Democracy is impossible because good citizenship does not exist anywhere. We have said above that good citizenship and civic sense are the prerequisites for the success of democracy. But common citizens lack civic |fmse. They are uninterested and indifferent to public affairs. They are too nelfish, self-centered and unintelligent to understand and strive for common good. They are ready to sacrifice public good for private gain. That is why plfi lions are a farce, because votes are bought and sold. Greed, corruption, hlihery and such other evils are the common features of democracy. Hence, Itiorally, man is unfit for democracy which is an impossible ideal.
It is the enemy of liberty and good government
The English critics, Maine and Lecky, denied that there is any real connection between liberty and democracy. Lecky says, “Democracy ensures neither good government nor greater liberty; indeed, some of the strongest democratic tendencies are adverse to liberty. On the contrary, strong arguments may be adduced both from history and from the nature of things to show that democracy may often prove the direct opposite of liberty.” The reasons, of course, are the weakness of human nature, the defects of the rule of the majority and the age-old Greek argument that progress is achieved by the leisured and privileged classes, i.e., the rich and the middle classes, who must not be at the mercy of the votes of unthinking and ignorant masses. Both Maine and Lecky pointed out that the ordinary people are conservative, petty-minded and jealous.
They are bound by customs, and prejudices, and old ways of living and thinking. They distrust progress and originality. To place political power in their hands, as democracy does, is to, curb and even destroy the liberty and opportunity for progress for those few talented persons who are above the average level of humanity. Lecky and Maine gave several examples of the tyranny of the majority, e.g., the poisoning of Socrates by the Athenian democracy. We can add a few more examples from .modern politics. The “colour bar” in the U.S.A., the “apartheid” in South Africa and racialism in other Western democracies or anti-Muslim riots in India, the so-called biggest democracy in the world, are due to the prejudices and ignorance of the electorate. But, on the whole, Maine and Lackey’s criticism was exaggerated.