YOU CAN GET THERE FROM HERE
Responses to some Questions on Authentic Democracy
A friend who read Authentic Democracy over the summer emailed me some questions about it in advance of a walk we would be taking. As the questions were good ones, and might be questions other readers might ask, I decided to answer them in writing before we talked and post them here for reference and, if it moves you, further response.
1. “What if other theorists are not teleological in their approach? I’m thinking of people like Nozick and Sartre. I don’t think they would allow your initial point of departure. Your emphasis on people and their interests, although (to me) close to intuitively axiomatic, would be rejected by them in favour of a 'principled' libertarianism.”
In Authentic Democracy I argue for what I call a “political teleology” inherent to all legitimate politics. In other words the idea that all legitimate politics is made to fulfil a particular purpose, and that it is the idea of a political structure/system being the only, or best, way of fulfilling that underlying purpose which justifies its existence over human autonomy. We therefore start discussing politics intrinsically caught up in a commitment to purpose and goals. The question, if I am to understand it correctly, is asking how someone might read this argument if they do not hold that there is any such purpose (in the case of Sartre, not only to politics, but to anything).
I believe the question is making the mistake of assuming that the teleology I am speaking of is an objective and inherent purpose to human endeavour, which is not quite what I am saying. Although I construct a plausible account of what might be considered to be universal species facts which lead to universal species interests as humans qua humans, I am doing so in the context of something larger: the existence of politics. It is politics I am making the essentialist claim about - politics is necessarily teleological precisely because it is artificial. Both Sartre and Nozick would agree to the idea of humanity’s innate freedom - a core idea in each of their philosophies - and such freedom is at odds with the idea of the externally imposed authority of any government. My argument is that for any such synthetic politics to be erected over previously unfettered human life, we can only do so legitimately, without violating that human freedom, with the acknowledgement of some sort of necessary teleological argument: that we agree to submission to such authorities only in order to achieve a goal of some sort. In my argument the goal is loosely identified as to make life better for people. That goal implies therefore a conception of what “better” might be, which suggests not a purpose for humanity, but interests which humans share that I argue can be extrapolated from the facts of their existence. The word interest is used precisely because that is all it is, and at any point one might choose for another interest to be prioritised, sacrificing one interest for another. I am not suggesting an innate purpose to human life at all, just things which seem, all things being equal, to be in our interests to do/have in order for us to carry on our existence in whatever way we might choose. Ensuring these interests can be fulfilled, once we analyse the inherent teleology of legitimate politics, therefore become the only legitimate justificatory purpose of politics. Nozick and Sartre and others like them are free to opt out of politics if they like, but it is worth noting that the authentic democracy of anarchism allows them to do that far more easily and meaningfully than the inauthentic democracies we currently have.
To reference anarchist ethicist Benjamin Franks briefly - we might think instead of teleologies rather than one singular teleology. The species interests I identify are a combination, with no one interest taking priority over others and no individual human taking priority over the whole of humanity. We have many goals we may desire to make our lives about, and that begets goals of what must be protected or facilitated to make that possible for all. But none of this requires belief in an essentialist teleology. The only element of the argument which does is the concept of political teleology, but this comes with the caveat that politics itself is a synthetic construct we can always choose not to have. If we do not have formal politics, we have a form of anarchism anyway. With it, I maintain that without politics being goal-based, and the goal being something all actors operating within the political system are able to assent to, a political structure would be illegitimate. Neither Nozick or Sartre have to endorse essentialist teleology to accept the authentic democracy of anarchism; they merely have to accept – which each already do – that we can choose to pursue a particular goal or set of goals if we wish to. My book merely demonstrates that when we are talking synthetic politics we are already accepting that a necessary goal – of making life better for people than they would be without it – is presupposed.
2. Another issue is your reference to autonomous agents. (Did you deliberately refer to Robert Paul Wolff only sparingly?!). On this, I am a sceptic in the extreme, and somewhat Platonic. I think very, very few people are ever autonomous. You even give reasons why they are not, in your discussion of ideology and capitalism. Our society vaccinates against autonomy from childhood on, with daily top-up doses. For me, Susan Wolf supplies a really plausible account of autonomy (in Freedom Within Reason), and it’s a pretty strenuous affair. So I’m afraid I would favour an epistocracy over democratic systems, for that reason alone. I know, not a popular position!
