The limits of democracy

New Zealand faces a general election next month and it has got me thinking about the nature of democracy and the collective wisdom (or lack of it) in the electorate. New Zealand has had nine years of a conservative National Party-led government, which has largely continued the policies of the previous nine-year Labour Party-led government, leaving libertarians like myself with Hobson's choice. This election campaign mirrors the recent UK election in many ways with the National Party sitting on a 20-point lead over Labour but with some signs of that lead being eroded and smaller parties like the left-wing Greens and the nationalist New Zealand First likely to determine who governs.

One of the more hypocritical arguments of the political right-of-centre in recent times has been their impassioned defence of democracy. We saw this with Brexit and Trump - their supporters crowed about the people having spoken, as if a plurality of support (and in Trump's case it wasn't even a plurality) justifies any decision in and of itself. Of course, we have seen a corresponding volte-face on the part of the left-wing, which for years has justified increasing intrusion of the state into every area of our lives on the basis of their democratic mandate, and they are suddenly not so enamoured with a system that produced Brexit and a Trump presidency.

If you want an example of voters making consistently bad decisions you only need look at Venezuela. A relatively free and prosperous country two decades ago, Venezuela is now an economic basket case and its voters have just provided a mandate for President Maduro's decisions to strip the country's parliament of its powers and replace it with a new assembly that is stacked with his supporters. Maduro has said that he has a "prison cell waiting" for his political opponents. Admittedly, you could hardly call recent Venezuelan elections free and fair, with estimates of 70% of the populace opposed to Maduro and his Chavismo Socialists, but Maduro maintains that everything he and predecessor Hugo Chavez have done has been with a democratic mandate.

Democracy can be, to paraphase Winston Churchill, the worst of all systems. It shouldn't be an end in itself but rather it should deliver good government that limits its powers to the functions of defending individual rights. Unfettered democracy is often in conflict with these aims because it enables the majority to sacrifice individual rights in the name of collective good. The only way of preventing this is to limit what governments can do even with a popular mandate, through an entrenched constitution. 

The problem is how do you get an entrenched constitution that protects individual rights in a democratic system? We have seen the risks in New Zealand with the former prime minister, Geoffrey Palmer, proposing a constitution that proposes new rights such as to 'an adequate standard of living' that are the antithesis of real rights. A better example is the Constitution for New Freeland proposed by Lindsay Perigo but even its authors would concede that it has no chance of being adopted by democratic mandate. 

Perhaps the only way to get a genuinely rights-respecting constitution is following a revolution when the vacuum of power allows a fresh approach, such as was the case with the American Revolution. On the other hand, the French demonstrated that even the most noble revolutions do not guarantee good outcomes and the American Constitution has proved to be less of a bulwark against government abuses of power than the founders envisaged.

Maybe Churchill was right with the rest of his saying, that democracy is the worst of all possible systems except all the others and that the best we can expect is that the voters will be sensible with the responsibility they have. I hope that is the case in New Zealand next month.

UPDATE: A few hours is a long time in politics - the Labour Party leader, Andrew Little, has resigned following recent poor poll results. Jacinda Ardern is the new leader.