"At one time kings were anointed by Deity, so the problem was to see to it that Deity chose the right candidate. In this age the myth is 'the will of the people'...but the problem changes only superficially."
The cynical quote above is from my favorite novel, which, as I have talked about at length before, is Robert A. Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. The quote is essentially saying that democracy is not as romantic or even as valid as it seems—it is just as prone to being corrupted—or even completely rigged—as autocracy. In today’s post, I would like to talk about whether this is a valid statement, and if yes, what the implications of it are.
In the context of the novel, Heinlein is commenting on libertarian revolution. This quote is one of his not-so-subtle hints at why libertarian revolution is not as romantic or idealistic as it seems. (Despite the fact the Heinlein himself was very libertarian and opposed to big government, he did not have an idealistic view of anarchy or a libertarian society; he simply thought it was slightly better than federalism.) History definitely backs his point up here—today, historians have admitted that even the American Revolution was caused by the elite and controlled by the elite throughout the course of the Revolution and Revolutionary War. Indeed, cronyism is more prevalent in our history and in human history than we would like to think.
But if we look at the quote on a larger scale by looking at democracy as a whole in this light, the answer is quite different. Though corruption still exists in modern politics, the Western tradition of representative democracy has created a larger “ruling class,” which has diluted the cronyism inherent in the early American government. This makes it much harder for a select few to control the entire government. Though cronyism probably occurs in the White House, the balance of power in the US government prevents this from spreading to Congress. Also, despite the fact that both the Democratic Party and the GOP are controlled by a few individuals (not the same ones, of course), the fact that remain neck-and-neck in American history prevents this from spreading to the government. Finally, I should add that democracy itself actually prevents cronyism, in direct defiance of the quote. Though I often criticize the American system for not educating US citizens as much as it should, we are still immensely well informed, at least compared to the people of developing Asian nations such as India, China, or Myanmar.
However, there is still a strong argument for cronyism: the control and influence of the media in modern politics. There can be no doubt that the media, particularly the news media, has an enormous effect on the way Americans think; as American news continues to ignore world affairs and politics, the average American’s knowledge of these issues decreases proportionally. The media’s recent fixation with celebrity culture has prompted many Americans to focus on it as well. However, as I have mentioned before in “Culture: the dark side,” the media must pander to what the American people want to hear, and they are often unable to promote their own agenda because they must compete with other news organization (with some exceptions, of course). Also, it is unlikely that the media is under the thumb of the government, since they have been very critical of the government’s actions throughout the last few decades. However, the statistics cannot be ignored: the news media has been influenced by some traces of “liberal bias.” Even so, our media is far from being dominated by the elite for the purpose of spreading propaganda; this argument has very little validity.
Essentially, Heinlein has put his finger on the irony of cronyism in a democracy or a democratic revolution. In some cases, government can be run better by a few people than by the populace—but it defeats the purpose of the revolution in the first place.
As a side note—the fictional character who says this quote in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is a rational anarchist, which explains why he is so cynical and critical of government.
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