American Democracy

America seen as a democratic utopia, the effect of democracy on the individual, the power of American democracy and its inherent manifest destiny.

The “democracy” and the concept it represents traces back to Ancient Greece in approximately the sixth century BC. The word comes from two Greek words; demos “the people” and kratein, “to rule”; together this words make demos-kratin or democracy literally meaning “rule by the people” (Pious 1997)

In terms of democracy the American Revolution was a hallmark event. America’s democratization started in 1776 with the Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson and borrowing from the ideas of John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. From Locke, Jefferson took the idea that all men are created equal and have the right to life, liberty and property (Lowe 2004); he changed these fundamentals to the “…right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” (Jefferson 1999). From Rousseau, Jefferson wrote into the Declaration the right for citizens to take up arms against the government if the state did not respect the individual rights contained therein. (Rousseau 1999, Jefferson 1999)

Due to the success of democracy in America as well as in various other countries around the world democracy became a popular form of governance. By the 1950s nearly every government on the planet had a government embodying some of the principles and ideals put forward by democracy, even if they were not necessarily democratic nations themselves. Of these nations, the United States became seen as a model nation for the democratic model. (Pious 1997, Tocqueville 2000: 20-27)

Modern American democracy is a democratic republic, i.e. a representative democracy. This system evolved due to concerns in the colonies that citizens were being taxed without representation of what their taxes were being used on. Within the representative democracy, representatives are elected with the ideal that they will represent the demands and needs of their constituents. The United States government is further split into three branches Executive, Legislative and Judicial; a system so procured so that no one branch can take absolute power and is each is balanced off of the other to protect the principles of democracy through a system of checks and balances. (Pious 1997; Tocqueville 2000: 20-27).

American Democracy and the Individual

“Democracy, in the full sense of the word, will always be no more that an ideal. In this sense, you too are merely approaching democracy. But you have one great advantage: you have been approaching democracy uninterruptedly for more than 200 years, and your journey toward the horizon has never been disrupted by a totalitarian system.” –Vaclav Havel, President, Czech Republic, 21 Feb 1990 (Berman and Murphy 2005)

As stated by both Pious and Tocqueville (Pious 1997, Tocqueville 2000) America is often seen as the model democratic nation with a thriving democratic government. However, this is not the case, a lack of citizen participation and radical individualism are two such problems. Individualism in the form of autonomy and self-sufficiency coupled with a detachment from others prevents American democracy from reaching its full potential. Ayn Rand embodies these traits and stated that:

"I do not recognize anyone’s right to one minute of my life, nor to any part of my energy, nor to any achievement of mind… I came here to say that I am a man who does not exist for others." (Ayn Rand quoted in Hudson 1996)

Whereas individualism in a democratic society is seen as a positive aspect by the people within such a society, it can also be a corrosive force. If a government is to accomplish mutual goals and better the collective state of society then people must work together. (Tocqueville 1969)

Individualism, viewed by many Americans as a heroic quality, is a positive quality, but too much of it can be destructive in a democratic environment. Many times individualism leads to selfishness, which is incompatible with democracy, a government "of the people." People must work together in such a government to accomplish mutual goals and better the collective state of society.

“So democracy, pressed to its ultimate limits, harms the progress of the art of government.” (Tocqueville 1969: 192)

However given that due to the effects of a religious upbringing shaped by a Puritan heritage which favors economic gain, there is a very strong argument to be made that American democracy itself is one based around an innate “selfishness”. A point made by de Tocqueville when he writes of Americas burgeoning desire for resources and lands on the continent that it does not need. (Tocqueville 1969; Craiutu and Jennings 2004)

De Tocqueville writes in Democracy in America that it is the Americans “propensity for civic association” (Tocqueville 1969: 192) which had allowed democracy to be so successful in the United States. He further noted that Americans formed a range of organizations in which they undertook great levels of participation creating a great sense of community.

Putnam (1998) states that communities with extensive social networks such as de Tocqueville found in America were more successful at resolving issues regarding education, unemployment, urban poverty and crime. Such social interconnectivity, not only between individuals but between different social strata plays a substantial role in communities and gives a sense of common goals for said communities. Putman during the course of his research also discovered that “the quality of governance was determined by long standing traditions of civic engagement (or its absence)”.

It can therefore be argued that civic engagement is an active part of community building in the United States and that such community plays a key role in the perpetuation of democracy by nullifying the negative effects of individualism.

