Date: Fri, 3 Mar 1995 21:38:34 -0800 (PST)
From: Scott London <london@rain.org>
Subject: DEMOCRACY - THE MYTH, THE REALITY by Wally Wirths

Book Review:
~~~~~~~~~~~~

DEMOCRACY -- THE MYTH, THE REALITY
By Wallace R. Wirths
Sussex, NJ: Media Specialists, 1993, 269 pages


This book is described on its flyleaf as "a provocative primer on
democracy."  Designed as "a reader or supplement in college political
science courses and in advanced high school classes," it provides
a general overview of democracy from its roots in ancient Greece to its
contemporary manifestations in the home, workplace, courts, marketplace,
and governments of modern society.  Wirths devotes a chapter each to
Athenian democracy; natural law and natural rights; the distinction
between a democracy and a republic; the United States as a democratic
republic; the threats to democracy in modern America; "the tyranny of
numbers" -- the search for a balance between majority and minority in a
democracy; the perils of bureaucracy; civil rights and the treatment of
minorities; civil disobedience; lawyers and the courts; crime and
punishment; the free market economy; democracy at the local level; and,
finally, the prerequisites of democracy. 
     Throughout the book, Wirths argues that the concept of democracy as
it is commonly understood is a myth.  Taking up Rousseau's claim that "a
true democracy has never existed and never will exist; for it is against
the natural order of things that the majority should govern the minority,"
he contends that, with the possible exception of ancient Athens, the
cantons of Switzerland, and the early New England villages, "men have
never experienced anything near genuine political democracy.  What we have
had are republics, and they have usually disintegrated into some form of
benign, elective monarchy or oligarchy."  The distinction between a
democracy and a republic is a crucial one, Wirths says, yet one which
"very few of our politicians today seem to understand and which hardly any
of our citizens comprehend."  The framers of the Constitution went to
great lengths to establish the United States as a republic, not as a
democracy -- as a government of laws, not of people.  It is very
significant, Wirths notes, that not only is the term "democracy" not
mentioned anywhere in the U.S. Constitution, but the word does not appear
in the constitutions of any of the fifty states. 
     Social and political realities today further confirm that democracy
is at best an elusive ideal, according to Wirths.  Politics has become the
domain of a professional elite, carried out in Washington, in corporate
committees, in state legislatures, and city halls, often without the
consent -- sometimes without the knowledge -- of the governed.  The family
and workplace are dominated by strict hierarchies, free enterprise is
dominated by stifling bureaucracies, legislation is dominated by lobbyists
and special interests.  In short, while the liberties we do enjoy in our
democratic republic are probably greater than anywhere else in the world,
there is no shortage of threats to true democracy in our lives as social
and political beings.  "The `people' have very little power and certainly
in nearly all cases they don't rule."
     In sum, democracy is "a form of government which has never actually
existed anywhere in the world, doesn't today, and, undoubtedly, never
will!"


                                   Scott London * london@rain.org