The psychological explanation for the success of democracy as a form of government is envy that people feel toward each other—an emotion of discontentment that stems from what the others have or are believed to have. On the one hand, this provocative remark by Bertrand Russell puts in an embarrassing light the usually well-intentioned demands that are forcefully expressed in orations and by the activists to promote democracy in one’s own society and in those of the others. On the other hand, the content and the consequences of the comment are easily misunderstood. For example, the comment of course does not involve opposing democratic societies. Russell himself was in favor of democracy as a theory about society, but remarked that in practical politics no theory is ever sufficiently strong a motive for bringing about significant changes. A theory that is created so as to justify some change always serves to camouflage its real psychological motive.
The expression “democratic” is used in at least two senses, namely either to characterize those methods of making group decisions that allow any two group members to have the same weight in determining the outcome of a decision (sense 1) or to indicate that the members of some community are equal in some definite respect, for example with respect to accessing education or information (sense 2). Elsewhere I have explained that these two senses are conceptually independent of each other. This ambiguity must be borne in mind when discussing envy as a basis of democracy.
Let us begin by considering sense 1. The idea that people possess the political power as soon as a democratic method is applied to make collective decisions serves to explain, at least in part, why people find a democratic form of government appealing. The transition from an autocracy to a democracy can well be motivated by envy. The thought would be that each and every citizen gets his or her share of the decision-making power that used to belong to the autocrat. From the viewpoint of an individual citizen this achievement sounds, however, better than it is in reality: at least in a representative democracy the citizens do not decide what they make decisions about, and, besides, the result of a group decision can, on the one hand, be highly unsatisfactory even for all group members and, on the other hand, it can be satisfactory for the majority of group members without being just or without taking into account for example economic realities.
Not only the transition to a democratic system, but also the internal dynamics of an already democratic society makes use of envy. Because the majority view is decisive in democratic decision-making, the members of a community form coalitions with a view to create optimal conditions for securing concrete advantages. The advantages one seeks for are to an important extent determined by comparisons with one’s fellow citizens. Envy leads to equalization attempts: either one wishes to get to oneself what the others have, or else to take out from the others what one fails to have. Obtaining the sought advantages is compatible with the society being as unjust as one can imagine: the fact that the decision-making method is democratic merely guarantees that the majority view has the greatest weight in determining the outcome of the decisions.
The idea of democracy in sense 2 is connected to the demand of equality. In this case, what is meant is not equality in the formal sense that is required in order for a decision-making method to be democratic (every group member has the same weight in forming the decision), but equal opportunity to do something or to have one’s share of something. Envy as a ground for democracy is particularly clearly connected to different sorts of equality pursuits. If a person X has something, say a Z, that a person Y finds worth striving for but could not obtain alone, Y may attempt to utilize group force: it is declared that the community has the duty of ensuring equality with respect to having a Z, so that seemingly thanks to democracy, Y would end up possessing a Z, or alternatively no one would any longer possess a Z. The question of equality is difficult, because it is hard to tell in which respects individuals should be equal in order for the society to be just. For example, no one should be allowed to starve, but it is less obvious that everyone should be able to have a car at their disposal or that equality considerations apply to rights of the individuals but not to their obligations. The idea that all lack of equality is a sign of injustice is naïve and precisely a product of envy.
For the demagogue, the most beneficial strategy is to speak of equality as such, even though in reality it is meaningful to speak merely of equality in this or that respect. Employing a rhetoric taken to extremes, one can in the name of democracy demand that the community must guarantee that all individuals are equal in all respects. This, however, is impossible: people can be mutually equal only with respect to features that can be acquired by means of appropriate actions (a given level of physical or mental performance, for example, is not such a feature) and furthermore, applying the equality requirement unreflectively can be very inappropriate indeed (e.g., the possibility to exercise a profession ought to be relative to certain skills so that not all occupations should be open to just anyone irrespective of preparation). It is perfectly thinkable that in an entirely just society there occurs inequality in some respects. For instance, if the role of an individual in a society and the socially useful efforts that he or she has put into studying and working affect, in some moderate way, the person’s income level, it is by no means clear that this would render the relevant society unjust. Envy arises from experienced differences between oneself and the others, and in the emergence of this emotion reflections on justice play no decisive role. This is why demands for democracy stemming from envy can easily lead too far afield.
When democracy is advocated due to envy, political movements in democratic societies differ from each other according to how they utilize the feeling of envy among the citizens. Within capitalism, trade unions and left-wing parties assume as a premise that someone else—the society—has the obligation to take care of everyone’s well-being. They take themselves to be in a position to impose various demands on the society—demands that often stem from envy toward other groups of workers and toward employers, and whose realizability is typically left for the others to worry about. This sort of reasoning actually presupposes that there is an entity that one can demand to act so as to help remove one’s feeling of envy. One does not even wish to eliminate the contrast between the ruler and the ruled (for example by accepting as a starting point that in a democracy all demands must be subordinate to what is good for the society as a whole), because in that case there would no longer be any external entity to which one could address demands devoid of an implementation plan.
The guideline of the liberal right, again, is improving one’s own situation by refraining from sharing anything with the others. In this case one is being envious because of the real or hypothetical eventuality that society could distribute resources produced by one’s own efforts so as to benefit those not having contributed to the production of these resources.
Populists cherish the idea that decision-making must be brought “closer to the citizen”. Where the established parties take a representative democracy of type 1 as a starting point and woo voters by demanding the introduction of democracy of type 2 in all sorts of respects, populists maintain that democratic group decisions should be made concerning a whole lot of issues some of which may be fairly specific, the decisions being made possibly in groups essentially smaller than an entire nation. The rhetoric about giving the political power to people receives its seeming legitimacy from the suggestion that an increase in democracy of type 1 renders the society more just, justice being reduced merely to acting in accordance with a majority decision. In reality few people are capable even of making wise decisions concerning themselves; how could decisions concerning entire groups be wise just because each and every individual has been allowed to express his or her opinion (and for that matter even without reflecting upon its consequences)? The illusion that by letting a populist party govern a society, an individual citizen has optimal chances of promoting his or her own interests surely serves to alleviate one’s envy—until it becomes evident that at the level of a society the mere expression of one’s opinion is after all not enough, but even the consequences of one’s views must be taken into account and the conditions for realizing them secured.
Envy as a psychological motive of democracy does not invalidate the value of the pursuit for democracy. If the evolution will not even in the future succeed in eliminating the disposition toward envy in man, then democracy will simply be the form of government that best serves the (envy-prone) nature of human beings, though in that case there is no reason to expect that it will lead to a just society. If, again, people will become capable of judging factors affecting their happiness without comparing themselves to others and if they will succeed in the future to execute group decisions that exemplify social justice and take into account what is good for the society as a whole, then a democracy functioning under these conditions may well be both theoretically and in practice an ideal form of government.
Bertrand Russell (1930). The Conquest of Happiness (London: George Allen & Unwin), Ch. 6, esp. p. 83.
[This is an English version of my post Kateus demokratian perustana. It appeared originally in Uusi Suomi in August 2016.]