How Democracy Ends

Contemporary political science has devised a range of terms to describe this state of affairs: ‘audience democracy’, ‘spectator democracy’, ‘plebiscitary democracy’. These terms might be too mild: ‘zombie democracy’ might be better. The basic idea is that the people are simply watching a performance in which their role is to give her withhold their applause at the appropriate moments. democratic politics has become an elaborate show, needing ever more characterful performers to hold the public’s attention. The increasing reliance on referendums in many democracies fits this pattern. A referendum looks democratic but it is not. The spectators get dragged on stage to say a simple yes or no to a proposition they have played no part in devising. Then the politicians get back to the business of deciding what they meant by what they said, while the voters look on, many of them going frustrated at not having a chance to play a further part. If necessary, another referendum can be called to get them to agree to whatever it was they were taken to have decided first time round. Not every referendum is evidence of a promissory coup. But referendums are one way to manage it.

Being able to deploy unthinking but immensely powerful and sophisticated mechanical workhorses is a way to grow fat and lazy, in mind if not in body. The car drives us; the Fitbit monitors us; the polibot decides for us. Why not franchise out all the difficult decisions to machines that can crunch the data for us? We might do this consciously, for the sake of an easier life; or we might do it unconsciously, because our growing reliance on these machines leaves us incapable of knowing when to stop. We can all recognise the signs. We spend hours sending and responding to pointless emails not because our computers are telling us that we must, but simply because we lack the capacity to break the spell. The only thing that frees us is when an even more accessible and immediate technology comes along. Then we get addicted to that. Costless convenience is its own curse.

Like a modern state, Facebook is both a hierarchy and a network. If anything, it is far more hierarchical than any democratic state: Zuckerberg and his immediate circle exercise an extraordinary level of personal control. It is more like a medieval court than a modern polity. Power flows from the top. At the same time, its network is far broader and more inclusive than any state could achieve. Facebook has many more people on its books than any democracy. They do more with it and through it than they do with and through any political instrument. The state provides us with services. Facebook helps us curate our lives. The state can make us feel secure. Facebook can make us feel loved.

The great political weakness of Facebook is that its hierarchy and its network are so disconnected. The top-down organisational structure of the corporation and the massively dispersed scope of its social network are entirely at odds with each other. Zuckerberg is a prince. His people might as well be serfs. He likes to talk the language of ‘community’ in an attempt to hold the whole enterprise together.