“The untested assumption required us to suppose that such an electorate, or at least a majority of its members, would be capable of exercising the discrimination, the self-restraint, and where necessary the self-denial, that characterized previous successful examples of democracy. One of Athens’ ten thousand citizens, after discussions with his peers, might plausibly be able … to resist the blandishments of some demagogue who was trying to persuade the voters that he could make silk purses out of sows’ ears. A property-owner in early 19th-century England or America was certainly no easy mark for such a proposition. But in America, as the 20th century nears its end, we are relying for similar skepticism and restraint on a potential electorate of at least 140 million voters, ranging in age from 18 to senility, large numbers of whom have no identifiable vested interest whatever in the prevailing social system (quite the contrary), and many of whom are functional illiterates as well. There is nothing wrong with the heart of a society that takes such a gamble; we may even borrow Herbert Hoover’s description of Prohibition and call it “an experiment noble in purpose.” But it is nonetheless an experiment, and there is no blinking at the mounting evidence that the experiment isn’t going very well—either here, or in the Western European democracies that have tried it too.”
Source: The Making of the New Majority Party (1975)
Keywords: governance,social-change,public-discourse
