"Democracy is a failure", Italian dictator Benito "Il Duce" Mussolini once boasted, all while bragging about the ruthless efficiency of his fascist government, which finally got the trains in his native Italy to move on time.
Such arguments denouncing "Dysfunctional Democracy" seem to be surfacing again in light of the gridlock stalling needed legislation in the United States–from the party-line votes on stimulus dollars and health care mandates, to the protracted debates over raising the debt ceiling. After the extensive haranguing which dominated Washington this past year over budget cuts, deficits, and the national debt, a chorus of citizen-complainers has decried the inherent dysfunction of the American government.
Yet we should heed the cautious optimism of another voice, whose extensive "bickering" with other renowned statesmen, developed the system of government which stymies legislation, incapacitates compromise, all in the name of providing for the general welfare and securing the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.
"A Republic, if you can keep it," Benjamin Franklin pointedly responded, when pressed as to what the 1787 Constitutional Convention had crafted for the fledging United States, a superior form of government to replace the weak and ineffectual Articles of Confederation.
In terms of promoting efficiency, no system of government could be worse than the American Republic. Yet in terms of protecting the rights of the few against the many, safeguarding the nation against attack, and defending the causes of freedom for all, there is no better system designed then or now.
In spite of–or rather, because of–all that debating back and forth among different parties seeking to advance their own agendas, there is little surprise that many Americans have lost faith in their governing institutions, ruling bodies which seem obsessed with advancing their own causes and those of their members at the expense of the state and the people. try the patience of our citizens and leaders, evolving into tedious and wearisome debates that accomplish very little!
Yet in light of other forms of government, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was not far off when he wryly opined: "Democracy is the worst system of government, except for all the others."
Let's consider all the others:
One-man rule inevitably leads to rule for one man, the ruler himself. From kingdoms ("L'état, c'est moi!"–King Louis XIV) to dictatorships like "Il Duce, men are incapable of restraining themselves to rule in the best interests of those whom they claim to serve.
As for rule by an elite or a select group of aristocrats, history has recorded more of the same–from the oligarchies of ancient Greece to the corrupt Directory of post-revolutionary France. Rather than monomaniacal mandates, a few rule on behalf of the few, still dispensing with the needs of the many.
The third alternative, giving the many leadership over the many, is also a tricky affair at best. Even during the Golden Age of Athens, where only native sons of wealth and privilege were allowed to vote, that elite political class condemned the free-thinking Socrates to death–hardly a reassuring promotion for direct democracy, which quickly devolves into crass tyranny of the majority against the minority.
To settle these longstanding issues in governance, the Framers of the United States Constitution combined elements of previous forms of government–individual, aristocratic, and popular–understood that rule over a nation as wide as the United States would render direct democracy unworkable, like in Ancient Athens. Instead, they instituted a staggered Republic representing popular, statewide, and elite interests was designed, with checks and balances to ensure that no one branch of government, and no one class of society, gained full power at the expense of the others.
What was the result from this federal framework for Government? A system that was essential and functionally dysfunctional. Members of Congress would be forced to negotiate at length with their counterparts in two different houses, then seek the approval of the chief executive, who could veto the law if needed. A judiciary, initially designed to be weak and reactionary, would settle federal disputes rather than rule on the constitutionality of federal or state legislation.
Acknowledging the humble reality that men are not angels, and therefore by nature selfish and ambitious to a fault, the Framers designed a framework of government that channels man's selfish ambition against itself, ultimately engineering outcomes that will minimize detriment to the federal government, the states, and the people.
A genius of political design, the United States Constitution outlines three competing branches of government–Congress, the independent Presidency, and Judiciary–whose striving for mastery ultimately tames them into functioning de minimus in the best interests of those whom they govern.