What, Exactly, IS Democracy? And Why Should We Care About It?

It is very common--indeed quite reasonable!--for people to wonder what the point is of voting. After all, everybody knows that a single vote is incredibly unlikely to make a difference in any election. This is a very sensible question, particularly when the electoral system in place gives individuals so little opportunity to indicate what they actually want from their governments. It doesn't have to be that way, though. There are many ways that elections can be structured that would provide much more voice to every person who participates. 

In the last chapter of my book, Democratic Theory Naturalized: The Foundations of Distilled Populism,

(https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/179362495X/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0 )

I give this little parable, which I think may help answer the "Why bother?" question--at least in jurisdictions that have done the work to make votes and voting really matter to each resident: 

Consider a village society in which the central council provides a large feast for all the citizens each week. The way the feast has been arranged is that the council cooks a giant stew. The cooks have all the ingredients except seasoning: that is supplied by the villagers. Each person in this community may donate one equal-sized packet of either salt, pepper, cardamom, cilantro, oregano, garlic, basil or something entirely tasteless that still takes up the same amount of volume. So those who like salty food will bring salt, those who like garlic will bring that, etc. Those who like bland food will bring the tasteless seasoning, and those who don’t care one way or the other will likely abstain (or come with whatever their families or friends urge them to bring). 

Since the villagers’ participation or non-participation doesn’t make the stew larger or smaller, there can be no free-rider complaint directed toward those not bringing anything but getting to eat anyhow. So, it seems there is no good reason for making participation compulsory. But if you like garlic, it is foolish not to bring some—even if your failure to do so is unlikely to make an appreciable difference in the taste of the stew because of the small size of the packet you are allowed. You may need there to be 100 packets of garlic in all for the stew to take on a bit of that flavor, but if you put your packet in, only 99 others will be needed. Encouragement of other garlic lovers may help—so you must be free to do that; and it must be the case that the council won’t just throw out the garlic packets because one of the elders doesn’t like the stuff. 

On the view urged in this book, to vote is to make your own contribution to the “taste” of the society you will have. While it ought not to be required of you, it will be the case that a failure to add your own fragment of the people’s will—however small—is just self-harm—unless you really don’t care one way or the other. If you do care about the result, voting is made easy (i.e., nearly cost-free), and you have good reason to believe that your vote will be fairly counted and the electoral results will be appropriately constitutive of government actions, it seems almost irrational not to insert your own packet of government seasoning.

Of course, the actual systems we're working in--the cards we've been dealt--do not have many of the characteristics I claim are required for authentic democracy. But the only way to get closer is to vote for representatives who may be open to considering changes that would make our country more democratic. 

So we can do our little parts even now. VOTE. It ain't much, but it's all we've got.