Well, one of the problems I have come across in conversations about voting reform is that people don’t seem that clear on exactly why democracy is a good thing. And the result is that they argue for supposed “improvements” that are actually irrelevant.
So here’s my proposal. Feel free to disagree, but at least it will be a starting point.
The Utilitarian Case for Democracy
In 1789, Jeremy Bentham published An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, in which he argued for a principle now known as utilitarianism.
This says that the right course of action is the one that produces the greatest sum total of happiness (also called utility) across the population. It had many logical problems - for example, with the idea of adding up different sorts of happiness experienced by different people – and came in for criticism from many people, not least the Church. In 1863 John Stuart Mill published Utilitarianism, which developed Bentham’s theory and closed some of its loopholes. Still, it had a number of critical problems, especially in how to calculate what the sum total of happiness would be for different courses of action.
As a rough guide for judging different policies, the principle of utility is fine, but we should forget any idea of calculating the precise numerical value of the utility of a policy. However, there is a procedure we can use; we can ask people how happy they would be with a policy. So that’s what we do, and we call this an “election”.
I say, perhaps “I will abolish the bedroom tax!” Do you think you’d be happy with that? Vote for me.
Oh, sure, elections are only a crude measure of our expected satisfaction with the direction our legislators want to take, and there are different ways of organising it, different levels of detail, different ways of sharing out the jobs of government. But it can be a pretty effective process for – and this is the crucial point - getting lawmakers to take our utility into account.
As Bentham says:
Countries that don’t have democracy tend to be horrible places to live, because the government is maximising the utility of some special group. That might be the army, or the landowners, or employers, or the Mafia, or banks, or the clergy – whoever they need, to keep them in power. In this country, some people seem to think that the right form of the Principle of Utility is the one that calls for the greatest happiness of the greatest number of Oxbridge graduates, or Chief Constables, or billionaires, or Murdoch editors, or swing voters in marginal seats. I don’t. I want the Utility Function to maximise the sum of everyone’s happiness.
Now, once you’ve decided to go for the Universal Principle of Utility – and therefore to let as many people as possible rate you on your performance – there’s still the question of the consequence of that rating. On Trip Advisor, the main consequence of poor scores is that the hotel owner stays in charge but gets less trade. In UK politics, the consequence is that the Prime Minister loses her job. This is intended to incentivise her to consider our (perceived) utility – though it might also incentivise her to lie to us. Elections alone are no guarantee of honesty in politics. That's why we also have laws and journalists.
Oh, sure, elections are only a crude measure of our expected satisfaction with the direction our legislators want to take, and there are different ways of organising it, different levels of detail, different ways of sharing out the jobs of government. But it can be a pretty effective process for – and this is the crucial point - getting lawmakers to take our utility into account.
As Bentham says:
The dictates of the desire of amity, it is plain, will approach nearer to a coincidence with those of the love of reputation, and thence with those of utility, in proportion, cæteris paribus, to the number of the persons whose amity a man has occasion to desire: and hence it is, for example, that an English member of parliament, with all his own weaknesses, and all the follies of the people whose amity he has to cultivate, is probably, in general, a better character than the secretary of a visier at Constantinople, or of a naïb in Indostan. (An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, p.77)Which is to say, that as a parliamentarian has occasion to desire the amity of many voters, so he will consult their desires.
Countries that don’t have democracy tend to be horrible places to live, because the government is maximising the utility of some special group. That might be the army, or the landowners, or employers, or the Mafia, or banks, or the clergy – whoever they need, to keep them in power. In this country, some people seem to think that the right form of the Principle of Utility is the one that calls for the greatest happiness of the greatest number of Oxbridge graduates, or Chief Constables, or billionaires, or Murdoch editors, or swing voters in marginal seats. I don’t. I want the Utility Function to maximise the sum of everyone’s happiness.
Now, once you’ve decided to go for the Universal Principle of Utility – and therefore to let as many people as possible rate you on your performance – there’s still the question of the consequence of that rating. On Trip Advisor, the main consequence of poor scores is that the hotel owner stays in charge but gets less trade. In UK politics, the consequence is that the Prime Minister loses her job. This is intended to incentivise her to consider our (perceived) utility – though it might also incentivise her to lie to us. Elections alone are no guarantee of honesty in politics. That's why we also have laws and journalists.
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