Declaration For Greater Independence

Representative democracy and slavery (1619)

In the summer of 1619 two significant changes occurred in the colony that would have lasting influence. One was the company's introduction of representative government to English America, which began on July 30 with the opening of the General Assembly. Voters in each of the colony's four cities, or boroughs, elected two burgesses to represent them, as did residents of each of the seven plantations. There were limitations to the democratic aspects of the General Assembly, however. In addition to the 22 elected burgesses, the General Assembly included six men chosen by the company. Consistent with the British practice of the time, the right to vote was most likely available only to male property owners. The colony's governor had power to veto the assembly's enactments, as did the company itself in London. Nonetheless, the body served as a precedent for self-governance in later British colonies in North America.

The second far-reaching development was the arrival in the colony (in August) of the first Africans in English America. They had been carried on a Portuguese slave ship sailing from Angola to Veracruz, Mexico. While the Portuguese ship was sailing through the West Indies, it was attacked by a Dutch man-of-war and an English ship out of Jamestown. The two attacking ships captured about 50 slaves—men, women, and children—and brought them to outposts of Jamestown. More than 20 of the African captives were purchased there.

Records concerning the lives and status of these first African Americans are very limited. It can be assumed that they were put to work on the tobacco harvest, an arduous undertaking. English law at this time did not recognize hereditary slavery, and it is possible that they were treated at first as indentured servants (obligated to serve for a specified period of time) rather than as slaves. Clear evidence of slavery in English America does not appear until the 1640s.

Dissolution of the Virginia Company (1622–24)

Chief Powhatan's successor, Opechancanough, carried out a surprise attack on the colony on the morning of March 22, 1622. The attack was strongest at the plantations and other English outposts that now lined the James River. The main settlement at Jamestown received a warning of the attack at the last minute and was able to mount a defense. Some 347 to 400 colonists died; reports of the death toll vary. The deaths that day represented between one-fourth and one-third of the colony's population of 1,240.

The outcry in London over the attack, combined with political disagreements between James I and the company's leaders, led the king to appoint a commission in April 1623 to investigate the company's condition. Predictably, the commission returned a negative report. The king's advisers, the Privy Council, urged the company to accept a new charter that gave the king greater control over its operations. The company refused. On May 24, 1624, motivated in part by domestic political differences with the company's leadership, the king dissolved the company outright and made Virginia a royal colony, an arm of his government. Jamestown remained the colonial capital until Williamsburg became the capital in 1699.

“Ideal democracy”

As noted above (in the full article on Democracy), Aristotle found it useful to classify actually existing governments in terms of three “ideal constitutions.” For essentially the same reasons, the notion of an “ideal democracy” also can be useful for identifying and understanding the democratic characteristics of actually existing governments, be they of city-states, nation-states, or larger associations.

It is important to note that the term ideal is ambiguous. In one sense, a system is ideal if it is considered apart from, or in the absence of, certain empirical conditions, which in actuality are always present to some degree. Ideal systems in this sense are used to identify what features of an actual system are essential to it, or what underlying laws are responsible, in combination with empirical factors, for a system's behaviour in actual circumstances. In another sense, a system is ideal if it is “best” from a moral point of view. An ideal system in this sense is a goal toward which a person or society ought to strive (even if it is not perfectly attainable in practice) and a standard against which the moral worth of what has been achieved, or of what exists, can be measured.

These two senses are often confused. Systems that are ideal in the first sense may, but need not, be ideal in the second sense. Accordingly, a description of an ideal democracy, such as the one below, need not be intended to prescribe a particular political system. Indeed, influential conceptions of ideal democracy have been offered by democracy's enemies as well as by its friends.

Features of ideal democracy

At a minimum, an ideal democracy would have the following features:

• Effective participation. Before a policy is adopted or rejected, members of the de-mos have the opportunity to make their views about the policy known to other members.
  
