If the state is bad then democracy will enable the people to protect themselves from the state. In this sense democracy is conservative because to be conservative is to constrain the interventionist nature of the state. The people (when given the opportunity) will tend to block and obstruct the state where it is being criminal.
Anarchy is not criminal and so then democracy is both virtuous and conservative.
It is for this reason that the Conservative party are being inconsistent in their support for the first-past-the-post system. Fptp is not conservative because it is not as democratic as alternative systems. For the Tories to be consistent would require them to support a reform of the voting system to either proportional representation or direct democracy.
No comments:
Post a Comment