This one is a toughie, and I am somewhat sympathetic to what it is saying (from a certain perspective) even if I also deeply disagree. Mainly because I think a conflation is taking place. To acknowledge that the best efforts of those currently in power are going towards dulling and deadening our autonomy is not to deny the autonomy is there. Without the existence of such autonomy there would be nothing for the State to work so hard to squash and subvert in us, nor explanation of the precious few who resist and say no. I agree that today the vast majority of us are massively infected by ideas which corrupt our autonomy by design - ideology, advertising, propaganda, etc. We have been made to make choices we feel are our own but are completely manipulated, and yes, that is a part of the human condition - we are always open to such manipulation. However, rather than seeing that therefore as an obstacle to progress and change, I feel it is something which ought to compel us to be more aware of such ideological control and more resistant to it as part of the development which would bring us to anarchism. It is important to remember that while I argue in the book that anarchism is what we ought to have, I do not make the case that by simply taking away the laws today and giving us anarchy we would have the authentic democracy the book describes. Much work needs to be done across all areas of society - generations of work, from schooling to the economy and everything in between. (This will link to your final question too). Resisting and re-programming ourselves after a lifetime of ideological onslaught is no small job, but accepting that we are victims of such manipulation is an insufficient reason to refuse to combat it. Consider the Black Lives Matter movement and dialogue around structural racism and white supremacy. Your approach to anarchism here is similar to someone reading the BLM analysis, accepting that we are socialised into certain racial stereotypes which are damaging, and just shrugging their shoulders and saying I guess racism is insurmountable then. Acknowledging the problem requires us to then dismantle it and is no excuse for inaction and fatalism.
We have never yet had a society which encourages and nurtures our autonomy. Instead we are taught to rely on hierarchies and authorities, leaders and people “in charge” from the earliest age. Our entire narrative on this never evolves from that of a parent demanding compliance from a pre-verbal child: do it because you are told. Imagine if, instead, we raise children based on them complying with things because they choose to, because they understand the choices and are free to do otherwise (and face the consequences of those choices - not of coercive punishments, but genuine dangers…and if there are no negative consequences, they learn that sometimes there are multiple right answers to a question and a pluralism of compatible life choices). If schools did not use coercion, if jobs were worth doing, how might education and work have to be reimagined? And how much better might both be? To be autonomous is not to only do enjoyable things all the time, but to choose to do something difficult or unpleasant because we recognise the need for it. (The classic example being hours of difficult labour spent in the garden to make it beautiful). We do not have a society designed to encourage such thinking at all. We only have one which tries to keep us docile, compliant, exploited and looking for leaders. Until we do, we can’t really assume it to be impossible.
Which brings me to epistocracy and Plato. While people are certainly experiencing only a stunted autonomy these days because of the many vaccinations against it imposed daily by the state and its beneficiaries, this is its own further argument against epistocracy and for authentic democracy. While in a state of authentic democracy we would be creating the conditions ripe for the autonomy the current order is suffocating, the suffocation of such autonomy today makes anyone’s alleged “expertise” in politics and governance within such conditions, and suitability for epistocracy, deeply suspect. I have not seen a viable system of epistocracy which doesn’t assume far too much about what is/isn’t important when voting and therefore selecting highly contestable epistemic domains which cannot be fairly adjudicated within a compromised system of ideology and propaganda. For example - let’s say you need economic knowledge to vote responsibly. Well what counts as economic knowledge - that which replicates and perpetuates current economic dogma, or that which might be far better but would be laughed out of any “respectable” school of economics as being utopian? When we consider the conservatism at the heart of so many intellectual canons and the social structures in place which ensure success and praise for comfortable ideas within out current set-up, I have little faith in any expert class to have the genuine, authentic, species-interests of populations in mind when they cast their privileged votes. Plato is a fairytale, based on a specific concept of knowledge necessary to bring the epistemic certainty which makes it work. If the philosopher king or queen has genuine knowledge of what is good then of course they could be trusted to vote for the good of all…but there is no evidence that knowledge is either like that, or obtainable, when it comes to knowledge of what is best for people. Such knowledge, to me, seems quite plausibly to require consultation with andby the people themselves. Although sometimes the people do not currently know their own best interests because of the bombardment of ideological manipulation, supporting epistocracy doesn’t make that any better and gives us no guarantee of the alleged expertise of those allowed the ballot. An authentic democracy would also be an epistocracy, albeit a universal one, as it would ensure the people, choosing for themselves, have the genuine knowledge of themselves denied to them under current conditions which enable them to make informed decisions. Authentic Democracy means epistocracy for all. We can all be philosopher kings and queens.
