ISMs Lead to the Destruction of Democracy

There are many ideologies defining a particular form of government. In this context I define government as a predefined set of rules, restrictions and organization that define and control how this “government” entity shall relate to and govern the people embraced by this government. The ideologies are many and the most common have the following names: statism, collectivism, progressivism, socialism, communism, fascism – and democracy. But what about capitalism? Capitalism doesn’t fit here because it defines an economic philosophy rather than a governmental ideology. A governing ideology and an economic preference are separate issues. Consider Communist China and their recent tentative embrace of capitalism.

All the “isms” mentioned above have something in common. They all exist on a common spectrum just as the electromagnetic spectrum has infrared light on the low frequency end and gamma radiation at the high frequency end – all following the same electromagnetic wave rule but with extremes at the poles. The common rule in the “isms” spectrum is government control. The only differences lie in the extent and the use of force to centralize and guarantee government control. Contrast a democratic republic, the USA, to a Communist state, Cuba or China or North Korea. In the USA the government is intended to serve the people. In a communist or “ism” state the people serve the government. These are the spectrum extremes – the poles at each end of the spectrum.

Starting with Teddy Roosevelt and then Woodrow Wilson and then Franklin Roosevelt, our democratic republic began to move away from the founding rule that the government serves the people. The progressive ideology argued that an elite group of intelligent people could better govern than a large group of unschooled citizens each pursuing their own untutored ends.  This was nothing new. Plato, Thomas More, Thomas Hobbes, Karl Marx and countless others all defined a Utopia where a “truly benevolent and wise” government gains the trust and following of the citizens and makes all the rules, much to the satisfaction of the citizens. Unfortunately, history still waits for this utopia to arrive.

The fatal flaw here lies in the qualifier “truly benevolent and wise” government. It is applied to a government. But a government is nothing more than a collection of people with a common ideology. And people, broken as we are, tend to drift away from “benevolent and wise” when they assume power. When the government makes the rules as we march along the “ism” spectrum from progressivism to fascism, control becomes more centralized involving fewer and fewer people. Autocracies, oligarchies, central committees assume the power independent of the citizenry who, by definition, live to serve the government. The end result is always a dictatorship as control inevitably narrows to the strongest, most feared, most aggressive individual. History shows us that this dictator has never been Plato’s “Philosopher King” and Utopia remains a foreign land.

Consider the following list - certainly not all inclusive. Where in this list is a shred of democracy? Where in this list is a “truly benevolent and wise” leader? Where in this list is a leader who cedes control to the people? Where in this list is the leader who doesn’t use imprisonment, torture and death – in the millions – to assume absolute power? Where is Plato’s Philosopher King? He’s absent. Unfortunately, human nature, in the absence of control exercised by the majority, is inclined to move up the spectrum of “isms” and ultimately assume dictatorial control at the tip of a gun.

Genghis Khan   Mongolia

Kaiser Wilhelm II  Germany

Karl Marx  Russia

Vladimir Lenin  Russia

Joseph Stalin  USSR

Benito Mussolini  Italy

Adolph Hitler  Germany

Emperor Hirohito  Japan

Hideki Tojo  Japan

Mao Zedong (Mao Tse Tung)  China

Hu Jintao China

Fidel Castro  Cuba

Pol Pot  Cambodia

Ho Chi Mhin  Vietnam

Idi Amin  Uganda

Saddam Hussein  Iraq

Sayyid Ali Khamenei  Iran

Kim Jong-Il  North Korea

Kim Jong-Un   North Korea

Bashar al-Assad  Syria

Robert Mugabe  Zimbabwe

Omar al-Bashir  Sudan

Than Shwe   Burma (Myanmar)

King Abdullah   Saudi Arabia

Isayas Afewerki  Eritrea

Muammar al-Qaddafi  Libya

Sheikh Hasina  Bangladesh