Winston Churchill remarked in a House of Commons speech in 1947 that “democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” (https://richardlangworth.com). According to Britannica, “Democracy is a system of government in which laws, policies, leadership, and major undertakings of a state or other policy are directly or indirectly decided by the ‘people.'” The word democracy is derived from the Greek word “demokratia” where “demos” means (people) and kratos means (rule). The power of leaders is derived from the “people.” Note the use of the word “indirectly” in the definition. We have a representative constitutional democracy in the U.S., where people elect their representatives to the House of Representatives, the Senate and the presidency to make laws and policies on people’s behalf.

The threat to democracy is more alive today than it has ever been. The Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capital of the United States, encouraged by former President Trump, has made many Americans worried about the survival of the election process and our representative democracy. The Jan. 6 hearings by the Select Committee of the House of Representatives is exploring the attempted coup d’état by the Trump administration, so labeled by some in the hearings.

Scholars Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson contend in their book “The Narrow Corridor” (2019), “The more fundamental question is this: Do we have a choice other than between the despotism of the Chinese state and the dysfunction of sub-Saharan Africa, in a milder form, the chaotic response of the Trump administration? Do we have to settle for one of these two evils?” They further state that the Nobel laureate economist Fredrick Von Hayek worried that if we give too much power to the state and demand too much from the state we might end up like the “Chinese Leviathan.” The solution is that society exercises its power to prevent unbalanced growth of the state’s power and its elite supporters.

If the former president was trying to overthrow the constitutionally elected president and nullify voters’ will, what other form of government did he have in mind? His record as a real estate investor, according to him, was full of success stories. Those successes would not have happened if there was no free market. According to him, he accumulated a substantial amount of wealth because he utilized the free market system to his advantage, and that was made possible by our democratic government. He could not have done better in an autocratic system of government. Americans have demanded property rights, laws and policies that facilitate the operation of free markets and uphold institutions that enforce those laws, permit smooth operation of markets and preserve societal well-being.

Free market is what professor William Baumol called an innovation machine. Democracy promotes property rights and encourages innovators by the rewards (profits) they earn from their innovations. The state rules, regulations and enforcing institutions are intended to assure that innovations do not lead to undue adverse social consequences and threats to market competition. Innovators either establish new businesses themselves or sell their innovative ideas at a positive price to others to establish new businesses. This mechanism creates more jobs and economic growth. International studies show that countries that have a democratic form of government experience, in general, higher growth rates than countries with other forms of governments.

Autocratic countries such as Russia promote those businesses that are started by the people chosen and/or favored by the state, thus stymieing the free flow of ideas and innovations by others who have no financial capacity to gain favors. The fruits of economic growth and prosperity are concentrated among the few and not shared by the general population. This problem, now in the U.S., is increasingly felt by many Americans. Society must keep a close watch on their representatives who tend to cater to the wishes of lobbyists and elites with deep pockets. Thus, “the key to making this more stable and less likely to spin out of the corridor is to seek to create and re-create the balance of power between state and society, between those who are powerful and those who are not.” (See Acemoglu and Robinson.)

All Americans who believe in democracy, in a competitive free enterprise system and in preserving their socioeconomic values must be vigilant of their elected representatives and the laws they make and, most importantly, vote them out if they do not like their actions.

Mathur is former chair and professor in the Economics Department and now emeritus professor at Cleveland State University, Cleveland, Ohio. He resides in Ogden.

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