
“The foundation of democracy is faith in the capabilities of human nature; faith in human intelligence and in the power of pooled and cooperative experience. It is not belief that these things are complete but that if given a show they will grow and be able to generate progressively the knowledge and wisdom to guide collective action.....
“While what we call intelligence may be distributed in unequal amounts, it is the democratic faith that it is sufficiently general so that each individual has something to contribute, and the value of each contribution can be assessed only as it enters into the final pooled intelligence constituted by the contributions of all....
“The democratic faith in equality is the faith that each individual shall have the chance and opportunity to contribute whatever he is capable of contributing....
“The modes of freedom guaranteed in the Bill of Rights are all of this nature: Freedom of belief and conscience, of expression of opinion, of assembly for discussion and conference, of the press as an organ of communication. They are guaranteed because without them individuals are not free to develop and society is deprived of what they might contribute”.

[Intelligence in the Modern World, John Dewey, 1939, Random House, Inc., pp.400-404]

Here Dewey is chiefly arguing for democracy as the means for a beneficial exchange leading to both individual and social growth. But the first remark cited, alluding to “the necessity for the participation of every mature human being,” raises a point not addressed previously. We have discussed the rights and liberties of the individual pursuant to the Social Contract, but what about the individual’s corresponding responsibilities? Stay tuned for more!

Parlor Wit

A conservative government is an organized hypocrisy.

Benjamin Disraeli, Speech in the House of Commons, Mar. 3, 1845
British politician (1804 - 1881)

http://quotationspage.com/quote/33391.html

Pragmatic Liberalism: Budarin

In democratic political philosophy the government is perceived to be responsible for recognizing social equality and ensuring equal rights to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness among the governed. Bitter experience has proven that, to meet this obligation, a democratic government must involve itself actively in matters affecting the national economy, the civil rights of citizens, the environment, health standards, etc. If a government does not involve itself and intervene to meet its democratic responsibility, it is not democratic.

This does not mean that democratic political philosophy requires the government to directly operate every institution and enterprise to meet its responsibility. Nor does it mean that a democratic government must be unconcerned about matters of budgets and costs. A government which fails to live within its means creates insecurity for all. The most effective way for a democratic government to meet its responsibilities is through "pragmatic liberalism".

"Pragmatism" asserts among other things that questions of social, economic and political policy should be approached in the same way that we approach questions of physics, i.e., by use of the scientific method, not blind reference to dogma, ideology or doctrine.

"Pragmatic liberalism" proposes that a democratic government act to meet its responsibilities through social, economic and political policies which have stood the test of experience, reflect the current insights of scientific inquiry, and take current realities into account. This is hardly a radical suggestion. But it is certainly not the way policies are being developed now. Our current government disregards experience, derides science, and ignores social, economic and political realities. Dogma, passion and prejudice rule. That approach cannot meet the obligations of democracy, and may well lead us to ruin. It must therefore be opposed.

Liberalism with Limits: Weisberg

Jacob Weisberg, National Political Columnist for New York Magazine and contributing editor to The New Republic believes that liberal government must recognize its limits and limit its intrusion, if it is to regain the public's trust. Mr. Weisberg proposes a neo-progressivism [my word, not his], looking back to the early Progressives for their perspective on government as a necessary and useful tool to be used cautiously and sparingly in the pursuit of the public good. The following selection is from his book In Defense of Government:

..."Progressivism is often viewed as a departure from the tradition of limited power. In reality, however, Progressives did not advocate unbridled growth in government. They were motivated by the need to control a new kind of power, the private might of industrial gigantism. At the turn of the century, this force seemed so strong as to threaten the state itself. In response to it, Progressives asserted the need for a government that could cage the beast and protect citizens from its ravages. But they remained deliberate and cautious in using the federal tool....

..."The first step in the recovery of the public trust is for liberals to rediscover the joys of limited power. Restraining government does not having to mean keeping it entirely out of the economic or moral spheres or forgoing all policies that smack of paternalism. But it does mean knowing when to stop, even in pursuit of valid social goals. It means to return to the old Progressive reluctance to use the federal government.”...

