In recent times, it has become fashionable to accuse anti-populists of being anti-democratic. I will argue that this position crumbles under scrutiny.
Argument: Democracy is obeying the will of the people.
This presupposes that the people have a consistent will, which is not the case: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/economics/#CollRatiSociChoi As there is no collective will, democracy can only mean the empowerment of individual persons. This once again splits into two interpretations: 1. The libertarian vision endorses the empowerment of individuals to the point where they are enabled to disempower others. 2. The liberal vision endorses the empowerment of individuals only to the extent that they are not enabled to disempower others.
In the libertarian vision, there is no democratic collective as individuals directly exercize their powers without regard for the well-being of others. Therefore, only the liberal version is truly democratic.
Argument: Any argument against the will of the people erodes the foundations of democracy.
On the contrary, doing what the people appear to want isn’t necessarily democratic. For example, it may very well be that the people want to enact mob justice, but letting them have their way in lieu of due process is not democratic insofar as it disempowers the target of populist outrage. These populists are only one segment of the people, not “the people” as it excludes the target of their outrage.
Therefore, the foundations that lend legitimacy to democracy are themselves “non-democratic” in the populist sense. Democracy is not special this way. All positions are like this. For example, obeying a monarch who is trying to abolish the monarchy is not monarchical. A supporter of democracy who erodes these foundations in the name of democracy is twisting the language of democracy for personal gain.
Argument: It does not follow from Social Choice Theory that “the people” includes every member of society. It is possible that, in a given case, almost every member of society is coherently outraged against some target. Mob justice is democratic in that case.
Numbers are not everything when it comes to maintaining democratic institutions. For example, why are the people outraged? Is it possible that they are not in possession of all the facts? What if there’s a systematic skewing of their knowledge by the education system? Even if the people are outraged now, this outrage is an accidental, not essential, quality. Therefore, justice, argument and democratic institutions take precedence over popular opinion.
Argument: The people cannot be kept in check by so-called “democratic” institutions imposed on them from without. It is their pride that drives them to be free.
This is a common Romantic view. I propose a move towards Classicism.
It is true that the people themselves decide to be free, but the act of being free implies installing a censor over their actions. There is no absolute, unqualified freedom. It is by outlawing actions that lead to servitude that the people themselves enact their decision to be free. If they revoke this censorship by asserting unqualified freedom, they thereby slide into tyranny.
What is the nature of this censor? It is a legal act that outlaws oppression. If the people have chosen to be truly free, this includes outlawing oppressive practices within their own cultural tradition. It is here that freedom conflicts with pride. Assuming all cultural traditions contain oppressive practices, it is impossible for a people to express unqualified pride in their culture and be free at the same time.
Argument: Tradition is the source of strength. Undermining it weakens the people.
Not necessarily. Insofar as innovation is a source of strength, and innovation can only be fostered in a free environment, this form of strength comes from not being yourself. Innovation is also very powerful in the long run.
Argument: Some nations are naturally smart and free, while others are dumb and servile. The market will naturally sort things out.
The evidence cited for this view is usually Japan. Bear in mind that Japan’s wealth came mainly from its colonial adventures, America investing loads of cash in it after WWII to stymie the neighboring USSR, etc. The market has never been meritocratic, and IQ is not as important as STEM majors think. The coastal Chinese are said to have a higher IQ than the Japanese in the populist propaganda screeds, but it appears very probable that they will regress on women’s emancipation with the retreat of Communism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-ono_TRx64 The rhetorical tricks will probably be the same ones we’ve heard a million times in other contexts: foreigners are attacking our oh-so-precious way of life, a Chinese China is a strong China, etc. This is especially likely if the global market screws them over, as it probably will. Unfortunately, Japanese nationalism seems to be the only non-Western populist movement to have at least partially figured out that in the long run, strength comes from being unlike yourself.
Snapshots of the Labyrinth 