Frank's Musings

Is there a disconnect between the ideals of democracy and equity?  We are caught in our democratic system of government in the anomaly that majority rule doesn’t mean that everyone will agree with the foundation of each other’s conclusions.

FDR accused the Hoover administration of ignoring that recovery from the Depression had to start with rebuilding the liquidity of America’s consumer economy.  Just as his New Deal program would revive the economy by making available the liquidity needed by the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid, the Democratic candidates in the 2024 election are proposing to restore confidence in the political ideals of America’s government.

We can all be committed to the benefits of equality before the law and still disparage each others' value systems. Kamala Harris famously claims that her values haven’t changed despite some changes in her policy goals.  However, we may not all be able to make that distinction. Similarly, we may not all agree that life is worth living when the only people who reap rewards from our actions are others or persons unrelated to us. How real is the satisfaction that is felt by a do-gooder who won’t be alive to enjoy the fruits of his or her labor?

Of course, most systems of faith advocate a continuum that transcends the relatively brief human lifespan.  In addition, the Rawlsian Theory of Justice proposes a rationale for far-sighted selection of one’s actions that does not depend on faith. But as Nicholas Kristof points out in the 9/1/2024 NYT, whatever the reason for one’s value system, all persons deserve respect in a true democracy and not dismissal as deplorable.

Some of us proudly display our ability to subsume personal advantage in the general welfare owing to luckily having achieved higher education. But that academic training should also have taught us that democratic self-government doesn’t allow discriminatorily weighting individuals’ influence based on the luck of the draw. Democracy also prescribes that the majority rules if everyone can be equally exposed to respectful presentation of unbiased information. When that condition is distorted, however, the democratic model can easily lead to tyranny.

Forgetting the man at the bottom of the economic and social pyramid in a formally democratic system of government leaves him open to exploitation by a demagogic manipulator of majority rule.  That can corrupt its structure and achieve the opposite of the general welfare.