In Defense of Government: The Fall and Rise of Public Trust, by Jacob Weisberg [Scribner,1996, pp.158-164]

I think he has a point here. Limitations must be recognized, and too often they are not. But how do we decide which policies to pursue, and when to stop pursuing them? That's the topic of my next essay.

Parlor Wit

Democratic "Golden Rule": Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Neocon "Golden Rule": Do unto others.

Republican "Golden Rule": We have the gold, we make the rules.

Democratic Economics: Keynes

The modern ideal of the democratic economic system has been described best, I believe, by John Maynard Keynes, in his most famous work, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. Consider the following passages:

Book VI., Chapter 24, III.
...“The State will have to exercise a guiding influence on the propensity to consume partly through its scheme of taxation, partly by fixing the rate of interest, and partly, perhaps, in other ways. Furthermore, it seems unlikely that the influence of banking policy on the rate of interest will be sufficient by itself to determine the optimum rate of interest....
“The central controls necessary to ensure full employment will, of course, involve a large extension of the traditional functions of government. Furthermore, the modern classical theory has itself called attention to various conditions in which the free play of economic forces may need to be curbed or guided. But there will still remain a wide field for the exercise of private initiative and responsibility. Within this field the traditional advantages of individualism will still hold good.”
[Great Books of the Western World, Mortimer J. Adler, Editor in Chief. Volume 57, pp. 454-5]

Keynes identified the traditional advantages of individualism as being [1] the efficiency achieved by decentralized decision-making and [2] the safeguarding of personal choice and variety of life. He was opposed to authoritarian systems on the grounds that such systems resulted in inefficiency and loss of freedom. But he believed it would be necessary to enlarge the government’s functions to include adjusting consumption and investment both to avoid “the destruction of existing economic forms in their entirety” and to promote the “successful functioning of individual initiative.” The economic system he envisioned was therefore a democratic system controlled where necessary for the public good.

Parlor Wit

"Give a man a fish,
and you have corrupted him for a day.
Teach a man to fish,
and you have lost a customer for life."

- Republican proverb

Regulation for the Public Good: Adam Smith

It's widely known that Adam Smith spoke of an "invisible hand" which regulated the market, but Smith himself believed there were circumstances in which the public good required that the hand of government regulate the market instead. Witness this passage from Smith's classic, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations:

BOOK II. OF THE NATURE, ACCUMULATION, AND EMPLOYMENT OF STOCK.
CHAPTER II. OF MONEY, CONSIDERED AS A PARTICULAR BRANCH OF THE GENERAL STOCK OF THE SOCIETY, OR OF THE EXPENSE OF MAINTAINING THE NATIONAL CAPITAL.

...."To restrain private people, it may be said, from receiving in payment the promissory notes of a banker for any sum, whether great or small, when they themselves are willing to receive them; or, to restrain a banker from issuing such notes, when all his neighbours are willing to accept of them, is a manifest violation of that natural liberty, which it is the proper business of law not to infringe, but to support. Such regulations may, no doubt, be considered as in some respect a violation of natural liberty. But those exertions of the natural liberty of a few individuals, which might endanger the security of the whole society, are, and ought to be, restrained by the laws of all governments ; of the most free, as well as or the most despotical. The obligation of building party walls, in order to prevent the communication of fire, is a violation of natural liberty, exactly of the same kind with the regulations of the banking trade which are here proposed."....
http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=93618

Parlor Wit

"In this world of sin and sorrow, there is always something to be thankful for. As for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican."
H. L. Mencken

http://pearly230.tripod.com/htmls/conservative-jokes.html

Democratic Authority: Algernon Sidney

Today we hear nothing about the English political theorist Algernon Sidney, but he was highly regarded by the "Founding Fathers". John Adams praised his discourses on government. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison believed that students at the University of Virginia should study his works along with the works of John Locke. Sidney's chief contribution concerned his rebuttal of the "divine right" theory of political authority proposed by Sir Robert Filmer, according to which the king was appointed by God and was above the law for both the good of his subjects and to preserve their liberties. In his Discourses Concerning Government, Sidney argued sarcastically against this "divine right" theory, and forcefully in favor of the theory that the government's authority ultimately rested upon the will of the people. Here are a few excerpts from his Discourses:

SECTION 5 To depend upon the Will of a Man is Slavery.

