Democracy for Daddies

On Sunday, over here in Japan, there was a national election for the upper house of Parliament. That evening I was watching TV with my 5-year-old daughter as the results came in. I suppose it all looked rather exciting to her less jaded eye, as the winners and their supporters celebrated with three cheers of banzai in flower-filled rooms.

I was curious how much of this spectacle my daughter understood, so I asked her:

“What is an election?”

This question posed little difficulty, and she quickly informed me that an election is when we choose people. And the ones we chose are those smiling men and women on the TV.

I was impressed by her answer, and the absolute confidence with which she delivered it, but I decided to pursue the matter a little further:

“So, why do we choose these people?” I asked her.

Now, my daughter is not the sort of person to let a complete absence of knowledge on any subject hinder the joy of theorizing, but this time I had stumped her. She circled her wagons with the observation that we do this “because it is an election,” but even she seemed aware of how flimsy that statement was.

This was clearly the moment for me, the parent, to “enlighten” her on the subject of elections. But as I opened my mouth to speak, I realized the difficulty of the task.

Deciding to push ahead anyway, I informed her, in a semi-serious tone, that an election involves choosing a handful of people around the country who will make important decisions for us, like whether to build a road or not. And that if we liked the decisions they made we could choose those people again in the next election, but if we thought they made bad decisions we could choose other people.

I’m not sure if my explanation made any sense to my daughter, to be honest. But it echoed in my own ears, reminding me of how limited democracy is under capitalism.

We choose some people, usually on the lesser-evil principle, who are handed the keys to the bus, while we are piled in the back. Perhaps the election result gives them some idea of the direction we would like to head in, but our political drivers may choose to take a few excursions of their own—or even drive off a cliff or two. And what makes this journey even more thrilling, is that there is an invisible hand that also guides the steering wheel of the capitalist bus, so even our pompous drivers are “in for a ride.” When the dilapidated bus finally sputters or crashes into the station, at the next election, the passengers are often ready for a change, and decide (like they did on Sunday in Japan) to get some new drivers or fill in some of the potholes along the route. Despite such changes, though, we still hand over the keys every time to a few dubious individuals, and dutifully sit in the back of the bus.

But I spared my daughter this explanation and turned off the TV.

MS