Democratic Conversation

“Do you know what’s killing Western democracy, George? Greed. And constipation—moral, political, ascetic. I hate America very deeply. The economic oppression of the masses—institutionalized. Even Lenin couldn’t foresee the extent of that.”

– “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” by John Le Carré

The quoted speaker is Bill Hayden, the fictitious “mole” inside the Circus—England’s secret intelligence agency, the equivalent of America’s CIA, so-called because its offices were in a building at a London traffic circle—the subject of Le Carré’s espionage thriller of 1974. Hayden turned to the East because of such observations, and thus embraced Communism’s wider view of an individual’s life under government control. Whatever can be said about communism’s history (which is a lot), it’s the Western view from a communist sympathizer that most interests me here.

While communism on the Soviet-Superpower level no longer exists, the traitor Bill Hayden’s assessment of Western democracy’s shortcomings yet rings true. Long after, and ever more trenchant perhaps, than even what Western life failed to offer back in the Cold War 1970s. Not for the first time in literary history has a character’s words been so prescient.

Given the diddled presidential elections of 2000 & 2004, I would include “voting” along with that assessment (and, by literary proxy, prophesy?) of oppressions that Americans suffer today. For the moment, though, let’s stay with that observation, “what’s killing Western democracy.”

Western democracy is, arguably, far from dead. But it is being killed, slowly, both from the outside—as we see today in the amount of insurrection and terrorism that democratic countries battle—and from within. The within, I would argue, is the less obvious but far more serious.

So: Greed. Constipation.

These are strong condemnations of any government. I think, however, what the character Bill Hayden was excoriating is not merely democratic government but the people living under those systems. (Naturally, as fiction goes, the characters do not digress into political philosophy for long, and the author moves the story forward fairly quickly, so we never learn what Hayden’s full meanings are.)

The greed that is “killing” Western Democracy, I suggest, comes from citizens more than from the government. Today, especially, Western democracies are rich in every sense of the word. People have found life a pleasure simply to live, to have that job, children, a house, car, a pension or fat’n’happy 401k, entertainment, even “pleasurable” art. What people in Western democracy do very little of, however, is think about how they got to that point of fulfillment. That other part of the equation—constipation— comes from the people trusting government (at any level) to keep the people’s interests at the forefront of any policy decision or public-funds spending.

There is an ironic nexus between democratic success and the killing of democracy.

People who live in democracies have earned the ability to reach comfort levels in their personal and professional lives, and to trust in their government, only by their parents, grandparents & great-grandparents active participation in the democratic process: they asked questions of their government, held their representatives accountable, constantly monitored the process, bitched-moaned-scrapped -fought for their rights, and, generally, made government better when it proved skewed towards Big Business, Bad Policy, Crooked Politicians, Criminal Citizens and whatever else may get in the way of life and liberty for the greater majority of those historically unable to gain political capital.

This is the model, in fact, used by every democracy history has seen. And greed and constipation is the model by which every failed democracy killed itself.

The ancient Greek city-states and Rome’s empire got fat and happy through conquest, naturalization, domestication, and the expansion of the middle classes. Both those early democracies killed themselves when the citizens went to sleep and allowed their governments to fill up with crooked representatives, self-interested landowners & businesses, hegemony and righteousness. Be assured, there is little difference between then and now…only nomenclature and mechanization have been altered.

Down the street on history’s political spectrum, England, under the powerful interests and determined work of its citizens, took over the direction of their government through the imposition of the Magna Carta on the Crown, bringing about a new system of government that bettered the lives for millions of people over the following centuries. Likewise, Colonial America, under the powerful interests and determined work of its citizens, took over the direction of their government by overthrowing tyrants and establishing representative government that bettered the lives for millions of people over the following centuries.

Today…well, just look around. Yes, there are segments of the population who actively watch their government, fight for their rights, and perform other duties required of an enlightened democratic populous. Far, far greater, however, are those comfortable citizens who wallow away their happy lives, having given control of laws, freedoms and the purse strings to a government filled with self-interested that is increasingly in full co-operation with Big Business (Haliburton’s no-bid contract in Iraq; the insurance industry’s choke-hold on Americans’ pocketbook), foreign interests (Democracies from France to Germany to Britain and the US play whores to Middle East tyrants simply to keep the spigots open for gluttonous consumption). These combinations will bring the sum of “killing” modern Western democracy as sure as those factors that ended ancient Greek and Roman democracy.

The final element in this quickening death (at least as America’s future may find itself) is the fictional Bill Hayden’s insight, the institutionalized economic oppression of the American masses. In lieu of a long explanation that even politically savvy economists (of which I am not) have a difficult time condensing, I would like simply to offer evidence, in the form of a list.

• Insurance companies today are some of the richest companies in history (they don’t get that way by paying claims)
• Medical costs, by all expert analysis, are ridiculously overpriced and increasingly spiraling out of proportion to middle-class incomes (one doesn’t hear the American Medical Association complaining too loudly)
• Big Business special interests control lawmakers, despite polls showing vast majorities of the electorate demanding cleaner air, fewer guns on urban streets, political leadership to fund alternative fuel/power sources, etc, etc (political lip service to what people want has come to a point where they might as well just tell voters “fuck you”)
• Almost no manufacturing jobs exist anymore in the United States, when just 60 years ago these jobs helped to establish the U.S. as the richest nation on Earth, and build the largest middle class history has seen (replaced today by mostly service- and retail-industry jobs at half the wages once commanded by skilled manufacturing jobs)
• Rising income tax, sales tax, capital-gains tax, users’ fees, consumption fees, versus the loss of real wages over a 30-year period (even college graduates have lost real-income between 2000-2005)

The perfidious nature of the United States government towards its people has become something Washington, Jefferson and Franklin would not recognize; on the other hand, if those Founding Fathers were alive today, they may well turn to the people and say something along the lines of, “What are you waiting for? Why haven’t you jailed all these bastards and designed a new government?”