The late William F. Buckley, one of the founders of the modern conservative movement in America once said: "I'd rather be governed by the first 2000 people of the Boston telephone directory than the faculty of Harvard." He thus placed his greater political faith in ordinary people (the demos) than in the elites. This makes for an interesting consideration. How many people in Canada today would agree with Buckley? Certainly, our recent rejection of a Harvard scholar for prime minister reflected in part an anti-intellectual bias. But he was just one scholar. Had it been the whole faculty of Harvard (or U of T -- McGill is now suspect), how would we have chosen?
In the recent book First Democracy: The Challenge of an Ancient Idea
the author, Paul Woodruff lambastes America's political failings, holding up seven ideals of democracy that ancient Athens exemplified.
1. Freedom from tyranny.
2. Harmony
3. The rule of law.
4. Natural equality
5. Citizen wisdom
6. Reasoning without knowledge
7. Education (paideia)
I highly recommend the book. Woodruff looks more favorably upon parliamentary democracies like Canada than he does upon America. He is a great fan of proportional representations and other political modifications that bring political systems more in line with his 7 ideals.
All these ideals strongly conflict with rule by elites. The very success of Athenian democracy was founded on a rejection of rule by elites, who had become tyrants. Elites come to believe they know better than the common man. (This is the disease that plagues the Liberal house now.)
Woodruff recommends the creation of something like the ancient Greek assembly whereby citizens were chosen at random (like a jury) to debate and vote on issues of governance. I rather like this idea as a replacement for our current senate. This council of 500 founded on IT and social media could re-inject the public spirit into the political process that we need in Canada.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
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