The paradoxes of democracy

Sarabjit Arjan Singh
Former Member, Central Administrative Tribunal

What is not discussed about the likely outcome of 2019 General Election is that democracy has paradoxes that have a far-reaching impact on electoral outcomes. Paradoxes arise because human beings are contextual creatures and make voting decisions based on the circumstances and the thinking of the people around them rather than reason. 

They vote into power candidates who make promises which all know will not be kept. Logical arguments hold no sway. Our Constitution makers believed that the citizens of the new India will accept only reason as their master and smother the first signs of superstition and tyranny, should they appear. 

They set out the duties of citizens: one of which is to develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform. There is a great fall from this ideal and India is finding it difficult to maintain its liberal democracy. Liberal democracy is not simply democracy (ie, rule by the people) but one where a freely elected government also respects individuals and minority rights, the rule of law and independent institutions.

In daily life, we argue to learn and try to avoid antagonistic interactions. Everyone comes with an opinion and participates in a discussion presenting his arguments and listening to the others and move toward an agreement. However, as political polarisation increases, it leads to antagonistic exchanges not only between politicians and political parties but even among all of us. People may be interested in providing arguments for buttressing their views, but neither side is genuinely interested in the arguments of the other. The real aim is to 'score points' with the objective of defeating the other side in a competitive activity. 

Postings on social media are symbols of what the competitiveness of political discourse looks like. The political debate is not about 'arguing to learn' but 'arguing to win.'

This raises the question that whether those who get the mandate to form the government truly represent the will of the people. Marquis de Condorcet, a leading mathematician of the 18th century, questioned the enlightenment idea of the will of the people and showed that democratic voting systems lead to paradoxes: people's choices can add up in mutually contradictory and unresolvable ways. It is well known to chairmen of most committees that the sequence in which items are taken up for discussion can be used to get the desired outcome. 

Political parties understand this too and, therefore, are interested in the sequence that the election commission spells out for holding elections.  The current debate whether the Lok Sabha and state assembly elections should be held together or separately should be seen from this point of view because the outcome of both the Lok Sabha and assembly elections will be different if they are held simultaneously or as they fall due.

In 1950, Kenneth Arrow showed that there is only one sure way around this paradox: dictatorship. In such a scenario, only the vote of the dictator counts. The order of elections no longer matters. This sobering discovery helped Arrow win the 1972 Nobel Prize in economics. It basically revealed that there are limitations to the general idea we have of democracy. If democracies generally avoid the Condorcet paradox, it is because voters normally lie along an ideological spectrum enabling them to give some coherence to their views and mutual consistency. It is interesting that the belief that every voter should be free and independent to vote without being affected by ideology can in times of political uncertainty lead to the system freezing. 

If this was not enough, mathematicians Merrill Flood and Melvin Drescher discovered a conflict between individual and collective decisions. They punctured the neoclassical economic wisdom that individuals acting rationally in their best interest produce the best outcome for all concerned. For example, Indian politicians find it difficult to win elections based on delivering universal benefits. So, they build a web of personal networks kept together by the glue of corruption. They are acting in their best interest, but it leads to corruption and bad governance, which is difficult to change unless the very existence of the political parties is threatened. 

In 1970, Amartya Sen articulated the 'liberal paradox.' Sen blew a hole in the notion of individual rights, articulating that majority rule has always been in conflict with individual rights. A majority can impose its will on the minority, especially on the most basic right that an individual should have veto power over decisions that affect him/her only and no one else. He gave the example of censorship where what book to read or not to read should be the choice of the individual and no one else.

Thus, it is apparent that there are limitations to the general idea of democracy that we have. We have to work the system within these limitations and that's not easy to do, especially with the emergence of strongmen who using the argument that the will of the people undermine individual and minority rights, the rule of law and independent institutions. It is also apparent that the voting outcomes are unable to articulate the true nature of the issues that face society and how institutions should be adapted to meet the challenges. How successful society will be in meeting these challenges will depend, according to Nobel laureate Douglass C North, upon 'how well the minds of the members of society have evolved to confront the adaptability to confront novel problems, and just how novel the problems are. It may be that some of the members of society see the true nature of an issue but are not in a position to alter the institution. It is necessary that those who make the political decisions have such vision; yet it is not self-evident that the polity tends to install such people in the decision-making role.'

The paradox here is that democracies do not progress when short-term rationality of election outcomes holds sway. They make progress, points out sociologist Dipankar Gupta, when they throw up, what he calls, a 'citizen's elite' or 'elite of calling' that is willing to lead the change, even by going against the grain of popular sentiments and demands. They set the agenda that the masses follow taking the country forward on the path of true democracy and progress. Democracy then does not reflect reality as much as it shapes and changes it. India was fortunate to have such a 'citizen elite' at the time of Independence which gave us our present Constitution and the institutions and rights of a liberal democracy which have held up for the last 70 years. To make meaningful progress, India needs a political leadership that has a vision of strengthening democracy and shaping a new reality, which is able to confront problems that the Indian society faces today.