Should we replace democracy with epistocracy? Based on Jason Brennan's writings

Jason Brenan claims that “most common forms of political engagement not only fail to educate or ennoble us but also tend to stultify and corrupt us” (Brennan, 2016). He makes this claim based on evidence different scientist have gathered on how people think about, react to, and make decisions in politics (Brennan, 2016). He then moves to argue that for this reason we should restrict and control how much involvement people have in politics depending on their knowledge on the subject, thus stablishing an epistocracy. In this essay, I will argue that we should not replace democracy with epistocracy even if the latter one seems, in theory, to produce better outcomes. I will first critically evaluate the underlying assumptions that Brennan makes to support his theory. The assumption I will first evaluate is that we can, and should, live a life without politics and show why this is not possible. I will then look at the other underlying assumption of the argument which states that there are good and bad political decisions and that social science experts would rule in accordance with each other and in a just way and show how this would not be the case. This will be followed with the evaluation of how an epistocracy would impact the citizens of the country, especially the underrepresented groups, and what kind of backlash it would cause. Finally, I will show how there are today epistocratic systems inside democracies and how those have damaged the country they are in and are meant to defend and protect. Brennan’s argument is flawed from the first sentence of his book Against Democracy. Inspired by John Adam’s quote, he believes that politics should not be a part of the average citizen’s life. It should not be of our concern, we should be spending time studying other arts and sciences, “evolving into a higher form of life” (Brennan, 2016). Nevertheless, he fails to see and understand that everything in life is political. Painting, music, architecture and the other areas that are considered by Brennan the “highest form of life” are and have been political. Ben Lockerd expresses this idea perfectly, “politics is an art which encompasses all others in practical life” (Lockerd, 1994). There are political backgrounds in everyday decisions such as where we buy our clothes, an international brand or a local shop; our food, a supermarket chain or a local market; or what we do on our free time, go to the local theatre or the cinema. Moreover, all kinds of political regimes use and have used these arts to influence and imprint in their citizens the principles they claim to represent. According to Mihaela Mihai, it’s “one of the many ‘voices’ through which the state speaks” (Mihai, 2015). This assumption, that people should not spend time thinking about and engaging with politics and should instead focus on the “higher form of life” is the reason for the book. Brennan himself says it before the first chapter: “This book explains why we should try to realise that hope” (Brennan, 2016). Therefore, it is clear that we should not replace democracy with an epistocracy as the fundamental belief to the argument, that humans are able to not, and should not, get involved in politics is deeply unfounded. Brennan’s argument for epistocracy rests on another belief. That we should not allow the electorate to make bad decisions because others, innocent people, could end up being hurt by those decisions (Brennan, 2016). This belief rest on the assumption that

there are bad political decisions, that could hurt other people, and good political decisions, which wouldn’t hurt anyone because there are “procedure-independent right answers to some political questions” (Brennan, 2016), he openly talks about the “common good” (Brennan, 2011). This underlying philosophical assumption is crucial to his argument. According to Brennan, if an epistocracy was established, foolish decisions would not be taken as only scientifically minded, rational people with their opinions being strongly grounded on philosophy and political sciences would make the decisions (Brennan, 2016). Yet, it is clear that there is no “common good” or bad and good political decisions, as politics is not an empirical subject. The good for some, high unemployment benefits, as an example, could be the bad for others, employers trying to improve efficiency. Social scientists, with a deep understanding of different branches, completely disagree on many issues. The clearest example is with the role of the state in the economy. Karl Marx, who held a PhD in Philosophy, like Brennan, and thus, in an epistocracy, someone who would have a say on political decisions completely clashes with Milton Friedman. Those two social scientific scholars had completely different ideas on the role of the state on the average citizen’s lives, and therefore would have completely opposite views on what are “good political decisions”. Therefore, this shows that although they would both fit the criteria to have a say in one of Brennan’s epistocracies, they would still disagree on what “good political decisions” are. Brennan would answer that some political questions do indeed not have a right answer, but that some others do. He puts the example of a democracy allowing adults to rape children (Brennan, 2016), which is morally wrong. He uses this example to claim that the majority could make foolish and morally wrong decisions, however, there is no democratic form of government in the world that allows rape, and even less child rape. I believe Brennan goes too far to explain how democracies could make morally wrong decisions. A clearer and more plausible example is murder. Although morally wrong, many democratic elected governments are accessories to murder and break international law when their navy fleets do not answer to S.O.S calls from strangled boats at sea. At the time of writing of this essay, winter 2020, many European countries, both in the Atlantic and Mediterranean seas, do exactly that, they leave strangled at sea, or even shoot at people trying to reach their shores (BBC News, 2020). Nevertheless, it could be said there are no “procedure-independent” morally wrong decisions, and thus experts could not make a “good decision”. While murder, if asked directly, might be seen as bad by everyone, many experts in the social sciences are in accordance with the approach some governments take towards people in distress at sea (Wagner, 2020). Therefore, although democracies might make some morally “wrong decision”, nothing proves that “experts” in an epistocracy would not make those same decisions. Brennan defines epistocracy as “the rue of the knowledgeable” (Brennan, 2016). He adds that “a political regime is epistocratic to the extent that political power is formally distributed according to competence, skill and the good faith to act on that skill”