  
• Equality in voting. Members of the de-mos have the opportunity to vote for or against the policy, and all votes are counted as equal.
  
  
• Informed electorate. Members of the de-mos have the opportunity, within a reasonable amount of time, to learn about the policy and about possible alternative policies and their likely consequences.
  
  
• Citizen control of the agenda. The de-mos, and only the de-mos, decides what matters are placed on the decision-making agenda and how they are placed there. Thus, the democratic process is “open” in the sense that the de-mos can change the policies of the association at any time.
  
  
• Inclusion. Each and every member of the de-mos is entitled to participate in the association in the ways just described.
  
  
• Fundamental rights. Each of the necessary features of ideal democracy prescribes a right that is itself a necessary feature of ideal democracy:
  
  
• Thus every member of the de-mos has a right to communicate with others.
• A right to have his voted counted equally with the votes of others.
• A right to gather information.
• A right to participate on an equal footing with other members.
• A right, with other members, to exercise control of the agenda.



Democracy, therefore, consists of more than just political processes; it is also necessarily a system of fundamental rights.




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Ideal and representative democracy




In modern representative democracies, the features of ideal democracy, to the extent that they exist, are realized through a variety of political institutions. These institutions, which are broadly similar in different countries despite significant differences in constitutional structure, were entirely new in human history at the time of their first appearance in Europe and the United States in the 18th century. Among the most important of them is naturally the institution of representation itself, through which all major government decisions and policies are made by popularly elected officials, who are accountable to the electorate for their actions. Other important institutions include:



• Free, fair, and frequent elections. Citizens may participate in such elections both as voters and as candidates (though age and residence restrictions may be imposed).
  
  
• Freedom of expression. Citizens may express themselves publicly on a broad range of politically relevant subjects without fear of punishment.
  
  
• Independent sources of information. There exist sources of political information that are not under the control of the government or any single group and whose right to publish or otherwise disseminate information is protected by law; moreover, all citizens are entitled to seek out and use such sources of information.
  
  
• Freedom of association. Citizens have the right to form and to participate in independent political organizations, including parties and interest groups.



Institutions like these developed in Europe and the United States in various political and historical circumstances, and the impulses that fostered them were not always themselves democratic. Yet, as they developed, it became increasingly apparent that they were necessary for achieving a satisfactory level of democracy in any political association as large as a nation-state.


The relation between these institutions and the features of ideal democracy that are realized through them can be summarized as follows. In an association as large as a nation-state, representation is necessary for effective participation and for citizen control of the agenda; free, fair, and frequent elections are necessary for effective participation and for equality in voting; and freedom of expression, independent sources of information, and freedom of association are each necessary for effective participation, an informed electorate, and citizen control of the agenda.



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Actual democracies




Since Aristotle's time (384 BCE - 322), political philosophers generally have insisted that no actual political system is likely to attain, to the fullest extent possible, all the features of its corresponding ideal. Thus, whereas the institutions of many actual systems are sufficient to attain a relatively high level of democracy, they are almost certainly not sufficient to achieve anything like perfect or ideal democracy. Nevertheless, such institutions may produce a satisfactory approximation of the ideal—as presumably they did in Athens in the 5th century BC, when the term democracy was coined, and in the United States in the early 19th century, when Tocqueville, like most others in America and elsewhere, unhesitatingly called the country a democracy.




For associations that are small in population and area, the political institutions of direct democracy seem best to approximate the ideal of “government by the people.” In such a democracy all matters of importance to the association as a whole can be decided on by the citizens. Citizens have the opportunity to discuss the policies that come before them and to gather information directly from those they consider well-informed, as well as from other sources. They can meet at a convenient place—the Pnyx in Athens, the Forum in Rome, the Palazzo Ducale in Venice, or the town hall in a New England village—to discuss the policy further and to offer amendments or revisions. Finally, their decision is rendered in a vote, all votes being counted equal, with the votes of a majority prevailing.




