If we are to engage in inquiry from a purely practical view on the function of politicians, we might say that politicians serve, at least from a democratic standpoint, as buffers between the general public and the demanding vocation of the administration of a political body. If we remove ourselves from democracy, we can say much the same thing, all except the idea that the politician rules by permission, and selection, of their constituents. The point is that politicians are seen as experts of a particular kind, experts of statesmanship, a view held over from as early as the Greeks. In our modern democratic paradigm, this seems strange. After all, is not the fabric of democracy the idea that the people themselves give permission to their rulers to rule? How is it that the simple act of selecting an expert to rule entails some sort of permission or control any more than a contracted employee is selected as an expert to perform a task—a task, mind you, that the employer will exercise little real control over, given they hired the expert for their τέχνη, a techne they themselves do not possess.
This notion of the politician, present even in the most democratic of societies, is absurdly similar to a Platonic meritocracy. It was not the permission and selection of the people itself which Plato so despised in the democratic society. Athen’s democracy was of the direct variety; he was instead disinclined by the idea that those fundamentally unqualified to rule do so. If Plato witnessed contemporary representative democracy, he would be similarly loathsome that those ignorant in statesmanship choose those who rule without the expertise to know who is equally ignorant. And yet, despite our enthusiasm towards “the rule of the people”, we nonetheless have a conception of our politicians which designates them as the experts. The sole difference now is that we choose the experts, while in Plato’s ideal, the experts were self-selected (because who else could properly evaluate an expert’s expertise than another expert?). I dare say that Plato would not disagree so much with our current system, other than—ironically, what we see as its defining feature—its method of selection for its statesmen.
It seems then we are at odds with our politics. If one truly believes in a right to participate in the governing of oneself, why is it that we still hold a meritocratic notion of politics? Very few constituents of a democracy would hold that anyone could and should serve as a politician in their government, and yet most would agree that the right given to the state to govern is given equally by all natural persons by birthright. Most of us have the feeling that at least some of our own politicians are unqualified to rule, and yet how should we know, being unqualified to rule ourselves? Plato’s criticism of democracy seems much closer to many of our own sentiments than we would like to believe. But then, this should come as no surprise, many of his questions are still relevant, and none of us would propose that democracy is entirely without flaws.
Still, we should take a second to ponder why we retain this idea of the politician qua expert. One might say that surely politics requires skill, and that it is only natural that those skilled in it should be in power. Again, we are slipping back into the Platonic criticism, and additionally have to reconcile this with the common aversion to career politicians. Instead, we can propose that perhaps politicians are simply doing a duty, that they are taking on a burden of which we are equally capable, but mostly unwilling to undertake. This may be slightly closer to a more democratic picture, but still is not without issues. Not only do we need to reconcile this with the idea, as stated, that most of us do not think that everyone is qualified to rule, but we also need to grapple with the fact that, if this is the case, then our politics is not conducted anywhere close to its full potential. This shares another parallel with the philosopher king: a reluctant ruler who does so from duty and because only he knows the Good. Only in reality, and especially in this case, we certainly can’t guarantee the latter.
I instead propose a third alternative, one which I will not properly argue because I am only trying to spark debate. The cognitive and social status we give to politicians in democratic society is not just one of pragmatics, but unavoidable by our nature. As social creatures, we likely will never transcend the need for a ‘ruling class’. Arguably, modern technology makes possible a purely representative democracy, but the likelihood of the abolition of politicians seems bleak. Not only do we question the willingness of “the masses” to engage in such a legislative, judicial, and executive feat, but we fear the prospect of allowing such a thing to happen, lest our state takes on the nature of the Platonic democratic soul—its appetitive part in charge. The election of politicians, then, seems like a hesitancy towards democracy itself. Surely if we select those whom we deem fit to rule, we will not have to worry about someone we deem as unfit making decisions in the state. And yet, the core value of democracy is the equal right of the ignorant and the expert to do so. How can we conciliate the “rights of man” with our distrust of those rights along with our seemingly innate attraction to a social power structure? And most importantly, how can we come to grips with the idea that a truly democratic society in its pure form guarantees everyone an equal status as politician?