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Economist Brian Easton notes that each of us is in a minority of one, protected by the principles of liberal democracy, but with the danger of backsliding. Protecting this social contract is important

Economist Brian Easton notes that each of us is in a minority of one, protected by the principles of liberal democracy, but with the danger of backsliding. Protecting this social contract is important

This is a re-post of an article originally published on pundit.co.nz. It is here with permission.


While many readers will say ‘the king is certainly not above the law’, not everyone believes that, especially if they are in power.

The term ‘democracy’ is complicated and often used misleadingly. For instance, the ‘German Democratic Republic’ (a.k.a. East Germany), which was a part of the Soviet Empire, had one male in four reporting to the Stasi (secret police).

Allow me to cut through the complexities by suggesting that it is helpful to identify two sorts of democracies: ‘popular democracies' stress the rule of the majority, while ‘liberal democracies' give high priorities to human and civil rights – in effect, they stress the rights of minorities, including the individual. A generous interpretation of the GDR is that it was a popular democracy.

A government has to make coherent and consistent decisions. In effect, that requires a king – someone (or cabal) who is given enormous power. Liberal democracies restrain those powers by submitting the king to lawful constraints.

An example is in US constitution. By way of background, James Stuart (I or VI, depending on where you come from) argued for the divine right of kings, a political doctrine of monarchical absolutism, which asserted that kings derived their authority from God and could not therefore be held accountable for their actions by any earthly authority such as a parliament. They were above the law. In 1649 the English Parliament overruled the claim by executing his son, Charles I. (The English tradition of lawful dissent and rebellion goes back at least to the 1215 Magna Carta whose Article 61 provided for the barons to lawfully challenge the king.)

Such issues troubled the Founding Fathers of the American Constitution ratified 139 years later (so the regicide was closer to them than the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi is to us). In between there had been a long debate. Key was John Locke's Two Treatises of Government, published in 1688/9, which argued that there was a 'social contract' between the populace and the person they designated as king. If the king did not act in their interests, Parliament had the right to replace him. (This was written at the time of the 'Glorious' Revolution, when Parliament dumped James II and called upon Mary and her husband William of Orange to govern them.)

Faced with providing for a powerful king (the President) and yet restraining his (or one day her) powers in the public interest, the US constitution contained a set of intricate checks and balances, including the impeachment process. Certainly the President was to be selected by a majority (as it happens, of a mix of voters and their states) but the minority interests had to be taken into account.

Not all monarchs/presidents accept this compromise. Instead they take it that they, like kings in fairy tales, had unlimited power barely constrained by law. Perhaps Donald Trump had but a superficial understanding of these issues, but Dick Cheney, vice-president to George Bush II, argued the case with coherence and vehemence.

It is instructive that when Al Gore lost to George Bush II and Hillary Clinton lost to Trump (both by smaller margins than the 2020 outcome) they did not throw Trumpian tantrums but accepted that is where due process had taken the outcome. Barack Obama must have had the gravest doubts about Trump – ultimately justified – but he smoothly handed over power to him. (Instructively, he made Airforce One available to the incoming president; Trump did not.)

In the long run, Trump’s reign may be remembered for the degree that the US constitution was robust enough to restrain a king who thought he was above the law. It did hold, but clumsily and sluggishly. The ultimate defence was that more people (and states) voted Trump out but what happened was a close enough to raise whether there needs to be some attention to the improving its robustness.

One step might be to get a wider understanding that a liberal democracy is not about rule by the majority. Rather the majority chooses the ruler who may reflect its values but is is constrained by liberal principles. That is why we do not just need functional literacy – the ability to read advertisements and orders – but an education which includes an understanding of civic rights and responsibilities.

It is not simply about being above the law of the land. Both Putin of Russia and Xi of China were elected for limited terms but changed their laws to eliminate that restraint. Recourse to using a majority in ‘parliament’ to change the law to increase the king’s power is a familiar ploy in popular democracies. As well as China and Russia, the list of popular democracies includes Brazil (Bolsonaro), Hungary (Orban), India (Modi) and Poland (Morawiecki). The signal is when the rights of minorities are compromised or dissent suppressed. Tot these examples up and there are an awful lot of people who live in democracies of the popular rather than liberal kind.

It is easy for those in New Zealand to hunker down in a liberal democracy, although the Trump episode reminds us we cannot isolate ourselves (as, indeed, does our economic dependence upon China).

However, we also need to be careful not to get trapped in a populist framework. It has become more prominent since the October election with a common theme among some commentariat: that since the government has a majority of seats in parliament it is not constrained and may do what it likes. The side-deals Labour did in the previous three years were not necessarily failures of the democratic process but integral to it. (I did not agree with many of the compromises but I am so often in a minority I have learned to live with them.)

It being this time of the year, it is worth pointing out the Article Three of Te Tiriti o Waitangi is a statement that New Zealand was to be a liberal democracy (albeit they had in mind a nineteenth century notion – we progress). Earlier drafts of the treaty actually had the provisions of Article Three in the prologue preceding Articles One and Two as in a social contract.

