“They make me proud. Pleased, too.”
Noah is musing. Plainly, he expects me to react and, ever complaisant, I do.
“What does, dear heart?”
“Lamp posts festooned with election posters. They are the trumpeters of the democracy for which we so ardently fought.”
Noah was an activist in his day. Then he was earnest and intense. Now he is just earnest – the intense is past tense. Personally, I prefer him this way, even if by losing his ardour he has become a little dull.
“Harbingers of doom, you mean.”
“What! What can you mean?” he cries out. Above, I misspoke: he has not lost his ardour entirely.
“Democracy has scarcely improved our lot, and I cherish no illusions about the bunch staring down at us. They foresee a new dawn, but, judged by their portentousness, it is only because it brings a sumptuous breakfast in its wake.”
“‘Portly’, it’s ‘portly’,” says Noah, ever the pedant. Fair enough, but under cross-examination, he is forced to concede that they can be portentous too.
“Be that as it may,” Noah proceeds. “What we have crowns our struggle. One man, one vote is on display in all its glory, the very pith and essence of a liberal society.”
“‘Person’, it’s ‘person’,” I say, vexingly. Two can play at pedantry.
Pith off, I think, but am not willing to be so uncivilised. Not too uncivilised to deign to say “Nonsense. The system is not liberal, but socialist through and through. It gives every person a benefit and insists that the benefit should be equal. The benefit is, of course, the vote.”
“Are you making a case that socialists and communists are democrats where liberals are not?” Noah is looking at me as though I have grown a set of socio-political horns. This is not the kind of horniness he wants, and I fear he might fall out of love with me.
“No, of course not. Socialist leaders keep such a tight rein on power by filtering the popular will up through layers of apparatchiks till it becomes non-existent. You know as well as I that this is how the Soviet structure works. As each layer feeds upwards into the next, so it filters out anything contentious. At the top, the leadership decides as it chooses.”
My mind is fizzing now.
Noah? His eyes are popping. “Well, what do you say about liberal democracies? Are they better expressions of popular will?” he asks. He seems genuinely interested. This is unusual for a lawyer – lawyers are, in my experience, typically satisfied that they know it all already.
“Liberal democracies are, I concede, a little better. Elected governments do count. They do have some power, but of course the leaders in the Western world keep it carefully in check.
“Legislators pretend to fight in the public interest, administrators to act for the public benefit, but if they achieve either, it is typically by accident.
The real decisions are made by interest groups behind closed doors, by committees that operate in secret, and by judges who shape society much as they wish.”
“For goodness’ sake, Wanda! Where do you get such piffle from? Have you been visiting the dark web, my foolish one?” He gives a rendition of a devil by waggling his index fingers above his head. “Have you been fraternising with conspiracy theorists?” He gives his impression of Spy vs Spy. Frankly, I find the graphics a little tiresome.
“Well, Smart Alec, tell me when last you saw the Establishment execute the will of the people.”
“Brexit?”
“They were forced into it by a referendum. They were forced into the referendum despite every effort to stymie it.”
“I like referendums but even they won’t solve the problem.”
“Why’s that?”
“Nothing will suffice until we jettison the belief that decisions should be made by headcount. We must devise a system of plural voting in which people’s electoral power is determined by their contribution to society. One day, I predict, we will.”
“When will this be?” Noah asks.
“When democracy collapses in on itself. Elon, the muskrat as you call him, understands the process well enough. People are inherently self-interested and, ‘if you take $500 from a worker and give $100 to five lazy people, you lose one vote but gain five’. He calls this the biggest pyramid scheme in history, and it is plainly unsustainable.”
“Well, the world’s first modern democracy, America, is still alive and kicking.” Noah is back in his comfort zone.
“Yep, because the founding fathers were determined to create a republic, not a democracy. Look it up!” What is this within me? Such a sprite of controversy.
“Yeah, yeah. Personally, I prefer to stick with what I know!”
“Okay, Know-all.”
In bed that night, we had a lovely cuddle. Not every conjunction need end in consternation.
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