Prof. Gary Gutting went down to the Piraeus to talk to Socrates about the presidential election coming up in November...
SOCRATES: I’m against it.
GUTTING: I see what you mean. It’s going to be nasty, brutish, and long — not to say immensely expensive — but of course if we want a democracy, there’s no alternative.
S: I disagree. You shouldn’t hold the election at all. You should flip a coin instead.
G: You don’t see any difference between Obama and Romney?
S: Oh, I do. I’m very impressed with Obama, no question. He’s intelligent, courageous, self-controlled and has a good sense of justice. Just the sort of person I had in mind for my philosopher-rulers. But none of that’s going to make a difference to the American voters. The election’s likely to be close, and in any case the outcome will turn on the October unemployment report, the price of gas, an Israeli attack on Iran, who has the most money for attack ads in the last two weeks or some other rationally irrelevant factor that you don’t yet have any hint about.
G: But surely you’d prefer to let Obama make his case to the American people rather than let blind chance decide the outcome?
S: I think letting the American people decide is no different from leaving it to chance. The vast majority of you don’t know enough about the issues or the candidates to make anything like a reliable decision. (It was the same in Athens in my day.) Take the economic issues all your commentators say will be decisive. I think Paul Krugman makes a decisive case that, for all its flaws, Obama’s approach to the economy is likely to be far more effective than anything Romney and Ryan have in mind. But there are prominent economists who reject Krugman’s argument. If Krugman’s right, you can’t trust the experts who disagree with him. So why should you trust the judgment of the non-experts whose votes will decide the election?
G: Well, aren’t we voters at least pretty good judges of character and competence?
S: I see nothing in the history of your elections to suggest anything of the sort. Is there any reason to think that over, say, the last 50 years, you’ve elected the “better man” at least half the time?
G: You may be right about this or any other particular election. But it would be crazy to give up the general idea of having elections. At a minimum, the people can tell if a government is grossly incompetent, deeply corrupt or even imposing tyranny. The fact that we have elections that can “throw the rascals out” is our only defense against the worst sorts of government.
S: You may have a point there. I always said tyranny is the one form of government worse than democracy. Let me modify my proposal. Once the parties have chosen their candidates — maybe through some tobacco-free version of the old smoke-filled room — you should immediately have a national referendum on whether to have an election. If things are appallingly bad, people will vote to have one. Otherwise, I’m sure they’ll choose to save money and aggravation, and flip the coin.
G: I’m not so sure. People are used to elections and, for all their complaining, they like the sense that they’re making big decisions — and they find the presidential horse race entertaining.
S: Well, of course, I realize that what I’m proposing goes against present inclinations and prejudices, and it might take some time for people to learn that elections aren’t usually worth the trouble. As you know, I’ve always had a utopian streak. But, details of implementation aside, the point is that what I’m proposing illustrates the only real value of democracy. It’s the best way to avoid tyranny, but it’s not a good way (no better than chance) of choosing policies and leaders. We Greeks, you know, did all right choosing leaders by lot.
G: But don’t presidential elections serve other purposes? Even if we could get just as good leaders and policies from a coin flip, doesn’t the extended discussion and debate of an election produce better formulations of the issues and of the opposing policies for dealing with them?
S: Just the opposite. Under your system, public policy debates are almost entirely political in the worst sense. Politicians are concerned only with making cheap rhetorical points that will arouse popular passions (remember “socialism” and “death panels” from the health care debate). Once you remove the need to gear policies to popular ignorance and fears, politicians will have to propose policies that they can successfully defend in debates among themselves.
G: So you trust the politicians more than you trust the people?
S: Yes, I do. For all their failings, most politicians are reasonably sincere, honest, and much more intelligent and educated on the issues than their constituents. Very few of them come up to the standards I set, but once freed from the necessity of courting uninformed public opinion, most of them could do a creditable job of making decisions in the public interest. And remember, without elections, politicians would no longer need the vast amount of money that gives big donors so much influence.
G: O.K., maybe you’re on to something. But — who’s going to flip the coin?
S: Hmm, I hadn’t thought about that. I suppose the Chief Justice of the United States.
G: Ah ha! There’s the fatal flaw!
From NYT's
The Stone, featuring the writing of contemporary philosophers "on issues both timely and timeless."
In a commencement speech he delivered at the Naval War College last February, Rear Adm. John F. Kirby said military members need to do a better job communicating with, understanding, and relating to the society we serve:
