Biden and the naive conception of democracy

Joe Biden’s speech at Pointe du Hoc (Normandie, France) in celebration of D-Day reflected a naive and widespread understanding of democracy. The general theory goes as follows: democracy is a system in which the voter is in power. He is well informed and votes to express his interest in the public goods the government wants to produce. The politicians and government bureaucrats are selfless public servants who respond faithfully to the demands of the electorate. If I may give Biden a summary: the result is freedom, the rule of law and a government in the service of “the people”; democracy is good; we come together and do great things with great sacrifices.

In reality, to roughly summarize public choice theory, most citizens vote blindly because everyone’s vote has no influence on the outcome of the election or referendum. Many remain apathetic. Politicians and bureaucrats are ordinary, self-interested individuals who occupy the public sector to advance their own interests. If necessary, they will yield to special interest groups. The (classical) liberal believes that democracy is a means to individual freedom, not an end, and that the scope and power of government should be strictly limited to a few essential functions to enhance its ability to exercise a portion of the population limit outdoors.

The naive view confuses freedom with democracy and views collective choices as superior to individual choices. The collective is greater than the individual, and the latter must sacrifice for the former. Democracy is collectivism with a human face. Biden stated (see “Against the backdrop of D-Day, Biden puts democracy at the center of the anti-Trump field,” Wall Street JournalJune 7, 2024; and C-SPAN video of the speech):

American democracy requires the hardest thing of all: believing that we are part of something bigger than ourselves. So democracy begins with each of us… when one person decides that there is something more important than himself… when he decides that his country matters more than himself.

Note in passing how the rhetoric moves from “one person” to the politically correct “them” – ostentatious to avoid saying “him.” Intriguingly, Biden later praises “the brave men who climbed these cliffs.” The real function of replacing singular pronouns with their plural is, I believe, to erase the individual.

Biden confirms that American soldiers have captured Omaha Beach

asking us to care for others in our country more than we care for ourselves… to be part of something bigger than ourselves… to protect freedom in our time, to defend democracy… to be part of something that is bigger than ourselves.

At least freedom is mentioned, but it seems to be just a synonym for democracy, which is the central concept.

A free society is very different. The government leaves each individual free to make whatever sacrifices he wishes, without imposing sacrifices on others, such as conscripts in times of war. The beginning of Milton Friedman Capitalism and freedom (1962) famously said:

In a much-quoted passage in his inaugural address, President Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.” …. Neither half of the statement expresses a relationship between the citizen and his government worthy of the ideals of free people in a free society. The paternalistic ‘what your country can do for you’ means that the government is the patron and the citizen is the neighborhood. …The organism, [sic] “What you can do for your country” implies that the government is the master or the deity, the citizen, the servant or the champion. To the free man, the country is the collection of individuals who compose it, and not something superimposed upon it.

James Buchanan saw stronger relationships between citizens and a government created and limited by a conceptually unanimous social contract. But he emphasized (along with his collaborators Gordon Tullock or Geoffrey Brennan, to name just those) how the entire system was based on the absolute primacy of individual choice. The citizen is not seen as a sacrificial lamb. There are no social or collective purposesprivate purposes only. This Freedom is of course worth defending.

Mr. Biden’s concept of democracy is closer to Spartan democracy, which was all about the power of citizens as a collective, and not about individual freedom. In Pointe du Hoc he preached against the natural instinct “to be selfish, to impose our world on others, to seize power and never to give up.” But isn’t imposing the world of some on others exactly what any form of collectivism means? I suggest there is another way Mr. Biden failed his own test. It is quite clear that within the Democratic Party, many presidential candidates other than an 81-year-old apparatchik would have had much better chances of saving the Republic from Donald Trump. But Biden is selfish and will not give up power.

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