VOLUME IV, CHAPTER 13, SECTION 3

VOLUME IV, CHAPTER 13, SECTION 3

Putting Democracy Back Inside the Frame of Enfeoffment

Last section covered output greater than need plus no torment. This section opens out a concept that stirs wide dispute in the world today, democracy. This book does a different thing, returning democracy from a verdict of value to an analysis of structure, passing no verdict on whether democracy is good or bad, but studying its inner structure, actual running, advantages, and limits. To do this return, democracy must be put back inside the frame of enfeoffment set firm in Part One, democracy being at bottom voter enfeoffment.

Democracy has become a highly politicized word in the world today, some countries calling themselves a beacon of democracy and taking democracy as a core identity, others treating democracy as a foreign concept unsuited to their own national conditions, and in international politics democracy is often used as a banner of political attack and defense, democratic states against authoritarian states becoming the core of a discursive opposition. This book does a different thing, returning democracy from a verdict of value to an analysis of structure, passing no verdict on whether democracy is good or bad, but studying democracy's inner structure, actual running, advantages, and limits. To do this return, democracy must be put back inside the frame of enfeoffment, to see clearly what its mechanism of granting a position is, where its advantages and limits are, what its relation is to the other forms of enfeoffment, and whether it is opposed to or compatible with centralized authority. This section puts democracy back into its actual place in the four thousand years of human political history, letting the reader see its true face for themselves.

To speak of democracy, first look at the judgment of the main great thinkers within five hundred years. Locke set firm the early theoretical frame of representative democracy, holding for securing natural rights through representation. Montesquieu set firm the theoretical frame of the separation of powers, providing the base of institutional design for a democratic polity. Rousseau set firm the theory of popular sovereignty and the general will, holding for direct democracy, contrasting with Locke's representative democracy. The American constitutional founders turned these theories into a workable constitution, setting firm the institutional template of modern representative democracy plus federalism plus the separation of powers. Mill set firm the argument for representative democracy as the best form of government, but also warned of the tyranny of the majority as an inner risk of democracy. Tocqueville deeply studied the actual running of American democracy, setting firm the inner tensions of democracy, a work anyone studying democracy must read. These great thinkers' judgments on democracy have several common features. Feature one, taking democracy as a core category of political institutions. Feature two, setting democracy against the other institutional forms, democracy against monarchy, democracy against despotism, democracy against authoritarianism. Feature three, mostly leaning to support some form of democracy. Feature four, studying mainly within the Western context. This book is honest, the great thinkers' study of democracy is an important contribution to human political wisdom, but what this book does is put democracy back inside a larger frame, to see its relation to the other forms of enfeoffment.

The frame of enfeoffment set firm in Part One, that any position is enfeoffed out, land enfeoffment, office enfeoffment, military enfeoffment, party enfeoffment, dynastic enfeoffment, voter enfeoffment. Democracy is at bottom voter enfeoffment. Open democracy as voter enfeoffment in full: the voters are the eligible voters of some region or some group, the candidates are those competing for some position, the election is the voters enfeoffing some position onto some candidate through the ballot, the term meaning the enfeoffed position has a time limit and after the term must be enfeoffed anew. Voter enfeoffment has several root features. First, the power to grant the position is in the voters' hands, not granted by a superior as in land enfeoffment, and not passed by bloodline as in dynastic enfeoffment, voter enfeoffment concentrating the power to grant the position in the voters' hands, the most distinctive thing about democracy. Second, the position has a term and can be taken back, the position of voter enfeoffment having a clear term and re-electable after it, the other enfeoffments mostly for life or hereditary, voter enfeoffment periodic. Third, several candidates compete, giving the voters room to choose through competition. Fourth, the position is enfeoffed onto an individual but serves the voters, this person having to represent the voters within the term or possibly losing the position next time. With democracy set firm as voter enfeoffment, the reader can see that democracy is not a special institutional form, it is a concrete form of enfeoffment, parallel to land enfeoffment, party enfeoffment, and dynastic enfeoffment, only the way of granting the enfeoffment differing. To study democracy is not to study whether democracy is good, it is to study voter enfeoffment as a form of enfeoffment, its inner structure, advantages, limits.

Analyze democracy as voter enfeoffment, and look first at its advantages. Advantage one, the source of the position's legitimacy is relatively clear, whom the voters choose is the one, the legitimacy of the position very clear, the source of legitimacy of the other forms of enfeoffment often needing long building. Advantage two, the person in the position has the pressure of a term, having to be re-elected at the end and having to work hard within it, or lose the position next time, a pressure that keeps the person in the position from wholly leaving the voters. Advantage three, the expression of plural interests, through campaign and competition letting the interests of different groups all possibly find a candidate to represent them. Advantage four, a peaceful mechanism for the transition of power, the transition of the position completed through election, avoiding a violent seizure of power, a coup, war, the democratic states today basically achieving a peaceful transition of power, a great achievement. These four advantages are the real strengths of voter enfeoffment as a form of enfeoffment, laid out not to lift voter enfeoffment up but to see this side of it objectively.

