We can speak of democracy when all members of a community with decision-making potential in a society have equal opportunities to participa...
We can speak of democracy when all members of a community with decision-making potential in a society have equal opportunities to participate in the creation of the community's rules of operation, and these rules of operation apply equally to all members of the community, and are enforceable by the community.
Although democracy, the equality of people, seems to be a fundamental recognition and a real value, even current authoritarian regimes try to mimic at the level of appearance for the sake of social satisfaction, democracy as a social system is only a slowly evolving, still forming development of the last few hundred years. Humanity has spent the vast majority of its history on the path of exponential technological development under non-democratic social conditions.
A typical supporting argument for the existence of democracy is that if a community is able to function according to democratic principles, then the members of society can be happier, because the possibility of fulfilling human desires, which is necessary for happiness, requires that all members of society feel that they can be autonomous, active, influencing and equal members of a society that functions according to rules. While this observational fact is undeniable, the real reason for the existence of democracy is not that democracy increases the possibility of a more satisfying life for the members of society.
Society is in a constant state of transformation, but the driving force of social transformation is not in fact the desire to increase the satisfaction of the members of society, as this has never been the driving force of social change. The social satisfaction that potentially goes hand in hand with democracy is not the cause of the spread of democracies, but rather its consequence.
In the world, we can see that in the current historical period, democratically functioning social systems are propagating, with more or less interruptions. Social science points to the rise of the middle class and its dominant role in the social process as the reason for the expansion of democracy. There is no society that is typically democratic without a middle class that is the most dominant part of society. When, in the course of the development of a society, where social development itself is expressed in the growth of social equality, the size of the middle class reaches a specific level that is characteristic of society, the middle class, in asserting its own interests in the complex process of change, will consequently begin to assert the need for democratic principles. Of course, a middle class of this size can also be divided into various social interest groups, whose interests can then be represented by various organisations, such as political parties, but the functioning of these organisations also tends to uphold democratic principles.
We certainly cannot explain the phenomenon of democracy without understanding the role of the social middle class, but if we look for the most fundamental, universally valid determinant of social change, we can say that social change is selected on the basis of the success of society, the growth of the potential of society. The social change that can create a more effective society will survive longer, and any social change that reduces social potential will eventually cease to exist. A middle class that becomes dominant and advocates the principles of democracy to advance its interests does not form a stable and successful social structure because democracy produces a society of more satisfied and happier people, but because, under the circumstances, this configuration can produce a more productive society with greater potential. Humanity did not abandon, for example, the hunter-gatherer migratory lifestyle because settled agriculture and animal husbandry would have led to a happier, more satisfying life for the members of society, but because it would have increased the potential of the community by allowing knowledge and technology to develop more efficiently, which would have a positive feedback and mutually reinforcing effect on population growth.
This performance-based rule also applies to democracy. Democracy does not exist because it leads to a happier, more contented society. It is merely a side effect of democracy. Democracy can exist and exists because democracy can result in a better performing society. It also follows that democracy can exist as long as it makes society perform better. The condition for democracy to exist is that its existence gives it a competitive advantage over other forms of societies.
The functioning of any society, the direction of change, is always coordinated by the elite leading the society. The existence of the leading elite is based on the success of society, for the sustainability of its survival. The existence of democracy is conditional on the fact that a functioning democracy is also should be and must be in the interest of the well functioning leading elite.
There are actually existing societies where the process of democratization, accompanied by the strengthening of the middle class, is periodically, even on a historical scale, blocked by an anti-democratic regression. These societies either find a democratic path to sustain in the long run or become disempowered and marginalized.
However, social freedom and equality, which are considered to be the values of democracy, are merely the corollaries of democracy, not the fundamental reason for its existence. The fundamental reason for the existence of democracy is the effectiveness of a democratic society, which is also the rightly perceived interest of the ruling elite.
The functioning of democracy necessarily requires the voluntary involvement of the members of society. The equality of all, which is the basis of democracy, is not just a matter of law and legislation, but must be agreed by the majority of society, ideally by society as a whole, without even legislation. Since democracy is also based to a large extent on the community's own commitment, it is a fragile form of social cooperation. This vulnerability can mainly threaten democracy from two social directions.
Since the social stability of democracy is related to the size of the middle class, it is in the interest of democratically functioning societies and part of the way they operate to help the underprivileged to rise. If too much of society becomes lagging behind the middle class, that social stratum, even by intervening violently, poses a threat to the democracy necessary for the middle class to function effectively. In societies, helping the social groups that are lagging behind is understood as a moral duty at the personal level, but in democracies it actually contributes to the survival of democracy at the societal level.
However, this social help can easily be abused. If society does not attach well-defined conditions to the provision of assistance, which also condition the activity of the person in question to rise from the backwardness, a growing social group will exploit the social need for assistance and create a positive feedback loop, which will place an increasing burden on society, which in the longer term may undermine democratic stability, leaving room for authoritarian actors using populism as a tool to gain leadership.
