Inequality and Democracy

I was asked last night at dinner which inequalities I held to be most dangerous to democracy. The answers in the main were short and sweet. Economic; Education; and Legal. But then we had to hear from our resident Libertarian-in-Chief who dismissed economic inequality as a danger and wanted to portray it in the halo of opportunity and hope. For him the inequalities in Education were the single most important danger to a democracy.

After the group had soundly rounded on the libertarian the discussion did take a rather unexpectedly turn. Didn't the concept of equality before the law emanate from the fact that societies are always made up of the rich and poor and the latter needed to be protected? And was it not also the case that the introduction of public education was again to combat the natural state of haves and have-nots?

From a basic question on the nature of democracy and its safeguards we rapidly moved into the area of society and the human condition. The social Darwinists in the group maintained that democracy was necessary precisely because of the fear and greed base instincts of humans.

No one wanted to be described as a social Darwinist, and yet the table went somewhat quiet. Equality before the law took on a much greater weighting in the deliberation. And education pushed forward as well. A well educated populace should provide competent candidates, and equally important, competent voters.

A fidgeting on seats revealed a slight understanding of the libertarian. And then it was gone.

Everyone agreed that there will always be differences in the financial wherewithal of the members of a society. Access to education and equality before the law are good and necessary counterweights to the wealth divide. They are however not sufficient.

In the developed democracies a huge divide between rich and poor was generally viewed as a drag on the growth of democracy. Such societies tended to be dictatorships, monarchies or other feudal systems.

Given that most of the developed countries evolved from feudal to constitutional monarchies to democracies it is not surprising that we viewed the world so. This is despite the fact that the rich poor divide remained. It was more a question of what level of financial inequality did society accept.

The growth in the financial gap in the U.S. over the last 25 years or so suggests that there is a change in the level that society accepts-or does it?

I think the concentration of money is crushing social mobility. And if you eliminate social mobility in the U.S., you are destroying the American dream, and that is the real danger to our democracy.