CHAPTER 4

Political Justice

The question of who, if anyone, should rule is an ancient one, but I’ve limited our discussion here to concerns relevant to the representative democratic governments common today. The topics have an American emphasis as well, but the issues should be recognizable and entirely relevant to anyone living in a democratic republic.

The fundamental issue with democracy has been the same since Plato’s time: The people are basically a bunch of idiots. If you think that’s harsh, imagine you’re in Walmart. Look around and consider whether you want those people making choices about your life. And here’s the kicker: They’d say the same thing about you. And each other. And yet we all think that our own views should be represented!

This is the shortest chapter in the book, and is the first of two chapters on justice. If you’re reading this with a book club or Socrates Café, it might make sense to look at the two together as one large chapter of thirteen entries instead of two smaller ones (of five and eight entries, respectively).

The True Ship Captain

Running for political office is a disruptive, difficult, expensive process. How much do you think politicians are motivated by idealism, and how much by a desire for control?

There are a great many people—economists, policy analysts, scholars of poverty, etc.—who are experts on issues of great concern for the nation. Why aren’t they in office?

What kind of people do you want in office and how could we get them there? Why would they be more effective than those who are currently in office?

The Philosophy

To live together, we need to make choices that balance the needs and desires of some against those of others. Even some anarchists recognize this need—their view is that these systems of power and control should be momentary, limited, and local; not that we can make it without ever having someone making tough calls. Given this broad agreement that we need “deciders in chief,” who should they be?

Plato used the famous analogy of the “ship of state” to address this. He asked us to imagine a ship at sea—someone has to take the helm! Among those who clamor to take control, each has his motivation to try to be captain. Some seek to steer the ship because they believe they know what’s best; others seek control out of pride or because they are power hungry. Look away from the fray now, and imagine a useless stargazer. He does not seek control or power, but is interested only in looking to the skies and seeing the constancy and change among the stars. Here, Plato says, is the true ship captain. Only he knows the stars, which are the right basis for steering the ship—only he knows how to use the pole star to find north, to guide the ship along its route and then back to port.

For the same reasons, he claimed, the philosophers should rule the state. It is they who care about truth and seek out the reality of things, which should be the proper basis for making decisions. Those who seek power do not deserve it, and those who deserve it do not seek it. But should we, as Plato thought, make philosophers kings, and make all others subject to their rule? For those of us who believe in the value of democracy, Plato’s problem is real and serious, but his solution is hard to accept.

To Refine and Enlarge

In the simplest form of “direct democracy” we would simply vote on everything. In this system, would the many poor simply vote to take and distribute the wealth of the rich? Would the majority simply vote to remove rights from racial or other minorities? Do you think direct democracy would lead to greater justice or greater injustice? Why?

In a representative democracy, we sometimes speak of elected officials as “employees” of those they represent, whose job is simply to bring their public’s opinions into legislation. Does this bring up the same “mob rule” problems as direct democracy might?

The Philosophy

The idea of self-rule is pretty uncontroversial today, but there’s a basic problem with the very idea of democracy: Under majority rule, the minority is subject to the will of the majority—and if the majority doesn’t care about the minority, the minority can’t use majority rule to protect itself!

In The Federalist Papers, written during public debate about whether to ratify the Constitution of the United States, Alexander Hamilton (1755–1804), James Madison (1751–1836), and John Jay (1745–1829) took up this problem of “faction.” While the starting assumption is clearly that self-rule through democracy is best and most just, Federalist 10 recognized that “no man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause,” and that there is a constant threat of faction—a voting bloc acting on mere self-interest—in a democratic system. The solution, according to James Madison in Federalist 10, is representative democracy in a democratic republic. By having choices made by a congress of representatives, the public will can be “refined and enlarged” by being placed into the collective consideration of this small group of public-minded patriots, concerned for the good of the nation. A similar balance is struck between the Senate and House, as described in Federalist 63: The House is subject to frequent elections so that its members are forced to remain true to the direct and stated will of the people. Senators, on the other hand, are elected for a longer term so they are able to make choices that might be unpopular but pay off in the end, and bring about changes that take a series of connected laws and measures that require planning for more than a year or two at a stretch.

In today’s media environment, however, we have detailed day-by-day coverage of what happens in Congress, and elections have spread out so that representatives are almost constantly in “campaign mode.” This is clearly good for transparency and responsiveness but bad for making good but unpopular choices. Thus we have begun to see the return of the problems of “mob rule” and faction that our representative republican structure was meant to solve.

Consumer Democracy

Imagine you’re against all wars, or opposed to any corporate influence in government. Who can you vote for? What can you do to get your view represented?

Imagine, like many Catholics, that you are in favor of social programs that help the poor, but against war, and against abortion rights. Which party can you call your own? How can you decide which lives to support through your vote, and which to abandon?

In preferential or instant-runoff voting, you rank your choices for office. If your first choice doesn’t win, your vote goes to your second choice, so that voting for a “minor party” candidate isn’t “throwing your vote away.” How much of a difference would this make for you? Why do you suppose we don’t use preferential voting?

