3
Schumpeter criticizes what he calls the classical doctrine of democracy, that the
people through their common will elect representatives to realize the common good. He
says there is usually no will of the people nor common good, and when there is then
autocracy often better realizes both. There is no unique and unanimously endorsed
common good, he objects. Nor is there a will of the people. Individual wills about
political matters are neither definite nor independent. Individual will is more definite
with respect to consumer choice, because consumers directly experience the
consequences of their choices, but is indefinite with respect to democratic choice because
voters do not. Individual will is not independent in politics, because it is mostly formed
by the propaganda of leaders and their parties, again because of no relation between voter
choice and consequence. Even if individual wills were definite and independent, they
would be too diverse to be combined, he says.
In its stead he proposes his modern doctrine of democracy, that democracy is
only about the competition of leaders for votes. Democracy is just a method, neither
valuable in itself nor necessitating right action or good ends. The will of the people,
usually, is not genuine, but rather is manufactured by the leader. It is not true that voters
control parliament, which controls its leader; rather the leader manufactures the will of
the people and followers accept it, which is as it should be, since the judgment of a
qualified leader is generally superior to that of parliaments and publics. This is also a
useful definition, as it is easy to measure whether or not a country’s leader is appointed by
election, according to Schumpeter.
I reply that minimalists such as Schumpeter have no choice but to appeal
implicitly to the will of the people and to the common good, counterfactuals that inform
institutional design; and contra Schumpeter that democracy is generally better than
autocracy at realizing them. I claim that there is a vague and generally approved common
good. Individual wills are defective, but the common good can be approximated by
design of a proper public sphere and representative democracy, each of which refines and
Convention