A recent survey shows that a quarter of South Africans would settle for a dictatorship, provided it guaranteed basic human rights and solved the country’s problems. Is this a good idea?
‘Many South Africans won’t mind a dictatorship if basic human rights are guaranteed, research shows’. Thus ran the startling headline on News24 last week.
The newspaper was reporting on the results of a survey conducted by Afrobarometer and the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (IJR), presented at a research seminar hosted by the Independent Electoral Commission.
The results said that in 2011, only 15% of respondents would be willing to ditch the institutions of democracy and prefer a dictator, on condition that the dictator fulfilled the promises of the democratic government by upholding human rights, delivering basic services, and solving the country’s problems.
By 2018, that number had risen to 20.9%. By 2021, it was 25.3%.
These aren’t alarming numbers, yet. The IJR’s biennial South African Reconciliation Barometers Survey, last published in 2021, shows that – inexplicably – more than half of South Africans still have at least some confidence in local, provincial, and national government, the courts, the president and deputy president, parliament, the police, the public protector, the revenue service, the prosecuting authority, and most of all, the public broadcaster.
These results aren’t harbingers of revolution, yet.
Democracy is not sacred
That said, democracy is not the glorious be-all-and-end-all of civilised and effective government. It is not sacred. It comes with significant problems.
There is no guarantee, in a democratic system, that the people elected to govern are capable of doing so wisely and in the interests of citizens. South Africa’s government is clear evidence of this defect.
There is also no guarantee that a majority of the people will always, or even more often than not, know what’s good for the country as a whole. What do average voters really know about macro-economics, or foreign policy, or regulation, infrastructure development, or taxation?
For example, it might be very popular to dispossess wealthy landowners, but – as the Soviet Union and Zimbabwe demonstrated so dramatically – this will have grave economic consequences for the general population.
The majority may also have reasons to oppress, exclude or persecute minority groups, on the basis of ethnicity, heritage, language, religion, sexual identity, or immigration status. This ‘tyranny of the majority’ is a dangerous consequence of simple majoritarianism.
Another major flaw of democracy is that elected officials have priorities, and their top priority is to maintain their own political power and that of their political allies. They will be motivated to make decisions that will have short-term benefits for their own constituency, while neglecting long-term goals for everyone. Very few politicians in a democracy are capable of taking tough decisions that will pay off in twenty or fifty years, instead of doing whatever needs to be done to win the next election.
Yet somehow, despite all these obvious problems with democracy, we have let ourselves be convinced that ‘the democratic will of the people’ somehow ennobles ideas. In reality, there is overwhelming evidence that democracies are quite capable of producing incompetent governments, despicable leaders, oppressive laws and economic hardships.
Principles of government
Classical liberals have always been sceptical of democracy for exactly these reasons. They believe a government ought to be based on certain firm principles, including individual liberty, secure property rights, the rule of law, substantially free enterprise, free thought and expression, accountability, and minimal but fair taxes sufficient to fund a small but effective government.
They believe in these principles because there is substantial evidence that they reliably produce political, economic and social conditions in which human rights are protected and the quality of life of all citizens including the poor is maximised.
Democracy does not necessarily produce these conditions. A constitution can do so, provided that the constitution is supreme, inviolable and effectively applied, which is why many liberals insist on constitutional democracy, at least.
Another way to produce these conditions is to cede government to philosopher-kings. A liberal monarchy, in which the monarch, or a ruling aristocracy, is selected on the basis of their ability and commitment to defending the principles of liberalism, would be very desirable.
Somehow, though, I don’t think that is what 25% of South Africans have in mind when they say they’ll accept a dictator provided that they provide electricity, food, jobs and human rights. They more likely have a socialist dictator in mind, who would redistribute wealth and plan the production of goods and services by coercive force. Such a dictator would make promises but fail just as spectacularly at delivering them than the socialist ruling party does today.
That is, indeed, the risk of dictatorship. There is no guarantee that it will be benevolent.
Liberal constitution
Once again, a constitution can come to the rescue. A constitution that establishes the principles within which a monarch may act, failing which they will be replaced by another monarch, could prevent such a system of government from degenerating into fascist tyranny.
However, establishing such a constitution will be an insurmountable challenge. Who would write it? It is already quite miraculous that this country’s constitution is as liberal as it is, given that it was negotiated between two parties that were both nationalist, socialist, and authoritarian in character.
Another problem with the Platonic view of government, which considered an aristocracy of philosopher-kings to be the ideal, is simply that aristocracies do not have a great record of acting like philosopher-kings. Historically, they have usually protected their own wealth and privilege at the expense of the common people.
The deliberate exclusion and oppression of certain classes or races of people has made it all the more galling not to have a say in one’s own government.
This is why aristocracies are vulnerable to revolution, and even when those revolutions have the best of intent, they frequently devolve, sometimes quite rapidly, into fascist tyranny.
Which leaves us no wiser as to how we really ought to be governed.
We know what people want, and the IJR survey reconfirms it: people want a reasonable hope that they can materially improve their quality of life; they want promises to be kept; they want essential services to be delivered; they want human rights to be upheld.
Misdiagnosis
The people who feel that democracy is failing them are perhaps misdiagnosing the problem. What is failing them is not democracy, but the democratically elected government.
In South Africa, what is failing is ANC government. It is ideologically misguided. It is corrupt. It prioritises loyalty over competence. It is either incapable or unwilling to establish the economic conditions for the poor to improve their lot, likely because poor, uneducated, and desperate masses are pliable voting fodder that can be manipulated to enrich those in power.
South Africa does have a fairly liberal constitution. It is far from perfect, but it is likely the best we can hope for and goes a long way towards protecting individuals and minorities from the tyranny of the majority.
What South Africa doesn’t have is a capable ruling party that largely adheres to classical liberal principles. Ironically, the institutions of democracy are the very thing that can change that.
Perhaps the answer is not to overthrow democracy and hope for a benevolent dictator, but to elect a democratic government committed to benevolent principles.
In the IJR’s Reconciliation Barometer of 2021, the official opposition trails the ruling party by only two percentage points (50% to 52%) in how many respondents express at least some confidence in them.
Before rejecting democracy, perhaps voters should try a liberal alternative to the ruling party first.
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR
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