...."But there is more than ordinary extravagance in his [Filmer's] assertion, that the greatest liberty in the world is for a people to live under a monarch, when his whole book is to prove, that this monarch hath his right from God and nature, is endowed with an unlimited power of doing what he pleaseth, and can be restrained by no law. If it be liberty to live under such a government, I desire to know what is slavery."....

SECTION 20 All just Magistratical Power is from the People.

SECTION 21 It cannot be for the good of the People that the Magistrate have a power above the Law: and he is not a Magistrate who has not his power by Law.

...."But nothing can be more absurd than to say, that one man has an absolute power above law to govern according to his will, for the people’s good, and the preservation of their liberty: For no liberty can subsist where there is such a power; and we have no other way of distinguishing between free nations and such as are not so, than that the free are governed by their own laws and magistrates according to their own mind, and that the others either have willingly subjected themselves, or are by force brought under the power of one or more men, to be ruled according to his or their pleasure."....

http://oll.libertyfund.org/Home3/HTML.php?recordID=0019

Democratic Freedom: J. S. Mill

John Locke laid a foundation for democratic political philosophy with his idea of the social contract. This metaphor portrayed the relationship between a political society and its individual members as a mutual obligation between the two parties: the individual's consent to unite with a political entity authorises that entity to make laws for him in the interest of the public good, and the individual is then obliged to support those laws. But what were the rights of the individual in this contract? Could there be no limits to a political society's demands upon an individual member?

John Stuart Mill addressed this question in his famous essay "On Liberty". Here is the part which strikes me as most pertinent:
Chapter 1: Introduction
....
"The object of this Essay is to assert one very simple principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the means used be physical force in the form of legal penalties, or the moral coercion of public opinion. That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil, in case he do otherwise. To justify that, the conduct from which it is desired to deter him must be calculated to produce evil to some one else. The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign."
http://www.john-mill.com/works/liberty/1.html

It is my belief that our modern democratic political philosophy chiefly rests upon the contributions of these two thinkers. I guess that makes it "Millist-Lockeanism". ;)

Parlor Wit

On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter what it does.

I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat.

Will Rogers
US humorist & showman (1879 - 1935)

http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Will_Rogers/

Democratic Values: Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was one of the founders of the Democratic-Republican Party in the United States, which later came to be called the Democratic Party. He was also the individual who drafted the Declaration of Independence, a founding document for the new nation. The document is remarkable for the fact that it sets forth, in a brief manner, the values and political theory of democracy:

"WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men
are created equal, that they are endowed by their
Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among
these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness --
That to secure these Rights, Governments are
instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from
the Consent of the Governed, ...."

As I see it, this simple composition expounds the core values of democracy.

The first is social equality. Where one person is regarded as "inferior" or "superior" to another, these are social constructs. Absent invidious social constructs, people are social equals. One may contrast this with the value on social inequality which is inherent to authoritarianism. Authoritarianism presumes that people are inherently unequal, with one group or person inherently superior to others by virtue of such things as their race, gender, religious beliefs, ethnicity, heredity or wealth.

The second is that people have inherent rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Authoritarian political philosophy recognizes no inherent rights for all persons. Such rights as may exist in an authoritarian system exist at the discretion of the "superior" group or person.

The third is that the role of government is to guarantee the existence of these rights to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness among the people who are subject to it. This is why democrat-dominated governments have sought to institute policies and programs relating to such things as public health, public education, civil rights, environmental protection and labor laws. The role of an authoritarian government, on the other hand, is limited to ensuring that the "superior" group or person enjoys life, liberty and pursuit of happiness to the fullest. The rest are on their own.

We democrats expect more from our government. We see our government as responsible for recognizing our social equality and ensuring our equal rights to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. Although we look to our government to ensure these rights, this is not to say that the government must directly manage every institution and enterprise to meet that responsibility. Nor is there an inherent requirement that a democratic government be unconcerned about matters of budgets and costs.