Patriotism is said to be the last refuge of scoundrels. Passionate pleas for democracy are the last refuge of dictators.
North Korea is one of a string of “Democratic People’s” republics that have been brutally repressive dictatorships. Democracy is a much abused word because it has never been defined satisfactorily. Even Abraham Lincoln’s view of democracy as “government of the people for the people by the people” has never actually happened because it is impractical.
People have always followed leaders. That is why the most just, fair and free nations are not governed directly by “the people” as Lincoln claimed, but by representatives elected every few years. In practice this means that leaders lead and “the people” broadly judge them every few years on whether their overall performance was acceptable.
The range and number of issues at elections is usually so huge and people’s voting habits so paralyzed by tradition and fear that representatives often give less weight to the views of “the people” than to the views of some powerful elite. Media barons, journalists, big business, big unions, organized activists and professors from the inner suburban latte set are the kind of elites to which politicians bow and scrape.
Australia’s system of government is arguably one of the most democratic on earth, yet it is not a democracy. It is a constitutional monarchy with an independent judiciary, a representative parliament and Ministers (i.e. servants) of the Crown who are accountable to Parliament.
Australians were first in the world to introduce secret ballots. They are a highly egalitarian nation. Yet the genius of their system is that they have set non-power above power by keeping as their leader a hereditary monarch who holds all authority by little real power except in extreme circumstances.
The monarchy is the only institution Australians trust to hold a few vital reserve powers that are rarely exercised. It allows their monarchy to act as a non-political umpire to ensure that those who do exercise power act within the constitution and its conventions, or face the judgement of electors.
In summary, the problem with the word democracy is that it means all things to all people. The world’s most democratic nation is actually a constitutional monarchy!
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