Chesterton on Democracy

"The Council of Ministers could have been forced to resign. Frank Walker could have had his knuckles sharply wrapped. But, hey, this is Jerseyland, folks, so a lot of talk, but nothing happened. No change." - BBC Radio Jersey Presenter, Thursday morning, 7.10 am.

With the recent vote in the States, Voice for Children said: "It has been a very sad day in our political history. I will re produce below an e-mail I sent to my 3 'representatives' where I asked them how many Parishioners they had been in touch with before making this HISTORIC vote for them and how I would like them to vote. Are we really, as the establishment and local media would have us believe, living in a true democracy?"

http://voiceforchildren.blogspot.com/2008/07/representing-public.html

But what is a democracy, and how does a "representative democracy" work?

This letter was written by G.K. Chesterton nearly a hundred years ago, and he was debating with another correspondent on what representative democracy actually means and whether it existed in the government of his day. Reading it, I was struck by how much it could equally apply to Jersey!

1) I say a democracy means a State where the citizens first desire something and then get it. That is surely simple.

(2) I say that where this is deflected by the disadvantage of representation, it means that the citizens desire a thing and tell the representatives to get it. I trust I make myself clear.

(3) The representatives, in order to get it at all, must have some control over detail; but the design must come from popular desire. Have we got that down?

(4) You, I understand, hold that English M. P.s today do thus obey the public in design, varying only in detail. That is a quite clear contention.

(5) I say they don't. Tell me if I am getting too abstruse.

(6) I say our representatives accept designs and desires almost entirely from the Cabinet class above them; and practically not at all from the constituents below them. I say the people does not wield a Parliament which
wields a Cabinet. I say the Cabinet bullies a timid Parliament which bullies a bewildered people. Is that plain?

7) If you ask why the people endure and play this game, I say they play it as they would play the official games of any despotism or aristocracy. The average Englishman puts his cross on a ballot-paper as he takes off his hat to the King--and would take it off if there were no ballot-papers. There is no democracy in the business. Is that definite?