Is Democracy On The Decline?

by Robert David Merchant

This essay is an exploration, an introspection, as well as an observation of recent phenomenon, both economic and social, that seems to have already taken root in the world, and seems to be going strong today.

It is frightening to witness some of the happenings of the modern world, where the word “democracy,” and the fight to preserve it have appeared to become as meaningless as when wars were fought to “preserve peace,” or to spread a particular religious dogma. Many historians and political intellectuals now look back to the Crusades as an excuse, rather than a raison d’etre, to conquer and enslave other peoples not sharing the Christian faith. Likewise, to declare that Islam wants a war with Christians may very well be ludicrous, considering that the majority of the states of Islam are either moderate, or secular in nature, and any lunatic daring to advocate a war with the “Western World” on behalf of Islam is more often than not, shouted down almost immediately by the vast majority of Muslim people.

War is a business. The manufacture of tanks, guns, and missiles, as well as planes, helicopters, and military survival gear is valued at trillions of dollars per year, around the globe. Drugs and its production and export, are also multi-billion dollar industries. The oil business, with its main base of production being in the Middle East, has many moneyed interests and political connections in the West. Finally, it is easier for business-people to deal with only a handful of people, such as in Communist China, than it is to deal with a vibrant representative government like India, where often snarls of confusion can arise over what is actually best for the “people.”

Taking all of these issues into account, it appears that democracy may very well be on the decline. Where once our fore-fathers fought and died, bloodily, to preserve their vision of what a Constitutional Republic should look like, today that vision is being sold on the chopping block to the highest bidder, whether foreign or domestic. If a beacon of democratic hope, the United States of America, and its many NATO allies in Europe, can actually encourage, foster, and ultimately steer more and more lucrative business to Communist China at Democratic India’s expense, how can this ever be justified?

The Council on Foreign Relations, and its moneyed cronies defend this reality by talking incessantly of “bringing China closer to a democracy,” every time a business invests in China. This is an absolute farce, because China has designs on the entire world. That is the essential nature of Communism, and the Marxist philosophy to which it adheres advocates expansionism at all costs, for the good of the state, and ultimately, for the good of its people. We continue to feed the Red Chinese Communist Dragon, thereby making it stronger, not weaker. One of the ways we brought to its knees the Communist regime in the old U.S.S.R. was to starve it of positive and beneficial economic relations with other democratic nations. Because of this economic and political starvation, the U.S.S.R. decayed from the inside, and finally imploded when life became too difficult to sustain, both for its people and for the government.

But every time another billion dollars goes into China, democracy has lost another major battle to Communism. Those well-heeled businessmen, and their political stooges who have been bought and sold in democratic governments like so many potatoes, all have something to gain from Communism being strengthened. This is because these business and political “leaders” will always be at the top of the economic and social food-chain. Should the entire world become Communist, they would be counted as its rulers, not its workers. They would be the new global bourgeois, while all of us working stiffs, would become their sustainers. If a man has 500 million dollars now, chances are, he will never become one who only has 1,000 dollars in his bank account. Their lives would essentially remain the same, if not become better, because in addition to their already obscene wealth and comfortable living standards, they would also have control over the reins of everyone else’s civil liberties, hopes, dreams, and ambitions for the future.

There seem to be no more true heroes. All of our leaders have apparently become cowards. No one is objecting anymore to the “whoring” of our economy to a malevolent nation such as China, and no one is objecting to our ignoring one of the gentlest and most democratic nation on Earth, India, which also has over 1,000,000,000 people, and can easily become wealthier and a force for stability against expansionist and aggressive China. Why don’t we send our business to India? This is because the moneyed elite do not want another thriving and economically strong democratic nation in the world, they seem to want to bring the epoch of democracy to an end, not to help it continue from strength to strength, for generations to come. This is the saddest legacy of these leaders, who we helped to elect.

There is an old saying, “He who dies with the most toys, wins.” That statement has never been truer than now. Unfortunately, if one was not fortunate enough to be born with a good head start, that game is already over.

Robert David Merchant
New York, New York
November 14, 2001