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New Socialist Settlement
by Roger Warren Evans
first published 20 March 2002
III Democracy
Given the three core values,
the principles of democracy follow, as night follows day. With equality, fraternity and
liberty assured, democracy is a consequential value. No free peoples can be denied their
rights of participation in the governance of their own society. For denials of democracy
rank as denials of the core values themselves. It is self-evident that individuals enjoying
those three principal entitlements, are also entitled to full participation in the
governance of their own society.
Citizen participation in every phase of public
life and governance should be encouraged. Within the UK Labour Party, "democracy" has been
concerned principally with taking over the legislature from the "ruling classes", and using
that power to benefit and defend the interests of working people. Democracy, however, is not
limited to the process of electing government bodies. It touches the dispersal of power, and
the maximisation of voluntary citizen participation in all phases of governance.
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This
poses an acute challenge for the UK Left, and for the Labour Party. For the structures
of a class society like England are conventionally elitist, designed to retain power in the
hands of the few, not of the many. The political parties, including Labour, have inherited
constitutional and social positions defined by class, aristocracy and monarchy. Tony Benn,
with his standing critique of the "monarchical" powers of the
Prime Minister's office and the royal prerogative, is hitting the right
target. That is why it has been so easy for the Westminster parties to remain national
elites, content to consolidate their own personal power and position, minimising the
dispersal of substantive power. Indeed, the period since WW2 has seen the most
ruthless centralisation of peace-time power, undermining many of the earlier
institutions of participatory democracy. For Labour, democracy has meant little
more than representative parliamentary democracy. Indeed, that concern has often
seemed to be limited further, to the assertion of full adult voting rights
in parliamentary elections. Labour's primary objective, for
decades, was control of the national economy, or at least its "commanding heights", and
that meant focusing attention upon Westminster. Local government has been seen as a
mere political training-ground for the real battles at Westminster.
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That was understandable, if limited by the perceptions of
history. Primacy was accorded, and is still accorded, to systems of election to the
Westminster legislature. Proportional representation still provokes strong argument, as
does the extension of voting rights to 16 year-olds. The introduction of further elected
representatives into the House of Lords is bitterly contested, because Party theory points
in two directions at once; and the only truly democratic solution (namely, the outright
abolition of the House of Lords) was abandoned in the mid-1980s. Local elective democracy
is neglected, undermined. Direct democracy, by referendum, is suspected, and no new ways have
been found of taking advantage of it. And participatory democracy, in which ordinary citizens
are actively encouraged to assume public responsibilities, on a voluntary basis as part of
their daily lives, simply does not figure in Labour's deliberations.
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These are
therefore bleak times, on the Left, for democracy. Yet the reinterpretation of democracy,
in all its dimensions, and its application to the future of human society, constitutes a key
element of the New Socialist Settlement, demanding great political creativity and new
political insights. For it is by the quality of our democracy that individual interests are
mediated to the wider society and vice versa. The legitimacy of all our governmental
agencies turns upon the democratic process, and it is therefore fundamental to the civic
order of our society. And it is in common perceptions of democracy, shared across
international boundaries, it is also the key framework of any imaginable new world order. For
socialists, the three core values will never be sufficient: they must be mediated collectively,
by credible forms of democracy in every phase of our political life.
- I >>>
Foundation Values
II >>
Individual Freedom
III >
Democracy
IV >
Public Primacy
V >>
Eternal Vigilance
What do you think? Drop me a line.
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