3. Lastly, but relatedly... In Ireland, when you ask directions, people famously say “you can’t get there from here”, and then direct you to where you can get there from! It’s an expression we use a lot at home, because sometimes it’s just true! So how do you get to an authentic democracy from here? This is discussed in The Republic, and leads to the golden lie, etc. In fact, some of Plato's best imagery. Aren’t we reasoning with an uncooperative drunk, and asking him to volunteer to dry out, sober up and get educated!
We are arguing with an uncooperative drunk, but we are not simply asking them to volunteer to dry out, sober up and get educated; anarchists are showing them in our daily lives what being dry, sober and educated could look like in the hope that we do not have to ask them to volunteer, rather they volunteer it freely themselves. And we are aware that this process might take a long, long time, but believe it remains the only legitimate approach to seeking real change. Forcing the drunk to go cold turkey simply isn’t what authentic democracy looks like.
The key idea in anarchist thought here is prefiguration. It is how we can get there from here even if it doesn’t currently look that way. There are a lot of obstacles - the ideological ones above being a key obstacle, the power of the state and threat of armed repression, etc. - and as I have repeatedly said, it will be the work of generations to undo it. I will never see an authentic democracy in my lifetime. But what I can do - what we can all do right now - is get us closer and closer each day. The idea of prefiguration means that anarchists tend to show, not tell, and operate on the principles of what anarchism is advocating within oppression before we live in an anarchy. Part of that, therefore, means notformally blueprinting how exactly we get to there from here, or even in too much detail what there looks like, because that would be authoritarian and hierarchical. If societies worked to build the sort of world DaN McKee outlined in his book, they would not be anarchies, they would be DaNarchies. They would be a cult. To leave room for the spontaneity and creative thinking anarchism requires, we have to leave gaps and space for people to work things out for themselves. We have to prefigure that trust in others and ability to self-govern anarchism implies by trusting them nowto self-govern then. Looking for a detailed map of the future in anarchism is not a consistent approach. However, prefiguration also means finding the cracks where anarchist ideas can already be demonstrated. So, for example, in the numerous mutual aid groups which were set up throughout the Covid lockdowns to bring food and medicines to people - non-hierarchical and self-directed groups working for a common purpose without instruction or leadership. It could be the teacher sharing authority with their students in a classroom somewhere instead of imposing it; a minor rebellion in a workplace, refusing unnecessary toil and making daily labour more bearable; demonstrating, as is being done currently across America, alternatives to policing for dealing with issues of public safety, etc. Anarchists experiment and anarchists do. The spirit of anarchism is to show that another world is possible while working to dismantle the blinkers imposed by the current one, and this spirit’s strength and cause for inspiration is also what may cause frustration for those seeking a quick fix - it would not be an authentic democracy, an anarchy, to be turned into one at gunpoint, or coerced through manipulative propaganda such as Plato’s noble lie. Anarchists are left merely with propaganda by the deed - living in prefigurative praxis, showing that alternatives are possible, showing that they are better, and creating the conditions where more people might choose to join them in their experiments.
On the one hand this means we could have an authentic democracy tomorrow - the population could all suddenly become convinced, choose to live another way, ignore the laws that exist, speak to each other in small communities about how to best meet their needs and ensure the needs of everyone are met and just do it, but on the other, and in practice, to get to that point will take many generations, fighting against many structural apparatus attempting to silence and subvert us all the way, to even get close to such an organic uprising occurring. However, why my argument is an explicitly ethical one is because I believe the difficulty and improbability of us doing the right thing doesn’t make it any less right that we ought to do it. It was hard for me to give up meat and become a vegetarian, but the difficulty didn’t make continuing to eat meat any less wrong. The question becomes not how do we get from here to there, but how do we continue to put up with here when it is so self-evidently causing so much avoidable harm?
The more we ask that question, the more the distance between here and there shrinks and a path begins to emerge.