Globally, the intrinsic humanist possibilities of ‘democracy’ have not been allowed to fully develop, and until such time as they do, the threat of an autocratic revival will remain. Liberal democracy is an historically truncated democratic expression of social liberty and is but one of the various democratic outcomes that arose from the European Enlightenment, and will likely remain under pressure from autocracy until the abridgement is healed.
The situation in Guyana is compounded by a history that has overwhelmingly been one of ethnically based autocratic rule. So much so, that as I said in my last article ‘in Guyana anti-democratic voices have got to a stage where they are questioning the entire liberal democratic order, although it is not clear, if not by liberal means, how else, if at all, one is to manage a relatively free society!’
Little priority is given to the development and maintenance of an inclusive democratic regime in Guyana, although for decades a substantial proportion of the population has been accusing the governing Peoples Progressive Party (PPP) of ethnic discrimination. Indeed, after decades of recommending reforms, the important ones of which have not been implemented, the experts who compiled the European Union’s observer report on Guyana’s 2025 national elections concluded that those elections cannot be considered as being free. But instead of focusing on the reforms that are necessary to transform the state into an inclusive one, the PPP and its propagandists have been pulling out all the stops attempting to convince the population that Guyana is already a democracy.
Of course, it has long been recognised that free and fair elections in themselves do not necessarily result in good governance. Governments produced by such elections ‘may be inefficient, corrupt, shortsighted, irresponsible, dominated by special interests, and incapable of adopting policies demanded by the public good!’
Former British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965) claimed that ‘the best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter’. But he also concluded that ‘democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.’ Churchill’s ambivalence about the quality of the democratic process has a long tradition.
In the 4th century, Aristotle observed that man is by nature a social animal as anyone that does not need to live in society is either a beast or a god. For him, all types of governments have their shortcomings, but Aristocracy i.e., the rule of law by those who have the time, education and cultural orientation to rule – some would say a form of autocracy – was a better form than Democracy – ‘direct’ not ‘representative’ democracy as we know it – rule by the largely poor and ill educated multitude.
For those living in the Enlightenment, the pervasiveness of the State was a major concern, so much so that in 1762, Jean-Jacques Rousseau opened his work ‘The Social Contract’ with the assertion that ‘man is born free but is everywhere in chains’ imposed by the State supposedly to maintain order and protect individual rights.
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen adopted in 1789 by the French revolutionaries took up this concern and its first articles insisted that ‘men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinction should only occur when it will contribute to the general good. Liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression are fundamental rights and all sovereignty resides in the nation; no individual or body may exercise authority not derived from it.’
In 1789, the constitution of the United States came into being with a similar commitment to liberalism, wherein the power of government is limited and the freedom and rights of individuals are protected by constitutionally established norms and institutions. In 1795, Immanuel Kant’s ‘categorical imperative’ recommended that we ‘Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.’
Liberalism had arrived but it should be noted that some of the other strands of political thought that developed during this period were more radical. Among others, there were co-operative socialism, anarchism and other forms of what Karl Marx (1818-83) was to label utopian socialism, as opposed to his more scientific, dialectical approach. Of these Marxism is arguably the most radical conceptualisation of freedom and democracy that goes well beyond liberal democracy.
Marx tells us in his Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, that ‘The universality of man appears in practice precisely in the universality which makes all of nature his organic body – both in as much as nature is (a) his direct means to life and (b) the material, object and instrument of his life activities.’ Work/employment is one of the most important social activities and in the interest of brevity, let me paraphrase.
‘Just as the savage must wrestle with nature in order to satisfy his wants, in order to maintain his life and reproduce it, so civilised man has to do it, and he must do it in all forms of society and under all possible modes of production.’ Furthermore, human development leads to the expansions of people’s wants/needs but this grows in tandem with their capacity to satisfy them. Freedom at work/employment ‘consists only of the fact that workers regulate their work rationally by bringing it under their common control and that they accomplish their task with the least expenditure of energy.’
However, unlike other animals, humans do not only produce under pressure of immediate physical needs, ‘Man produces even when he is free from physical needs and only truly produces in freedom therefrom.’ Herein ‘begins the development of human power, which is its own end, the true realm of freedom. The shortening of the working day is its fundamental prerequisite’ (Das Capital. 1909).
It is important to note that Marxism is concerned with the maximisation of human freedom, and this is impossible under capitalism. Maximum freedom in society and at work/employment consists in the entire society being democratised and workers regulating their work rationally by bringing it under their common (democratic) control and accomplishing their tasks with the least expenditure of energy.
