Do we really live in a Democracy?

Is the UK really a democratic country? If so, to what degree?

A lot of us spend most of our lives working in organisations large and small, private and public, but very few of these organisations could be described as democratic. The argument put forward by the neo-liberals is that firstly, our ability to choose by putting our money where our mouths are is democracy and secondly, that the shareholders of a company (in the case of a publicly listed company) have a vote at the AGM which again is democracy. But this is the democracy of an economics textbook; it’s not the “one person, one vote” democracy that most people prescribe to or understand.

Our everyday lives in organisations are not democratic. Far from it. We don’t get a vote in what policy the company adopts and we don’t get to vote the CEO out if we don’t like him or her and we don’t get to vote on salaries. We don’t vote at all.

And our progress within organisations relies not just on our abilities and the work we put in (which would, at least, represent meritocracy) but very heavily on patronage (i.e. the boss must like you in order for you to be promoted). You could be brilliant at your job, work all hours and be very popular amongst your co-workers (which is what you’d need to get on in a democracy) but if you keep disagreeing with your manager then you are going nowhere. The system produces smiling, nodding conformists: yes men and women.

One may argue that democracy isn’t so important in corporate or other businesses; it’s in politics that we want the democracy. But we see the same trend in politics.

How is it that popular opinion can be heavily in favour or against a certain course of action and yet the government of the day does the opposite? Popular opinion, for instance, was against the UK invasion of Iraq and yet still we went in.

The reason this happens is that there is too much power in the executive and, especially, in the party leaders’ and Prime Minister’s hands. Politicians’ careers are decided more by the leader of a political party than by the electorate. If a politician gets elected in a safe seat for hers or his party then he/she doesn’t need to worry about wooing electors. Instead, the politician seeks the patronage of the party leadership, representing the party line loyally, nodding and saying yes when required, just like in any other organisation. The result is that, generally, what the leader says, goes.

I remember watching Labour Party conferences back in the 1980s. They were scrappy and argumentative but they were also exciting and felt democratic. That style of Labour conference was closed down by the “modernisers” and finally put to bed by the New Labour project because it didn’t “play well” in the media. Since then the conference, and all politics frankly, has been corporatized, packaged up to look slick and efficient and all power has been transferred away from the grass roots and into the leadership. It looks more “saleable” on the telly but democratic it ain’t.

And even in electing politicians to parliament in the first place we get democratically short-changed. Many votes are wasted in elections. In far too many constituencies the majority vote against the elected candidate and, so, far too many of us are left unrepresented by parliament, disenfranchised from the electoral process.

Demonstrations, one may argue, are another symbol of democracy that, it seems, are being deliberately discouraged. Whenever we see a demonstration these days it is usually accompanied by a commentary from the police, various politicians or organisations underlining the damage done by the minority and justifying ever more stringent policing methods to contain the demonstration. It is rare to hear in the media that the majority were very well behaved and the cause is a legitimate one.

It seems that democracy, with all its messiness and uncertainty, is being closed down slowly but surely, bit by bit, in favour of an approach that is easier to control, easier to order and easier to sell. From the corporation to the political party and on to the way we are governed we have accepted a closing down of political involvement, of having any real say except in our consumer choices and even in the way we choose who represents us.

It may be slicker, more controlled and more media friendly but it certainly doesn’t feel like democracy.