Substantive Democracy And The American People Essay

, Research Paper

I’m Afraid of Americans

Before one can answer the timeless question of what taxation policy should be implemented onto the American public, one must ask, what type of democratic policy should the US follow? One approach, known as the Substantive Democracy, states that if policy is in the interest of the people than it shall be put into effect. Meaning that a small group of appointed elite would most likely make all-important decisions, such as the altering of taxation policies. This approach hardly sounds as if it would be the best way to handle the official taxation policies of the US mainly because the public would have a hard time trusting such a small group of people with there income, especially since they appointed and not elected.

The next option would be to handle political decisions through direct democracy, in which every citizen would have an equal vote on all major decisions. Aristotle states that this form of democracy is “the rule of many” and therefore serves the publics interest in the best manner. This type of democracy, however, has many drawbacks. Most of the citizens of the US are uneducated in the sense that they can not understand the consequences of such things as tax cuts. If a direct democracy were to be enforced major decisions, such as the changing of taxation policies, would be voted on to quickly obtain a lucrative result without consideration of the long-term damage.

The final democratic system that may be used to make major policy decisions is the representative democracy. In this form of democracy, leaders are elected by the public to make major political decisions on their behalf. Every citizen can still play an active roll in his or her government, only it is an indirect role. Although many people feel they cannot trust a small group of leaders to make such major decisions on their behalf. It is, however, in the public’s best interest to employ a representative democracy since the majority of the public is uneducated and the leaders of a representative democracy are appointed by the public based on his or her qualifications for the position. After all Americans have more to fear from themselves than the elitists they put into office.