It is thus easy to see why direct democracies are sometimes thought to approach ideal democracy much more closely than representative systems ever could, and why the most ardent advocates of direct democracy have sometimes insisted, as Rousseau did in The Social Contract, that the term representative democracy is self-contradictory. Yet, views like these have failed to win many converts.


Source: "Democracy." Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite, 2013.

Dewey (Oct. 20, 1859 - June 1, 1952)

According to the American philosopher John Dewey, democracy is the most desirable form of government because it alone provides the kinds of freedom necessary for individual self-development and growth—including the freedom to exchange ideas and opinions with others, the freedom to form associations with others to pursue common goals, and the freedom to determine and pursue one's own conception of the good life. Democracy is more than merely a form of government, however; as Dewey remarks in Democracy and Education (1916), it is also a “mode of associated life” in which citizens cooperate with each other to solve their common problems through rational means (i.e., through critical inquiry and experiment) in a spirit of mutual respect and good will. Moreover, the political institutions of any democracy, according to Dewey, should not be viewed as the perfect and unchangeable creations of visionary statesmen of the past; rather, they should be constantly subject to criticism and improvement as historical circumstances and the public interest change.

Participation in a democracy as Dewey conceived it requires critical and inquisitive habits of mind, an inclination toward cooperation with others, and a feeling of public spiritedness and a desire to achieve the common good. Because these habits and inclinations must be inculcated from a young age, Dewey placed great emphasis on education; indeed, he called public schools “the church of democracy.” His contributions to both the theory and practice of education were enormously influential in the United States in the 20th century (see also education, philosophy of).

Dewey offered little in the way of concrete proposals regarding the form that democratic institutions should take. Nevertheless, in The Public and Its Problems (1927) and other works, he contended that individuals cannot develop to their fullest potential except in a social democracy, or a democratic welfare-state. Accordingly, he held that democracies should possess strong regulatory powers. He also insisted that among the most important features of a social democracy should be the right of workers to participate directly in the control of the firms in which they are employed.

Given Dewey's interest in education, it is not surprising that he was greatly concerned with the question of how citizens might better understand public affairs. Although he was a proponent of the application of the social sciences to the development of public policy, he sharply criticized intellectuals, academics, and political leaders who viewed the general public as incompetent and who often argued for some form of democratic elitism. Only the public, he maintained, can decide what the public interest is. In order for citizens to be able to make informed and responsible decisions about their common problems, he thought, it is important for them to engage in dialogue with each other in their local communities. Dewey's emphasis on dialogue as a critical practice in a democracy inspired later political theorists to explore the vital role of deliberation in democratic systems.

Habermas (June 18, 1929 -)

In a series of works published after 1970, the German philosopher and social theorist Jürgen Habermas, employing concepts borrowed from Anglo-American philosophy of language, argued that the idea of achieving a “rational consensus” within a group on questions of either fact or value presupposes the existence of what he called an “ideal speech situation.” In such a situation, participants would be able to evaluate each other's assertions solely on the basis of reason and evidence in an atmosphere completely free of any nonrational “coercive” influences, including both physical and psychological coercion. Furthermore, all participants would be motivated solely by the desire to obtain a rational consensus, and no time limits on the discussion would be imposed. Although difficult if not impossible to realize in practice, the ideal speech situation can be used as a model of free and open public discussion and a standard against which to evaluate the practices and institutions through which large political questions and issues of public policy are decided in actual democracies.

Rawls (Feb. 21, 1921 - Nov. 24, 2002)

From the time of Mill until about the mid-20th century, most philosophers who defended democratic principles did so largely on the basis of utilitarian considerations—i.e., they argued that systems of government that are democratic in character are more likely than other systems to produce a greater amount of happiness (or well-being) for a greater number of people. Such justifications, however, were traditionally vulnerable to the objection that they could be used to support intuitively less-desirable forms of government in which the greater happiness of the majority is achieved by unfairly neglecting the rights and interests of a minority.

