The Machiavellian Thinkers Saw that Democratic Rule is a Chimera

The persistent lack of democracy in ostensibly democratic nations was explained a century ago by Robert Michels and Gaetano Mosca.

From the previous posts in this substack, related to geopolitical interests and the lack of democracy with respect to such interests, one main conclusion was that the interests of the people are often very different from the interests of the State.

This concept may sound like a commonplace, but the implications of this truth should shock many more people than is actually the case. For it means that there is a persistent lack of democracy even in the Western nation-states that have tried democracy the longest. This is of course highly relevant in the context of international affairs, and thus it must be reviewed in some detail.

The Machiavellian School of Thought

In this respect, a review of the Machiavellians school of political thought is of fundamental importance. Its thinking about politics refers to Niccolo’ Machiavelli because of the realist, non-ideological and value-free methods first employed by the Florentine. In this sense, there is a clear similarity with the libertarian approach to economics through praxeology.

The Machiavellian thinkers that stand out the most were Robert Michels and Gaetano Mosca, who were among the first to give clear, sociological explanations for why democracy cannot work. A review of these explanations is timely since the democratic model is subject to ever stronger crises of legitimacy in many Western nations. Indeed, the key insights that these “Machiavellians” provided about political organizations and the implications of these insights on modern democracy as a viable and stable political system, are particularly relevant today.

Of course, libertarianism has long been sceptical of democracy and are here proved correct also by the conclusions of these conservative - not libertarian - thinkers. Indeed, Machiavellian thought has perhaps not been integrated enough into the libertarian thinking.

The Machiavellian political science makes it clear that the modern democratic system is “democratic” in name only. No political organization of any importance can be run by the majority of its members; its chaotic disintegration would quickly ensue. Similarly, no society can be ruled by the masses in an orderly manner because mob rule would ensue, or what the Greeks called ochlocracy. That is why all relatively stable societies are oligarchic in nature, not truly democratic.

Looking at political parties, Robert Michels saw that all decisions tend to be made by a small group of people at the top, even in such an ostentibly democratic political organisation such as the German Socialist Party, which at the time had millions of members. Indeed, minority rule is much more frequent than majority rule, in all human organisations however pure the initial intentions were.

The ruling minorities (it can be used in plural for one society, as there is of course a certain element of competition and not all the members of the ruling elite are perfectly aligned on all topics) constantly seek to justify their rule with a certain “political formula”, to use Gaetano Mosca’s expression. In a democratic system, this “formula” is the concept of “democracy” itself, the idealized “rule of the people” and the “values” of democracy. This forumal is repeated ad nauseam, possibly a sign that there is doubt as to its general acceptance. It is the myth of representative democracy that legitimizes the rule of the minority in democratic systems.

The Myth of Representative Democracy

The myth of representative democracy is based on the one hand on the idea that political representatives are loyal and disinterested, and on the other on the idea that the electorate is rational and scientific with regard to politics. Thus the populations of modern representative democracies are convinced that they are the actual collective rulers of society. They take the word “representative” literally. The more naive of them actually believe that they decide the political agenda of generally loyal and trustworthy representatives, simply by slipping a piece of paper into a ballot box every four or five years.

The majority considers democracy to be equivalent to representative democracy because most people today implicitly agree with the Machiavellians, that any sort of direct democracy in a modern setting is practically impossible, apart from on a very small scale. Athenian democracy, though often criticized for not being a democracy involving all inhabitants of the city, was a functioning direct democracy, precisely because it did not involve the whole adult population, but only its citizens.

Thus, in the early days of democratic movements in the 19^th century, representative democracy was generally not perceived as truly democratic. As Robert Michels noted, it was only when the practical impossibilities of direct democracy on a large scale became evident, that the concept of representation gained legitimacy.[1] Over time, it became synonymous with the concept of democracy. Yet the acceptance of political representation means in practice to accept minority rule, unwittingly or not, as the Machiavellians so convincingly showed.

In order to maintain the illusion of democracy and preserve social stability, the ruling minority regularly makes minor but strategic concessions to the ruled majority. But all major political decisions are made by a small political and economic elite, quite independently of the wishes, and often even the knowledge, of the majority.

It should be obvious to any acute observer that in modern democracies the majorities have barely any influence at all over foreign policy, defense policy, monetary policy, trade policy, security policy, immigration policy, health policy, and public investment (in innovation for instance). And the majorities generally have only a minor influence on fiscal policy, welfare policy, pension policy, labor law, and public education.

As obvious examples, it is enough to look at the completely undemocratic way the burning issues of the day are being handled by governing elites around the world; those issues which affect the lives of billions of people; e.g. policies related to climate change, mass immigration, health pandemics, and of course… international relations.

[1] Michels R., Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy, Part One, chap II.