Democracy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 3

Democracy - Essay Example Plutocracy is less idealistic than democracy in that it is not the people’s voice but the will of the institutions that holds sway over policy. But plutocracy is still better than a totalitarian society where power is concentrated in the hands of small ruling elite with no accountability. Dahl classifies political systems under a spectrum of five gradations. At the top of the scale are the fairest systems that employ ‘rational persuasion’ for gathering public consensus. At the bottom of the scale are brutal autocracies that regularly resort to ‘physical force’ to keep the population under control. But Dahl admits that even in the most fair of existing systems the power is wielded from top-down. This means that the notion of democracy as a people-inspired and people-regulated governing system does not exist anywhere today. Professor Charles Hauss understands democracy in terms of functioning electoral politics. Any nation-state that conducts free and f air elections periodically would qualify as democratic under this view. In Hauss’ own words â€Å"free, open and competitive elections are central conditions for a democracy†. (Hauss, as quoted in Edwards 2010) Also important to this setup is the credibility of ‘rule of law’. ... To this extent this latter category of countries would only be nominal democratic societies. When we analyze the American political system in the backdrop of the definitions of Hauss and Dahl, we can note a few divergences. What Dahl’s list of options for population control does not mention is ‘propaganda’. The Chomsky-Herman propaganda model fills the gap left by Dahl’s conceptualization. Given that America is the birthplace for modern advertising and the Public Relations industry (PR) in the country is billions of dollars worth, it is fair to claim that PR is the foremost method here for the control of public minds. It is difficult to place the American style of governance in the gradation offered by Dahl. The most benign method of generating public consensus proposed by Dahl is ‘rational persuasion’. America is an exception to even this benign form of manufactured consent, for what the PR industry does is irrational persuasion. As Chomsky-He rman note, advertising is all about â€Å"misinforming people so that they make irrational choices†. (Chomsky, quoted in Wilson 2010) There is less divergence with Hauss’ understanding of democracy, for he links it with the capitalist economy. America being the leading practitioner of capitalism qualifies under Hauss’ classification. Moreover, there is competent enforcement of law within the country, although America is well-known for breaching international law, especially under the auspices of the United Nations. Seymour Martin Lipset, on the other hand, would have found the American political system disappointing in terms of how democratic he found it to be. He believed that â€Å"the more well-to-do a nation, the greater the chances that it will sustain democracy†. (Lipset, quoted in Edwards