Democracy and Power: Majority Rule

While de Tocqueville wrote that democracy holds power over its citizens through the power of an un-enforced moral consensus spread through socialization (Tocqueville 1969:269) He also states however, that in democracy though every individual has the right to vote there will always be, due to the nature of democracy itself a minority whose votes are never in the majority. (Tocqueville 1969: 231)

He called this a tyranny of the majority (Tocqueville 1969: 231), a phenomenon in which the government is exposed to the whim of the majority as it is the majority who elects representatives into power for short periods of time, therefore politicians pander to the majority as public opinion and staying in power themselves is of primary concern. (Tocqueville 1969:109, 230)

Therefore, as the moral authority of the majority is partly based on the notion that there is more intelligence and wisdom in the majority of men than a single individual. This leads to a situation in America where the interests of the many are to be preferred to those of the few.

De Tocqueville notes that while American democracy heralds individualism as one of its tenants through the guaranteed rights of free speech this is counteracted by its tendency for civil association which places people into homogenous groups diminishing such individualism. (Tocqueville 1969: 192) So while each individual has the inaliable right to speak his or her own mind and vote how they like, their voice and opinion in a representative democracy may not be heard due to it being overshadowed by the voice of the majority. Furthermore de Tocqueville writes:

"I know of no country in which, speaking generally, there is less independence of mind and true freedom of discussion than in America [...] As long as the majority is still undecided, discussion is carried on; but as soon as its decision is irrevocably pronounced, everyone is silent, and the friends as well as the opponents of the measure unite in assenting to its propriety” (Tocqueville 1969: 235)

De Tocqueville writes that in Europe if a person is at odds with a repressive government then they are usually able to find shelter with like minded individuals. He writes that in America this is not the case:

"The master no longer says: “Think like me or you die.” He does say: “You are free not to think as I do; you can keep your property and all; but from this day you are a stranger among us. You can keep your privileges in the township, but they will be useless to you, for if you solicit your fellow citizens votes, they will not give them too you, and if you ask only for their esteem, they will make excuses for refusing that. When you approach your fellows, they will shun you as an impure being, and even those who believe in your innocence will abandon you too, lest they in turn be shunned. Go in peace, I have given you your life, but it is a life worse than death.” (Tocqueville 1969: 236)

Therefore, given the sheer force of the moral power of “majority opinion” and it’s ability to both expel individuals and enforce community, de Tocqueville writes that a person may simply remove himself from the political sphere and from debate and simply accept majority opinion as his own. (Tocqueville 1969: 237-239)

This, de Tocqueville writes may lead to the destruction of the free institutions of America due to the omnipotence of the majority. Such power wielded by the majority may eventually cause such an inequality between the majority and minority that the minority will become desperate and resort to physical force to be heard. (Tocqueville 1969: 239) He further writes that the majority not only have the right to make the laws which govern America, but also to break them due to majority rule.

From this tenant of majority rule and the ability of the majority to break the law and then amend the law to prevent issues of its legality comes, an issue of the global power of the American government itself.

Power and Politics

Max Weber defined power as the ability to control the behavior of others not only in general terms but also against their will. Weber wrote that American democratic power lies in its ability to coerce through the threat of physical force. In contemporary terms a prime example of this coercive power is that of the Cuban Missile crisis, while President Kennedy did not actually use nuclear weapons to prevent the then Union of Soviet Socialist Republics from establishing nuclear capabilities in Cuba, the threat of possible force had the effect of preventing the progression of Soviet forces into Cuba. As the USSR was unwilling to face the threat of nuclear attack, the threat of physical force gave the United States political power. Weber notes that such power is often unstable as victims of coercive force view it as illegitimate and often set themselves in direct opposition to it. (Light 1975: 384; Shepard 1990: 297)

Furthermore, in terms of international law such use of coercive force is indeed illegitimate, verging on illegal. The Kellogg-Briand Pact 1928 (Avalon Project 1998) condemned war as an instrument of national policy as does the United States Charter which was written “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” (United Nations 1945) Both the pact and the charter require that all members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against any sovereign nation state.

Other sources of political power identified by Weber include weight of numbers, money, land, prestige and knowledge. As shown earlier, de Tocqueville was concerned by the power the majority held (Tocqueville 1969: 237-239) through organizations which can allow small elites to wield power over an unorganized group of people using superior amounts of money, prestige and knowledge to manipulate situations to their own means. (Light 1975:384-385) Such factors also tend to legitimate such power in terms of authority.

Manifest Destiny

Due to both the religious tenacity of the American peoples and the power held by the United States government in terms of prestige, money, land and their claim to legitimate knowledge there came about a notion that America had a manifest destiny.