Now the limits. Limit one, the limit of the voters' judgment, voter enfeoffment depending on the voters' judgment, yet the voters limited in time and energy, hard put to study complex issues deeply, the source of their information steered by media, their preference for short-term interest inclining them to support a candidate promising much in the short term, their emotional reaction easily led by feeling. This limit the great thinkers acknowledged too, Mill teaching the tyranny of the majority, Tocqueville teaching the excessive individualism of a democratic society. Limit two, the influence of money and media, a campaign needing much money, the money mainly from wealthy individuals and big business, the revolving door plus political donations letting voter enfeoffment gradually be influenced by capital and the elite, not only the voters' will. Limit three, the inner tension of the majority principle, voter enfeoffment depending on majority rule, yet the majority not the same as the correct, the majority able to oppress the minority, the core of the tyranny of the majority. Limit four, short-termism within the term, a short term making it hard for the person in the position to make long-term investment, inclining him near the election cycle to make decisions favorable to the election and to put off the long-term necessary ones. Limit five, the interesting sample of voter enfeoffment at its extreme, when voter enfeoffment is pushed to the extreme an interesting phenomenon appears, mentioned in the earlier chapter on voter enfeoffment, some towns making a cat honorary mayor for twenty years, some reelecting a dog as mayor, these interesting cases of local democracy, also showing the form of voter enfeoffment at its extreme, and this book passes no verdict on these results, only observes objectively. With democracy analyzed as voter enfeoffment, the reader can see that democracy has its inner advantages and its inner limits too, any institution having advantages and limits, democracy no exception, returning democracy from an idealized description to a concrete form of enfeoffment, letting one see its true face.

Here, open out a claim already lightly set firm earlier, the relation of democracy and centralized authority. Many misunderstand that democracy and centralized authority are opposed, democracy equal to the division of powers and against centralized authority, centralized authority equal to authoritarianism and against democracy. This misunderstanding was long built by mainstream Western discourse, but departs considerably from the actual situation. The true situation, democracy and centralized authority are not opposed, they are compatible. Every democratic state today has a strong centralized authority, a federal government plus national governance, plus voter enfeoffment as the core mechanism of allocating power. Why are democracy and centralized authority compatible? Democracy answers the question of how power is granted, voter enfeoffment. Centralized authority answers the question of how power runs, concentrated decision plus resource mobilization plus national coordination. These two questions are questions of different dimensions and can coexist. An elected president, the democratic side is being produced through election, voter enfeoffment, the centralized-authority side is exercising great power after taking office, centralized authority. Democracy decides who fills the position, centralized authority decides how the position runs, the two wholly able to coexist, and every normally running democratic state today is a mix of democracy plus centralized authority. To set democracy against centralized authority is a simplification of mainstream Western discourse, not matching the actual running of institutions.

So here is the position this section lays down. Democracy returned from a verdict of value to an analysis of structure, democracy not a byword for the good and not a byword for the bad, democracy being voter enfeoffment, a concrete form of enfeoffment, having inner advantages and inner limits. Any enfeoffment has its place, land enfeoffment, party enfeoffment, dynastic enfeoffment, voter enfeoffment, no one enfeoffment being the best, only which enfeoffment is fitting under particular conditions. Democracy and centralized authority are not opposed, every normally running democratic state today being a mix of democracy plus centralized authority. The real thing for the reader is several questions to think through for themselves. Which enfeoffment does the organization you are in use? Your company, how did the highest head get enfeoffed up, board appointment, founder designation, or performance competition? Your family, who enfeoffs a major decision, the couple's consensus, the elders' decision, or the children's participation? Your country, how are important positions enfeoffed, election, intra-party nomination, or appointment? Seeing clearly the actual running of each enfeoffment helps more than simply pasting on a label of democratic or non-democratic. Studying democracy and the other forms of enfeoffment, no one is absolutely good or absolutely bad, each having its fitting conditions, inner advantages, inner limits, and the reader makes their own judgment by their own position and values. By here, the comparison of claims, the independent claim, and the fresh understanding of democracy in this chapter are all covered. The next chapter enters the close of this Part, covering this book's objective account of China's institution, the method of cross-domain centralized authority, and where this book actually stands and to whom it hands the word.

Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.