In addition to the threat to democracy from below, it is an even greater threat, because it is an even harder problem to avoid, of the risk to democracy posed by the actions of the ruling elite. A well-functioning democracy is not threatened by the upper social class, a well-functioning society with power can regulate the activities of the upper social class that affect society in a suitable way for benefitting society. However, if the social regulation of a democracy towards the elite in power, towards the elite who lead society, is weakened, this can lead to a one-way breakdown of democracy, whereby the elite hijacks the complex institutional system of democracy to use the resources of society for its own benefit in order to maintain its own power.
In this process, democracy tends to shift in an autocratic direction, the method of operation characteristic of democracy is reduced, and the institutions characteristic of democracy become a pretense. The process is particularly dangerous because, initially, the elite justifies autocratic tendencies precisely by defending democracy, typically by protecting it from the activities of minority groups that are perceived as dangerous to society. By the time society realises the danger, the power structure may have been so altered that society will only be able to change through a major upheaval, and typically not necessarily in the direction of democratization.
The consequence of this change is also a society that is underperforming, which will become a dying society if it cannot overcome the transformation that is dangerous for democracy, if it cannot put the institutions that are characteristic of democracy into working order.
But these changes are not really the cause of the final end of democracy. These dangers are the symbiotic, parasitic diseases of democracies. These diseases are made possible by a democratically functioning society, and they can only exist as long as democracy exists.
Democracy's very existence is based on the fact that democracy leads to a better performing society, and a better performing society is fundamentally based on the role of equality demanded by the most prominent middle class. The foundations of democracy are not fundamentally altered by these diseases. Of course, a society may weaken if the diseases of democracy persist for a longer period of time, but the very basis, the role of the middle class in determining the social order and the resulting social effectiveness that utilises the true potential of society, does not change.
In fact, the end of democracy can occur when the cause that brought democracy into being and sustains it ceases to be valid, i.e. when democracy does not lead to a more productive society.
The fundamental reason for a more productive society under democracy is the greater achievement that comes from personal freedom based on equal opportunities. The end of democracy is a society in which personal freedom does not lead to greater social performance.
However, the increased performance that comes from personal freedom is a natural consequence. Members of society can typically use the increase in opportunities from personal freedom to increase their personal well-being, which, if not derived from the exploitation of democracy, benefits society as a whole, providing the driving force for the development of society. Democracy has the potential to maximize the potential of the people, which necessarily leads to a better performing society, but democracy will only make society more productive if the more productive society results from the activities of the people who make up society.
There is no social benefit from democracy if there is no greater performance from personal freedom, and this can only be in the case when the activity of the broad masses of society is no longer necessary for the greater performing society, when human performance is no longer necessary for the production of value. Automation, the revolution of mechanisation and artificial intelligence will bring the end of democracy. It will be when the natural, inevitable death of democracy will come, when democracy will no longer be needed for greater performance, and ultimately no longer be needed contribution from broad human communities, from the people to achieve enhanced and optimal performance.
The end of democracy need not in principle be accompanied by violent social processes, because during the transition the efficiency of society, especially initially, improves, the living conditions of the people who make up society can improve even in societies moving from democracy to autocracy, despite the fact that less and less human activity is needed to achieve greater social performance, as can be seen in societies where no collective social performance is already needed to provide values, because the society currently has sufficient natural resources to develop prosperity.
The course of the natural death of democracy:
- The rise of automation and artificial intelligence.
- The natural reduction in the size of society, as it is no longer essential for individuals to benefit from offspring to survive, and for society to sustain the increase of the size of society to increase performance.
- In societies led by rationally acting elites, the population that does not contribute to the performance of activities but exists receives a basic income, and a society that can maintain social peace under such conditions flourishes. Societies that follow a different path wither away during minor-major shocks.
- In the governance of successful societies, there is a natural expectation that the population, which receives a basic income and does not perform any useful activity for society, should not be allowed to participate in an active, decision-making role in determining the course of society. The intention is natural, since this part of society no longer needs freedom of decision making for social performance.
This is a different kind of limitation of classical democracy than the differentiation of equality resulting from the critique of the democratic principle of general equality according to the value added by the members of society to the performance of society, as defined by democracy, because in this case the degree of contribution to social activity is not a subjective social value, furthermore it is not resulted from social circumstances, nor from present social disadvantage, but is based on the voluntary choice of the person. As long as anyone can participate in decision-making by engaging in some kind of useful social activity, the legitimate expectation of contribution to change the existing social rules can be satisfied. A person who receives only a basic income does not need, and cannot legitimately claim, to participate in social decision-making, either by not voting or by having their vote automatically reinforce the vote that provides them a basic income (proxy voting).
The lack of participation in the vote is reasonable and legitimate, but it also naturally eliminates the universally valid democracy, as classically defined. In this case, if the elite completely expropriates the right of decision making in society, it may have unforeseeable consequences for society and even for humanity as a whole, but if the right of decision making can be retained by a wide spectrum of active, useful members of society, human society can continue to function without possibly accumulating tensions.
The existence of democracy is fundamentally not a matter of a moral philosophy, but an objective inevitability of an existing social structure. It is possible, however, that democracy ends for humanity, for human societies that have embarked on the path of technological development without actually being fully engaged anywhere.
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