Because all this is so familiar we can forget the principles of liberal democracy, especially when we are (always temporarily) in the majority. Each of us is in a minority of one, protected by the principles of liberal democracy with the danger – as Trumpian America illustrated – of backsliding. I am grateful that one out of four friends does not have to report me to the Stasi.


Brian Easton, an independent scholar, is an economist, social statistician, public policy analyst and historian. He was the Listener economic columnist from 1978 to 2014. This is a re-post of an article originally published on pundit.co.nz. It is here with permission.

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29 Comments

A short memory regarding hilary accepting the result. She went on a world wide tour complaining about Russian interference which was later proven to be untrue.

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Sure, if you ignore the part where she conceded to Trump when it became clear she had lost, like every other candidate has ever done, aside from Trump when it was his turn.

Which is actually what "accepting the result" means. She didn't rally her supporters to storm the capitol to execute the vice president in an attempt at insurrection, for example.

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So claiming Russian interference is accepting the result? Interesting, thanks for clarifying that

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No, I'm tell you that conceding that she lost to the victor is accepting the result. Because that's what "accepting the result" means.

She didn't deny she lost (unlike Trump who still says he didn't lose). Talking about the reasons for her loss is separate from whether she accepts it or not.

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She still blamed her loss on Russian interference, so she never accepted that it was a fair election. Both undermined the democratic process, so who cares about a technicality.

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You know what also undermines the democratic process? Russian social media farms Cambridge analytica etc etc. She was right in calling them out.

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You know what also undermined the democratic process? Using a private email server for official public comms.
A never-ending stream that has eroded the bedrock of "democracy". Next you'll be saying Epstein killed himself, the security cameras were broken that day and the guards were out to lunch.

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I love it how the probe into her email scandal found no "deliberate" mishandling of emails. How can someone who was Secretary of State not know the difference between handling classified vs non-classified emails?

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You know she wasn't the first - or even the last - to do this, right? And the State Department under Trump concluded it wasn't that big a deal that she did what she did, right?

Last week, Congress received a brief, nine-page report from the State Department, which summarizes the department’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal email account to conduct work business while she was secretary of state. The report can be fairly summarized in two sentences: She shouldn’t have done that. But it wasn’t that big of a deal.

...

In 2016, the State Department’s inspector general also determined that Clinton’s Republican predecessors, Secretaries Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, also received classified information on their personal email accounts.

So Clinton committed the same mistake committed by her predecessors — Powell reportedly advised Clinton to use a personal email account for non-classified communications shortly after Clinton became secretary — and the State Department’s report found no systemic mishandling of information.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/22/20924795/hillary-cli…

And here's the Trumps doing the same thing, having not learned from Clinton:

On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and daughter Ivanka Trump, both advisers to the president, had used either personal email accounts or the messaging application WhatsApp to conduct official business, according to information from the House Oversight Committee. The latter is particularly problematic because messages are encrypted between users, meaning that unless Kushner and Ivanka Trump stored copies of their messages or the recipients turned the messages over to the government, there’s no way to record what was said.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/03/21/their-emails-seven-m…

But hey, you can go on believing that Clinton is the worst politician in the world - if you're happy believing what Trump wants you to believe.

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How is using encrypted emails for official public work not a big deal?? Disclaimer - I despise all career politicians equally

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I can't find anything that suggests Clinton used encrypted emails. In fact the only thing I can find says she *didn't* use encryption when she should have, which was a security vulnerability.

If you're referring to the mention of encryption in my above excerpts, then you need to read more carefully - it was Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump who were using snapchat, which sends messages using encryption (of a style that the snapchat servers are in charge on) and the messages aren't kept, so there's no paper trail of what they were getting up to on snap chat. That's far shadier than anything Clinton did IMO.

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"Proven to be untrue"
Really? By whom?
It is established that Cambridge Analytica took money from Russia to post lots of lies on social media targeted at potential Trump voters.
Putin wanted Trump to win because he is a useful idiot, as Lenin put it.
Of course facts are irrelevant in today's discourse

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The current form of political system in the West will encounter great difficulty in the next decade.

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Every political system is going to encounter great difficulty in the next decade. It's called climate change, resource depletion and overpopulation.

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Well it's not looking good for Trump and his Trumpisiam if all he can do is cling to his very obvious lies, that will eventually sink him (That and throwing his supporters under a bus at the first opportunity).
CNN article: Something went terribly wrong with Trump's defense. https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/31/opinions/trump-legal-team-impeachmen…

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IMO a 3rd party will rise in the US as people want a voice.

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So long as America keeps its current electoral system - which would require a constitutional amendment to change - any 3rd party is doomed to failure, alongside whichever parent party it split from.

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Theoretically and historically interesting, but commerce/capitalism/financialization-of-everything has turned the discriminated-against-minority into a majority the world over, and the notion of a majority-rule (with certain constraints on an executive) in a liberal democracy is, I think, a ruse/a thing of the past. Probably better to read Machiavelli these days, than Locke.

I wonder whether the real question of today is whether (and how) the majority can reassert their rights to achieve social, environmental (and legal) justice going forward?

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I recommend Tim Parks' new translation of the Prince as a very accessible one.

