Democracy and Violence

Did the ballot give ordinary people power, or did ordinary people have to possess power before they could have the ballot?

This is a fundamental question that must be answered. Democracy does not fall from the sky, nor can it be deemed achieved simply because certain formal requirements have been met. Even the same institutions and systems can evolve into something different from one era to the next. Democracy is not a favor bestowed by some benevolent authority; the mere existence of ballots does not make a polity democratic; nor can any system, once established, remain unchanged for all time.

Here is my conclusion: broad-based democracy capable of being put into practice can arise only in a country that, under the pressure of total war, requires a system of mass mobilization. This is not to say that mass mobilization necessarily produces democracy, but that genuinely democratic countries necessarily emerge under such pressure. Conversely, once that pressure disappears, public power will gradually be captured by an ever smaller elite—even if the political system remains formally unchanged—until one kind of entrenched oligarchy or another takes shape.

This brings us back to the opening question: “Did the ballot give ordinary people power, or did ordinary people have to possess power before they could have the ballot?”

The answer is obvious: ordinary people had to possess power before they could have the ballot. The ballot merely confirms power they already hold; it is a way of incorporating popular power into the governing system. When ordinary people gradually lose that power, a ballot—even if they still have one—is no more than a bad check. After all, you cannot withdraw money from an empty account.

Popular power has many sources, but the decisive one is whether ordinary people have broad access to organized violence. In fact, every wave of democratization in history has been connected to the world wars. Industrialization and the unprecedented intensity of international rivalry gave systems of mass mobilization an overwhelming advantage over small, elite standing armies. Military organizations at every level had to involve large numbers of ordinary people; in effect, control over organized violence was devolved. To mobilize an army, the state had to grant commensurate power. The ballot was bought with the blood tax paid by ordinary people. In practice, it marked recognition of their power. Where, then, did that power truly manifest itself? Not in the ballot, but in the mass mutinies of the First World War, the systems of total mobilization during the Second, and the remnants of those systems in the early and middle years of the Cold War.

Seen from this perspective, one can also draw an analogy between the imperial examination system and aristocratic elections. The Ming gentry, who possessed access to the examinations, and the British gentry, who possessed the franchise, can be regarded as similar in this respect. There is no essential difference between using local influence to monopolize the imperial examinations and using it to monopolize votes. One might even say that the examinations and elections mattered precisely because they could be controlled through local influence: their true purpose was never to test knowledge of the Four Books and Five Classics, but to incorporate into the governing system those local power holders who actually commanded authority. Nor did this mechanism exclude exceptionally capable individuals of humble birth from serving as supplementary recruits.

Unfortunately, unless external pressure arises, public power will always tend spontaneously to concentrate in the hands of a small elite. Nor will just any war create the requisite pressure. In an age when a small, elite standing army can crush an army of commoners, democracy is impossible, and war will only make ordinary people’s lives more miserable. The transition of Rome from republic to empire illustrates the point: it was precisely an era in which citizen levies were being replaced by mercenaries and elite standing armies.

To sum up, form matters, but genuine democracy does not reside in form, because form merely confirms power that already exists. What matters is whether ordinary people truly recognize—and take hold of—the power to overturn heaven and earth. “Bear the disgrace of the state, and be lord of the altars of soil and grain; bear the misfortune of the state, and be king of all under heaven.”

Translation Notes

• “门阀” is rendered as “entrenched oligarchy.” Historically the word refers to hereditary great clans; here it is used more broadly for elite groups that monopolize public power.
• “血税” is translated literally as “blood tax,” an established term for military service and the lives exacted by war.
• “科举权” is interpreted as effective access to and influence over the imperial examination system, rather than a formally defined individual “right.”
• “寒门” literally means a family of modest status outside the great clans. “Individuals of humble birth” preserves the social contrast without importing the modern meaning of poverty alone.
• The closing lines quote chapter 78 of the Tao Te Ching. “The altars of soil and grain” preserves the classical metonym for the state, while “all under heaven” preserves the scope of “天下.”