In A Theory of Justice (1971), the American philosopher John Rawls attempted to develop a nonutilitarian justification of a democratic political order characterized by fairness, equality, and individual rights. Reviving the notion of a social contract, which had been dormant since the 18th century, he imagined a hypothetical situation in which a group of rational individuals are rendered ignorant of all social and economic facts about themselves—including facts about their race, sex, religion, education, intelligence, talents or skills, and even their conception of the “good life”—and then asked to decide what general principles should govern the political institutions under which they live. From behind this “veil of ignorance,” Rawls argues, such a group would unanimously reject utilitarian principles—such as “political institutions should aim to maximize the happiness of the greatest number”—because no member of the group could know whether he belonged to a minority whose rights and interests might be neglected under institutions justified on utilitarian grounds. Instead, reason and self-interest would lead the group to adopt principles such as the following:

1. Everyone should have a maximum and equal degree of liberty, including all the liberties traditionally associated with democracy.
2. Everyone should have an equal opportunity to seek offices and positions that offer greater rewards of wealth, power, status, or other social goods.
3. The distribution of wealth in society should be such that those who are least well-off are better off than they would be under any other distribution, whether equal or unequal.

(Rawls holds that, given certain assumptions about human motivation, some inequality in the distribution of wealth may be necessary to achieve higher levels of productivity. It is therefore possible to imagine unequal distributions of wealth in which those who are least well-off are better off than they would be under an equal distribution.) These principles amount to an egalitarian form of democratic liberalism. Rawls is accordingly regarded as the leading philosophical defender of the modern democratic capitalist welfare state.

The value of democracy

Why should “the people” rule? Is democracy really superior to any other form of government? Although a full exploration of this issue is beyond the scope of this article (see political philosophy), history—particularly 20th-century history— demonstrates that democracy uniquely possesses a number of features that most people, whatever their basic political beliefs, would consider desirable:

1. Democracy helps to prevent rule by cruel and vicious autocrats.
2. Modern representative democracies do not fight wars with one another.
3. Countries with democratic governments tend to be more prosperous than countries with nondemocratic governments.
4. Democracy tends to foster human development—as measured by health, education, personal income, and other indicators—more fully than other forms of government do.

Other features of democracy also would be considered desirable by most people, though some would regard them as less important than (1) through (4) above:

5. Democracy helps people to protect their fundamental interests.
6. Democracy guarantees its citizens fundamental rights that nondemocratic systems do not, and cannot, grant.
7. Democracy ensures its citizens a broader range of personal freedoms than other forms of government do.

Finally, there are some features of democracy that some people—the critics of democracy—would not consider desirable at all, though most people, upon reflection, would regard them as at least worthwhile:

8. Only democracy provides people with a maximum opportunity to live under laws of their own choosing.
9. Only democracy provides people with a maximum opportunity to take moral responsibility for their choices and decisions about government policies.
10. Only in a democracy can there be a relatively high level of political equality.

These advantages notwithstanding, there have been critics of democracy since ancient times. Perhaps the most enduring of their charges is that most people are incapable of participating in government in a meaningful or competent way because they lack the necessary knowledge, intelligence, wisdom, experience, or character. According to Plato, for example, the best government would be an aristocracy of “philosopher-kings” whose rigorous intellectual and moral training would make them uniquely qualified to rule. The view that the people as a whole are incapable of governing themselves has been espoused not only by kings and aristocratic rulers but also by political theorists (Plato foremost among them), religious leaders, and other authorities. The view was prevalent in one form or another throughout the world during most of recorded history until the early 20th century, and since then it has been most often invoked by opponents of democracy in Europe and elsewhere to justify various forms of dictatorship and one-party rule.

No doubt there will be critics of democracy for as long as democratic governments exist. The extent of their success in winning adherents and promoting the creation of nondemocratic regimes will depend on how well democratic governments meet the new challenges and crises that are all but certain to occur.