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Putin addressed these concerns when he spoke at the Davos Agenda 2021 online forum.

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Great link - good to read. Very worthwhile sentiments and he presents an objective - tell it like it is - view of the era we are likely entering (e.g., a tumultuous/significant as the 1930s). I like his emphasis on a common European culture/the arts and of course, Russia is/has been central to that throughout history.

Interesting that in the positive examples of collaborative geopolitical efforts/solutions - he twice mentions a forum with the US as one of the collaborators, yet doesn't once mention one in which China was a participant. Most interesting. Plus interesting how he points out the 'one world order' is a failed project - one, that it his opinion never really got 'started'. Good on him in decrying neo-liberalism and the Washington Consensus. Time Washington said something about that as well.

Well, I hope they were all listening and that he is not being duplicitous. I wonder what he'd think about reform in the workings of the UN Security Council?

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Brian stretches the bounds of my credulity here when he labels the GDR as a 'popular democracy'. It wasn't. It was a Stalinist dictatorship with a rule of the jackboot. Hence the 1 in 4 men reporting to the Stasi, their secret police. The use of the term 'democracy' was a sop to the western powers, just as China's use of "People" as in the Peoples Republic of China is to disguise the dictatorship it really is. But otherwise I like the fact what he chooses to discuss what 'Democracy' means.

I suggest Abraham Lincoln's words from his Gettysburg address; "A Government for the people, by the people, of the people" is a pretty good, and succinct definition. And I find it quite ironic that we get to cite an American in this debate, while America is a country which is struggling to deliver something that is so deeply enshrined in their constitution and education.

Brian is being a little naive about us being a liberal democracy as there are interest groups in NZ who think they should have more rights than others, who selectively use the treaty to push their agendas and accuse any who oppose them of racism. Clear the need to resist political pressure to ensure all get heard and we truly are a liberal democracy is on going.

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Corruption is the actual almighty power. Recall seeing a former high powered executive of a Chinese large financial management institute was recently executed for corruption. That might help a bit, hard to say though. You will know Muz how effectively Singapore got it under control, sort of, by the introduction of laws that targeted bribery and complicity there to.

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NZ is in the Neo-Liberal era of democracy. Socialising the potential loss of the few as a new democratisation mandate (JA/Lab is here, always pointing that 'the numbers' to support the policy changes, rather than what is logical, rights etc.) - NZ will always goes with the narratives of avoiding pain, until... for how long?

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The signal is when the rights of minorities are compromised or dissent suppressed. Tot these examples up and there are an awful lot of people who live in democracies of the popular rather than liberal kind.

1/4 Ex-CIA software engineer, Joshua Schulte remains in detention & under Special Administrative Measures, after a jury failed to convict him on espionage related charges for allegedly leaking #Vault7 to WikiLeaks. Julian Assange is expected to be subjected to SAMs if extradited. Link
American Dystopia – The Propaganda Mask and the Utopia Syndrome
If America Dissolves

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Last night I was procrastinating some chores and flicking through YouTube when I came across some informal sort of video interviews with George Bush Jnr and Barack Obama.
Now political leanings aside, and actions both of those former presidents set in motion which were not popular (mainly wars in the Middle East), both of them were excellent to listen to, intelligent and pleasant men. Both still come across as genuinely charismatic and I enjoyed listening to both of them talking about subjects that interested them. It is equally clear that both men have serious respect for each other as well, and remain close personal friends to this day despite their political differences.

Now fair to say my own political leanings are quite right wing, and I actually thought Trump would be brilliant when he was first elected (I was younger and more naive back then). But like most people I have to say I now quite strongly dislike him! Almost any of his speeches or Facebook and Twitter posts in the last year especially are cringeworthy and mainly quite delusional.
No surprise at all that he will not be included in the Former Presidents Club.

I was going to try and relate this to our own government in NZ but it really remains to be seen how Jacinda Ardern handles this term with less distraction, but also less other people to blame problems on.
As you would guess with my previously stated political bias, I don’t agree with Ardern on much at all, but I concede that I don’t see Judith Collins or Simon Bridges as Prime Minister material either.
I think all of NZ really needs National to find more inspiration and talent to cultivate a real contender for Prime Minister. Even if your political views are left leaning, I would argue that we all benefit when the opposition can hold the government to account in a credible manner to ensure that our parliament runs with as much integrity as we could hope for from any of our politicians.

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I agree with your comment and especially your conclusion. My only difference is having had a visceral dislike of Trump since he first appearred on TV.

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Just really glad that Trump is gone. Personally I wouldn't let him have a guided tour of the White House let alone become the President. Total idiot, the Americans got really desperate for change to put him in. It should serve as a warning to the rest of us........Oooops to late.

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"(Instructively, he made Airforce One available to the incoming president; Trump did not.)" - Biden's plan all along was to take the Amtrak to DC for inauguration but at the last minute he changed plans for security reasons and decided to fly. The Biden campaign NEVER requested a plane from the Trump administration. This is the sort of manipulated reporting that has seen the media's credibility plummet over the past 4 years or so.

And don't even get me started on Obama's "peaceful transition of power"!

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