Democracy and individual freedom are not natural elements of human government. Authoritarianism, the rule of society by a minority possessing moral or physical authority over the majority, is the means by which humans have normally governed themselves historically.
It is only with the advent of liberal democracy in 19th century Europe and the United States that the concepts of equality and individual freedom for the mass of people have been accepted and applied politically. It was this that freed the majority from the control of one or the other secular or religious minority that had always previously dominated them.
The political philosophy of liberal democracy has, however, been modified over time, and to judge by current popular discourse, appears to be in the process of undergoing a serious change towards a form of authoritarianism. The fact that the natural form of human government the world over has always been authoritarian, prior to the advent of liberal democracy, cannot be without relevance.
Equally relevant is the fact that the conception and the institution of liberal democracy was principally attributable to the controlling minority, even though the dominated majority at the time duly proved to be the greater relative beneficiary.
For the first time in human history, the controlling minority in society created a political system that was not designed to secure its own domination of society.
Rather, this civilising and highly rational system was designed specifically to give political expression to the ancient democratic principle of the moral equality of all, together with the law-based social principles of liberalism. In successfully doing so, the political system that it created freed the masses, and in so doing released their vast creative potential.
The highly civilised individuals who originally conceived of and instituted liberal democracy on behalf of the 19th century controlling minority are long gone. The current minorities in the West seemingly no longer subscribe to that philosophy, or ensure that its principles are collectively understood or observed by the majority. On the contrary, they are apparently intent on subverting liberal democracy and once again fully exercising their dominion over the majority.
For them to succeed, and to be able fully to control the majority that so outnumbers them, they need to create and institute a widely accepted and morally based authoritarian belief system to replace the liberal one, such as they had before the advent of liberal democracy.
This calls for a commonly held core belief, religious or quasi-secular, to which the majority will willingly subscribe (together, curiously, with those members of the dominant minority who need to find meaning in their lives).
This core belief will be formulated and enforced by that intellectual element in the dominant minority that has duly gained sufficient moral authority over the other members, as well as over the majority, to gain their compliance.
Currently, the principal authoritarian belief system being used intellectually for the subversion of liberal democracy by the current minority appears to be a reworking of 19th-century Marxism, the old secularised, quasi-religious adversary of liberal democracy. This, however, may well metamorphose into some form of authoritarian bureaucratic technocracy, facilitated by modern technology.
So apparent to the majority are all the benefits of liberal democracy that it seems highly unlikely that they could ever be persuaded to forsake it for another form of government, and particularly an authoritarian one which would involve their subservience.
Nevertheless, it is relevant that throughout history, the majority has invariably accepted domination and subservience by one or other minority group. Further, liberal democracy itself was introduced by the minority of the time and was not a majority conception, as the majority’s support of authoritarian 19th-century Marxism indicates.
Despite the advance in civilisation that liberal democracy has brought humanity, it appears currently that both the minority and the majority in Western society are voluntarily reverting back to what history inescapably suggests is the inherent political relationship between leaders and led.
[Image: Gordon Johnson from Pixabay]
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
If you like what you have just read, support the Daily Friend