Manifest destiny as a concept for describing the United States of America has a number of contextual meanings including American exceptionalism, expansionalism and as a term for describing Americas mission to the world. Ernest Lee Tuveson wrote that it is:

“A vast complex of ideas, policie, and actions is comprehended under the phrase ‘Manifest Destiny’. They are, as we should expect, all compatible, nor do they come from any one source.” (Tuveson 1968)

While the concept of Manifest Destiny has a number of meanings, it is interesing to note that for the American government the term came to emphasise that they had a mission to, or were “destined” to establish stable political dominancy over the North American continent.

In a similar vein to Winthrops speech about a City on the Hill being the model religious site from which Europe would take lead (Winthrop 1630), John O’ Sullivan wrote in 1845 that:

“…by the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federated self-government entrusted to us.” (O’Sullivan quoted in Hayes 1997).

From this came the belief that God a.k.a. “Providence” had given the United States a mission to spread republican democracy a.k.a. “the great experiment of liberty” throughout North America as Manifest Destiny was a moral ideal that superseded other considerations and indeed, other moral issues. (Weinberg 1935:145) It should be noted that O’Sullivan’s original concept of Manifest Destiny was not that of territorial by military imperialism but by cultural imperialism. He believed that as Americans citizens immigrated to new regions they would set up new democratic governments and then seek admission into the United States of America through annexation. (Johannsen in Hayes 1997: 10)

While Winthrop believed that the United States of America would become a model on which the rest of the world would build he did not intend that this would be done through expansionsim nor thorugh emmigration on January 3^rd, 1846 he openly opposed the concept stating:

“I suppose the right of a manifest destiny to spread will not be admitted to exist in any nation except the universal Yankee nation.” (Winthrop quoted in Weinberg 1935:143)

Winthrop opposed the notion of Manifest Destiny as he criticised advocates for citing Divine Providence for the justification of actions that he saw as being motivated by nothing more than chauvensim and self interest. Criticisms that are still being levelled at the American Government to this day.

As can be seen, Manifest Destiny has a number of themes and Beshoy Shaker writes of three of them. Firstly, Manifest Destiny implies an inherent virtue in the American people and their institutions, secondly that these institutions should be spread in order to remake the world in the image of the United States and thirdly that such actions are destiny under divine providence. (Weeks 1996:61)

During the nineteenth century however, the effects of American Manifest Destiny were confned to the borders of North America and has been called continentalism. John Quincy Adams in a proponent of continentalism wrote in 1811 that:

“The whole continent of North America appears to be destined by Divine Providence to be people by one nation, speaking one language, professing one general system of religious and political principles, and accustimed to one general tenor of social usages and customs. For the common happiness of them all, for their peace and prosperity, I believe it is indispensable that they should be associaed in one federal Union” (Adams quoted in McDougall 1997:78)

In 1823 he formulated the Monroe Doctrine which states three major ideas with a third added later on by President Theodore Roosevelt. Firstly, it states that European countries were no longer permitted to establish colonies on the American continent as a whole; northern, centrel or southern. Secondly, it established American Isolationism by stating that Washington was in charge of all foreign policy and the United States would only involve themselves in European affairs if America’s rights were disturbed and thirdly that the United States will consider any attempt at colonisation as a threat to it’s National Security. Roosevelt later ammeded the third point that any threat on American National Security would be met with action. (Richardson 1907:287)

Isolationism and Non-Interventionsim

Preceeding the tenants of the Monroe Doctrine, President Thomas Jefferson wrote that the United States would seek “…peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.” (Jefferson quoted in Bartleby 2001)

President James Monroe later stated in 1823 that:

“In the wars of the European powers in matters relating to themselves, we have never taken part, nor does it comport with out policy, so to do. It is only when our rights are invaded, or seriously menaced that we resent injuries, or make preperations for our defencse.” (Monroe quoted in Bartleby 2001)

This policy of non-intervention was maintained throughout the 19^th century untill the Spanish-American War in 1889, where, following the tenants of the Monroe Doctrine America intervened in the Cuban civil war by declaring it free and independent of Spain as it was threatening the National Security of the United Staes of America. The war resulted in America occupying and controling the Philipines; the first take over of a non-American continent territory and the United States first colonial act.

20^th Century Non-Intervention

Following the Spanish American-War in 1889 it was a further twenty-eight years before the United States came out of its isolation to take part in the global conflict of World War 1. However, once the conflict was over the United States congress refused to endorse either the Treaty of Versailles or the League of Nations and furthermore returned to a state of non-intervention, isolationsim and neutrality untill the attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941.