Is Less Democracy Good or Bad?

There's been plenty of criticism of comments made recently by former Director of the OMB Peter Orszag -- "radical as it sounds, we need to counter the gridlock of our political institutions by making them a bit less democratic" -- and Gov. Bev Perdue (D-NC) -- "I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years".

People don't take kindly to less democracy. However, is what they say really wrong in principle? After all, when we call ourselves a "democracy" in informal conversation, we really mean two things.

First, we mean that we have elections. We vote on stuff. We do this in the name of letting people run their own lives (AKA "self-rule", "autonomy"). Nobody likes having an unelected monarch or dictator tell them what to do (just look at current-day Syria or North Korea).

Second, however, we mean that we also buffer and restrict voting in various ways. We don't often vote on legislation ourselves, we vote for representatives (in the House, the Senate, and the White House) who pass or veto legislation. And we have constitutional limits to what kinds of laws can be passed (e.g., no restrictions on freedom of speech or religion), because we know that sometimes a simple majority can behave just like dictators, interfering with people's liberty and autonomy. Technically speaking, we're not a democracy, we're a constitutional republic, a form of government that supports restricted democracy in the name of protecting human rights.

And we restrict democracy in ways even beyond this. Our central banking system, the Federal Reserve, operates with a significant amount of independence from elected government. Many government officials, such as judges and prosecutors, are not elected by voters. And one house of the federal legislature -- the Senate -- doesn't even have proportional representation. The Senate used to be even more buffered, with Senators chosen by state legislatures. This was undone by the 17th Amendment, but there has been talk lately of undoing that. And then, of course, there's the Electoral College, another buffer on the election of our president.

We can debate whether any of these are good or bad restrictions on democracy (though, I tend to like the freedom of speech one). Should we take other matters out of the direct control of voters or representatives, as we do with The Federal Reserve? I don't know, it's arguable. But it's not like any suspension of democracy is obviously wrong and instantly steering us toward dictatorship.

Getting back to what sparked this discussion: Orszag's suggestion isn't radical. Maybe his particular suggestions aren't a good idea, but we already have various government institutions that aren't under the direct control of elections or representatives.

In my opinion, though, Perdue's remarks are far more problematic. We have elected representatives for a reason, and suspending their schedule for election just to avoid gridlock deprives voters of their usual say in the process. If we want to avoid gridlock by having our representatives vote to put something outside the political process (again, as with the Federal Reserve), then let's vote for representatives who will do so.

But giving up on voting for those representatives for two years -- Why two? Why not twelve? -- goes too far.