Minority Rule and the Majority's Unscientific Approach to Politics

The rule of minority depends on the majority being ignorant and unscientific in its approach to politics.

The previous post looked at the theory of the ruling minority and the impossibility of true or real democracy, developed by the Machiavellians thinkers. To go further, it is also interesting to look at the ruled majority that is being ruled over by this minority.

The influence of Rousseau is obvious upon the Machiavellians, which is something they certainly acknowledged. It is the typical idea of Rousseau that the minority has the right to rule over the majority because of the legitimacy conferred upon it periodically by the majority vote. In other words, the oligarchic nature of the ruling minority becomes “justified” if Rousseau’s abstract concept of General Will is applied, making elections a way to regularly check the power of the ruling minority.

However, since democracies are generally quite open societies, they benefit to a larger extent than other political systems from the circulation of elites, this concept of Gaetano Mosca’s that explains the renewal of the ruling classes. Not only are periodical elections at local, regional and national levels a way for part of the ruling minority to be somewhat renewed, but democracies often try to make sure careers in public service are comparable to those in the private sector. The dramatic growth of the State in most democracies in recent decades testifies to the success of this strategy.

The Average Voter

It must be conceded that most voters obviously do not apply the same reason and dedicate the same time to politics as they generally do to areas of personal interest. As the Machiavellians noted, since voters do not see any clear causality between national politics and their own lives, they are often uninformed about the former. Their lack of political understanding stems from their political indifference.

The indifference is rational; it is a question of effort and reward. Voters implicitly understand that their vote is a small drop in an ocean of ballots, unlikely to make any difference in the election outcome. Thus James Burnham wrote in his book on The Machiavellians that it is “exceedingly difficult for men to be scientific, or logical, about social and political problems”. As a result, most voters are swayed by emotional arguments, which is why politicians mostly tend to address the electorate in this register. Burnham made the following observations in this regard:

“The Machiavellian analysis, confirmed and reconfirmed by the evidence of history, shows that the masses simply do not think scientifically about political and social aims...”

“During the 19th century it was thought by many that universal education would enable the masses to be scientific about politics and thereby reach a perfect democracy. This expectation has proved unfounded. In most great nations, illiteracy has been almost done away with. Nevertheless, the masses act no more scientifically today than a century or a millennium ago. In political affairs, the scientific potentialities of wider literacy have been more than counter-balanced by the new opportunities which mass education gives to non-scientific propaganda.” (quote from The Machiavellians)

Indeed, there is today an informal propaganda network in all democratic systems, of cooperating mainstream media organizations, often getting public funding, that support the ruling minority’s positions, together with the many professional opinion-molders. This network is constantly trying to engineer the consent of the majority to the policies of the ruling minority, as Friedrich von Hayek showed in a famous essay, Intellectuals and Socialism.

Additionally, the surveillance tools at the disposal of the ruling minority have only become stronger (exposed by the publications of Wikileaks and leaks of the whistleblower Edward Snowden have clearly shown), as information and truth about the political situation has become more easily available to the majority. All the latest advances in terms of information technology, be it hacking, facial recognition, or artificial intelligence, are today used or will be used by the intelligence services of democracies against their own populations, in order to constantly take the pulse on the majority.

Democratic Tensions

Nevertheless, modern democracies seem to be plagued by inherent tensions, which have been in recent years been heightened by growing popular dissatisfactions. Part of these tensions arise from the mismatch that exists between, on the one hand, the majority’s naïve illusion of self-rule, and on the other, the periodic awareness by parts of this same majority of the reality of minority rule.

Today, social networks and alternative media are greatly contributing to this awareness. As a result, the parts of the majority that feels politically disenfranchised have been reacting ever more forcefully. They have tried voting for “populist” candidates that are perceived, rightly or wrongly, as coming from outside the traditional ruling minority. They have tried organizing protests and popular uprisings against the governing elite, as well as supporting new political movements outside of the standard political process. Not surprisingly, none of these methods seem to have much weakened the ruling minority.

Today, the frequent filtering and censorship of “sensitive” political content on the internet can be explained in this light. The plight of Julian Assange is a glaring example of the treatment reserved for those who, as Burham wrote, “disclose some of the truth about power” in ostensibly democratic political systems.

One important lesson of The Machiavellians is that the individual should stay wary of political power even when living in a democracy. The myth of democracy exists precisely so that the majority stays content not to be involved in the political affairs of the nation, beside periodic visits to voting booths.