(Brennan, 2016). Although there are no political regimes formally stablished as an epistocracy, many liberal democracies and other political regimes are, or were, led by some of the most skilled and competent people in the country. Nevertheless, this competence has sometimes caused frustration among some of its citizens. Many populist movements across the world have grown out of frustration towards the “liberal elite”, the well-educated who run the country. Brennan does not tackle how the people of the country would react to an epistocracy. Populist movements, which usually have a base of not well-educated people (Foster & Fried, 2017), have risen out of frustration towards a political elite that doesn’t represent them (Foster & Fried, 2017). The implementation of an epistocracy would have a massive backslash. If all these citizens already feel under-represented or not represented at all in the politics of the country when they have a vote, they would even feel more left out if they didn’t even get to decide some things, and thus their reaction would be more severe and could easily escalate into violence. Therefore, although some might believe that an epistocracy would be the most efficient and just way to run a country, it would be an undesirable way to do so, as many of the citizens, especially the ones Brennan calls Hooligans (Brennan, 2016), would be radically opposed to it. Brennan also fails to correctly evaluate how an epistocracy would lead to the over representation of some groups and under representation of others, which would lead to policies that would favour the overrepresented groups. Empirical evidence shows that as the level of education rises, so does income (Torpey, 2018). Therefore, the ones having more power in an epistocracy would be those with higher income. Evidence also shows that the highest incomes tend to vote for more conservative, economically liberal parties (Thomson, 2012). This parties policies usually tend to favour the well-off and hurt the most in need as it involved little government intervention, and thus grants little support for those who are unemployed or in very desperate economic situations. Taking into account this evidence, it is clear that an epistocracy would eventually lead to the formation of an even more unequal society. Therefore, we should not replace a democracy with an epistocracy as it would create even more disparity in today’s society. Brennan answers that it is not only a problem of epistocracies. He claims that in democracies some groups end up being overrepresented and some underrepresented (Brennan, 2018). He also adds that the fact that some groups would end up overrepresented should not prevent us from stablishing an epistocracy. He beliefs that we should focus on making sure that the underrepresented groups become more represented, not by lowering the standards but by investing in education and other services in the areas where these groups life, “treat the disease not the symptoms” (Brennan, 2018). In a democracy, where everyone has a vote, politicians see a need to invest in neighbourhoods where underrepresented groups live because they also get to vote, and thus their job partly depends on them. However, in an epistocracy, where this

underrepresented groups would start with even less representation, it would be very hard for politicians to invest in those communities as it would not be in the interests of the new electorate, the overrepresented groups. Brennan would say that in an epistocracy, rules would make the right and just decisions (Brennan, 2016). Nevertheless, we have already seen how there is no right or just decision as politics is not an empirical subject and there are always opportunity costs. Therefore, we should not replace democracy with epistocracy because it would lead to more inequality and underrepresentation of some groups, which would increase over time. Brennan also completely fails to see how some kind of epistocracies exist today, and the impact they have had on the country they exist in. He talks about how it has never been tried, nevertheless, this is false. One of the epistocracy he describes, the so called “Epistocratic Veto” has existed for more than 40 years. The Tribunal Constitucional, the Spanish Constitutional Court, acts like the epistocratic body defined by Brennan (Brennan, 2018). Out of the 12 members designated by the King, 8 are proposed by the lower and upper chambers of the legislative branch of the government and two by the executive and judiciary branches of the government respectively. These 12 members must be either judges, public prosecutors, university professors or lawyers; all of them with “recognised competence and with at least 15 years of professional career” (Tribunal Constitucional, 2016). Therefore, the members of this Court are what Brennan would consider “experts”. Moreover, they cannot make laws, but they can veto, and have the last word on, any of the laws made in the legislative bodies across Spain, both national and regional. This perfectly meets the criteria Brennan gives for an “Epistocratic Veto”. This prime example of Epistocracy has been a massive failure for Spain. Although there has been a movement for the independence of Catalonia for may year, the movement saw a massive increase in numbers and popularity after the Spanish Constitutional Court ruled against, in 2010, a law passed by the Catalan Parliament calling Catalonia a “nation”. This increase in numbers led to the pro-independence parties gaining controlling the Catalan parliament and executive government, which eventually led to a referendum in 2017 with scenes of police violence towards peaceful voters. The impact of this decision was also felt in the Spanish legislative body, with more supports, the pro-independence party had more seats and thus more power, such was the power, that thanks to their votes, the sitting President was replaced, elections had to be repeated as there was no agreement for government and different budgets were not passed. For many years, Spain didn’t have an updated budget, which had massive impacts on the economy as it was leaving the recession caused after the 2008 Economic Crisis. Thus, although the pro-independence movement grew for many other reasons, the ruling of the Constitutional Court was a key spark. Moreover, although it wasn’t the direct actions of this epistocratic body that caused so much damage to Spain, it was their ruling that proved key to damage Spain.

Therefore, this prime example of epistocracy shows how we should not replace democracy by epistocracy as it does not necessarily do what is best for the citizens nor the country, as it had a massive negative backlash, and can lead to the destruction of said country. So, although it could be desirable to have the wise as the ruling class of a country, this essay has shown us that it would not work. The underlying assumptions that Brennan makes to build his arguments have shown to be unfounded or false and thus the argument loses all credibility it could have had. Once we start to look at how the implementation would work and the impact it would have on the citizens, we start to realise that we should not replace democracy. The reaction of some citizens, especially those who would be more negatively impacted by the establishment of an epistocracy would be massively negative, as they would lose power and support from their government. Moreover, although Brennan believes experts would also rule in favour of everyone, the implementation of an epistocracy would lead to the creation of a bubble where only the powerful would be represented. Following on, in practice, as we have seen in Spain, the consequences of the actions of an epistocratic body have damaged the country for many years because this body was unable to see and understand how the citizens would react to their decisions. Therefore, we should not replace democracy with epistocracy because it would cause a massive backlash, an increase in inequality and disparity within the country, and the few real-life example we have of it show us how it could damage and even destroy a country.

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