There is something deeply democratic about a dry tap: it makes no distinction between the homeowner who voted for the existing local government, the neighbour who voted against it and the person down the street who could not have been bothered to vote at all.
Whatever their political beliefs, all three must eventually fetch water from the same municipal tanker.
Tomorrow, South Africans will once again choose who should be entrusted with the management of their municipalities – although the outcomes may not truly reflect the party loyalties that produced them.
But what if it were to be argued that some among those heading to the polls tomorrow had no business deciding how the rest of us should be governed?
It is a question that political philosopher Jason Brennan confronts with considerable force in his 2016 book, Against Democracy, in which he challenges the claim that democratic participation, by drawing upon the knowledge of many, tends to produce wiser political decisions. Although Brennan accepts that most voters sincerely believe they are acting in the country’s interests, he questions whether good intentions, in the absence of sound political knowledge, are sufficient to produce good government.
If democratic decisions are binding on everyone, including those who voted differently or did not vote at all, he reasons that power to govern ought to rest disproportionately with those better equipped to exercise it. Brennan’s argument ultimately leads him towards epistocracy, where better outcomes might be achieved if some citizens exercised less political power or refrained from exercising it altogether. Under such a system, more knowledgeable citizens would receive additional votes and others would face restrictions on their right to vote.
However, the appeal of such a system rests on the troublesome assumption that political knowledge can be defined and measured with sufficient certainty to determine who deserves political power.
Street vendor
A university professor may possess a more sophisticated understanding of fiscal policy than a street vendor, but the latter may know considerably more about the effects in everyday life of municipal regulations for small businesses.
Likewise, a homeowner who has spent months without reliable running water may understand the failures of local government more intimately than someone capable of reciting every provision of the Municipal Finance Management Act.
Knowledge takes many forms, and the possession of political expertise, however impressive one’s credentials, offers little assurance of sound judgement. Experts routinely disagree among themselves. History, moreover, offers ample reasons to distrust the assumption that those who consider themselves intellectually superior are necessarily best equipped to govern in the interests of others; the pigs, after all, were always the cleverest animals on the farm.
At its heart, democracy rests on a principle that cannot be reduced to selecting the supposedly cleverest people to make decisions. It is also about recognising that citizens subject to the same laws deserve an equal say in choosing those who make them.
South Africa, whose history offers ample warning in this regard, has particular reason to distrust any attempt to make political rights conditional upon qualifications.
For these reasons, Brennan’s proposed remedy must be rejected.
Yet rejecting Brennan’s premise does not dispose of the question that gave rise to it: should everyone who is entitled to vote necessarily exercise that right, irrespective of how little they know about the people and policies they are choosing?
Unconditional right
Even where equal political standing is accepted as an unconditional right, there remains the uncomfortable reality that a vote cast in ignorance, prejudice or blind party loyalty carries precisely the same weight as one arrived at through careful consideration, and both contribute to decisions under which the entire community must live. The question, then, concerns less the entitlement to vote than the responsibility with which that right is exercised.
It is in examining this distinction, that Brennan’s grouping of citizens according to their political habits offers its most useful insight. He divides citizens into three recognisable types.
First are the hobbits, a name taken from Tolkien’s Middle Earth, for whom politics is an unwelcome intrusion into an otherwise perfectly satisfactory existence. Taking little interest in public affairs and showing even less inclination to acquaint themselves with political questions, they are content to leave political decisions to others, provided they are left largely undisturbed.
Then come the hooligans. They are the sports fans of politics, fiercely loyal to their chosen team and deeply suspicious of anyone wearing different colours. They follow political affairs enthusiastically, provided that what they encounter confirms their existing convictions.
Finally, there are the Vulcans, named after the coolly rational aliens of Star Trek. They approach politics with curiosity, consider opposing arguments fairly and change their minds when the evidence warrants it.
Reasoned judgement
Brennan acknowledges that perfect Vulcans are practically non-existent, although his greater concern is that taking part in politics tends to encourage hooliganism rather than reasoned judgement. The more invested people become in their political identities, the more difficult they find it to question them.
Brennan’s classifications are, of course, caricatures, and few voters will fit comfortably into any one of them; nevertheless, beneath their amusing descriptions lies a serious distinction between those who approach political choices with curiosity and those whose convictions remain largely undisturbed by evidence. This is a distinction that matters very much given that voting helps determine who exercises authority over an entire community – with that power comes a responsibility to give some thought to the judgement being exercised on everybody else’s behalf.
Fortunately, becoming a little more Vulcan before tomorrow’s election need take no more than fifteen minutes, provided that curiosity is directed towards four fairly ordinary questions.
Start with the person standing in your ward. The free website Ballotbox allows voters to identify their ward candidates by entering a street address. Find out who is standing, whether they have any meaningful connection to your neighbourhood and what, if anything, they have done to earn its confidence.
Next, the free website ElectAI allows voters to compare the manifestos of up to four political parties side by side, examining their commitments on everything from water and electricity to municipal finances and corruption. (Those seeking a more demanding exercise might establish whether these promises fall within a council’s powers, how they would be funded and whether the parties have explained how they intend to fulfil them; recognising a problem, after all, is hardly the same as knowing how to solve it.)
Third, consider who your preferred party might eventually govern alongside. Parliament’s proposed legislation to regulate municipal coalitions has yet to be finalised, making it particularly important to establish, before voting, which coalition partners a party considers acceptable and which it rules out.
Finally, examine your municipality’s financial record. Fortunately, there is no need to work through hundreds of pages of financial statements. The National Treasury’s free Municipal Money website allows voters to search for their municipality and examine how public money is collected and spent, whether the municipality can meet its financial obligations, how much it spends on infrastructure maintenance and how its financial performance has changed over time.
Reasonable starting point
These four questions will hardly transform a hobbit or a hooligan into a Vulcan overnight. But they do provide a reasonable starting point for understanding who seeks political power, what they intend to do with it and whether their record warrants the trust being asked of voters.
Brennan’s argument ought therefore to lead towards a more demanding understanding of what responsible voting entails (rather than towards restrictions upon the right itself). The right to vote belongs to every adult citizen, but taking that right seriously should involve at least some effort to understand the choice being made.
So, yes, some of you shouldn’t vote tomorrow. At least, not before giving the decision a little thought.
The #PledgeToVote campaign encourages South Africans to take their democratic responsibilities seriously, beginning with the commitment to vote. Taking fifteen minutes to understand what one is voting for would be a fitting way to honour that pledge.
[Image: by Rawpixel]
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