The Philosophy

The Federalist entrusted representatives to place local and factional needs and desires into a wider context, and to moderate current passions by long-term goals. Another possibility is that we, the people, could refine and enlarge our views in this way on our own. Are we so mired within our self-interest that we are incapable of having reasonable, careful discussion with one another and come to agreements on our own, rather than delegating these hard choices to representatives? Surely, this seems hopeless in our current political environment, but it hasn’t always been this way, and it need not remain so.

The German philosopher Jürgen Habermas (1929–) has done historical work showing how a “public sphere” emerged in the eighteenth century through dialogue and debate in coffeehouses and newspapers throughout Europe. People had the time, information, and communicative opportunities to engage in thoughtful public debate about the politics of the day, and it became possible for there to be such a thing as “public opinion,” rather than merely individual or official state perspectives.

Things have gone downhill since then. Today we have fallen away from a deliberative democracy, in which we engage in public debate and decision making, to a merely consumer democracy, where we as citizens simply choose between the options presented. In this situation, the media is focused on the horse race and party-line pugilism rather than on thoughtful public discussion. Even preferential voting wouldn’t change this, but breaking the two-part duopoly would at least open up the debate to more options and ideas. The road to a political culture in which we all engage in discussion about issues and policy rather than candidates and party platforms will be a long one.

The Phone Book Solution

Recent estimates are that about 4 percent of households in the United States have a net worth of a million dollars or more, but that nearly half of the members of Congress are millionaires. What effect, if any, do you think this has on our elected representatives’ ability to represent us?

Founders of the United States intended political representation to be a kind of public service that citizens would make for a time, then returning to their regular lives. Americans today are suspicious of “career politicians.” Would things be improved if we limited all elected officials to a single term of office? Why or why not?

The Philosophy

What makes philosophy distinctive is its willingness to consider any possibility, and to call into question even things that seem natural and commonsense, to see whether they are merely something we’re used to or if they can stand on their own merits. Sometimes, in desperation, we think we’d get better politicians by picking names at random from the phone book. Well—why not? Seriously.

This is the model we use for jury duty. We have the idea that justice is often best served by including a jury of people chosen at random, rather than leaving guilt or innocence to experts or “career jurists.” In ancient Athens, not just juries but most governmental offices were filled by lottery, and some contemporary writers, like Ernest Callenbach (1929–2012), have discussed the possibility of returning to this seemingly radical idea.

How radical is the idea, really? If we believe in democratic ideals, shouldn’t we want choices to be made by regular people? Of course, on the face of it, we might imagine people just legislating based on their own limited knowledge and prejudices, but the checks and balances could help to ensure that the close-mindedness of a few can’t take over, and more responsible citizen-legislators could draw on the knowledge and research of experts, just like juries choose based on expert evidence and argumentation.

Elections support party politics rather than open debate and deliberation. The expense of elections means that poor people are unlikely to gain office. The need for campaign donations gives undue influence to the interests of corporations and wealthy individuals. Would we be better off without having elections at all? Are elections, on the whole, good or bad for democracy?

Rule by Nobody

The U.S. subprime mortgage crisis played a significant role in the global financial crisis from which we are still trying to recover. Mortgages were written for people unable to meet payments, sold to investment banks, and trenched and repackaged as mortgage-based securities, purchased by investors. Many investment bankers made huge amounts of money from the bubble, and when it crashed it nearly brought down the U.S. economy. For each of the following involved parties, what’s the strongest case that can be made that they’re the ones to blame for what happened, and what’s their strongest defense against taking the blame?

The Philosophy

We typically view a form of government as more tyrannical if it has fewer people responsible for making important decisions—aristocracy is more tyrannical than democracy, and monarchy is more tyrannical than aristocracy. If this is true, wrote German-Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt (1906–1975), then our society today is the most tyrannical possible, because contemporary bureaucratic governance can be rightly called Rule by Nobody. In this case, we can easily imagine everyone’s excuses. And, as much as everyone in that list is responsible for what happened in the sense that it wouldn’t have happened without them, it seems clear that it’s not exactly any one party’s fault.

What Arendt saw in Nazi Germany—the soldier “just following orders,” the German citizen trusting the government, the bookkeepers running numbers and not asking what they represent—she saw throughout bureaucratic society. At the bottom, we don’t have the perspective to understand what we’re doing; we “just work here.” At the top, we have to make choices for the sake of the investors. As investors, we usually don’t even know what companies we’ve invested in—we just want a return. It’s nobody’s responsibility to ask whether what’s happening is right—and, worse, no one even seems to have the ability to take effective action against the system, even if she wants to take responsibility.

And government? So long as we think government is there just to support business and foster economic growth, government is just another part of this system. Government’s role is limited to producing a good climate for growth, and any effort to take responsibility by promoting the interest of people or the environment tends to be viewed as “excessive regulation” and “the nanny state”—right up until the point when we have nationwide foreclosures, health epidemics, financial collapse, or irremediable environmental damage.