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the people. Usually, of course, the people are not able in a literal
sense to govern themselves; rather, they do so indirectly through
the representatives whom they select. The people retain the final
authority in a democracy, and their representatives are responsible to
them. The people govern themselves in the sense that they choose those
who will represent them, and they give their consent to be ruled by
the latter. This obviously does not mean that all of the people give
their consent to a particular candidate or a particular policy, for if
this were required the election of candidates and the making of policy
decisions would be impossible. Indeed, democracy presupposes the
freedom to disagree, but it is government by consent in the sense
that the elected officials have the general approval of the majority or
at least of a plurality of the electorate.
Democracy also means government
for
the people. Its purpose is
to serve the common good of all of the people without conferring
special advantages upon any privileged group. Its aim is to serve
the individual in the community. On the one hand it rejects the
anarchic view that the individual is independent and sufficient unto
himself; on the other hand, it rejects the collectivist view that the
good of the individual person is subordinate to a superpersonal state,
or race, or class, membership in which alone bestows worth upon the
individual. Democracy, therefore, is neither essentially individualistic
nor essentially collectivistic. Rather, it views the individual as having
worth in himself, and at the same time it views him as being a member
of the community in which he finds fulfillment and for which he is also
responsible.
An essential corollary of the concept of government
for
the people,
as this idea has developed in Western democracy, is the recognition of
the rights of minorities. Democracy is not simply government
of
the
majority
for
the majority. As a practical device for enabling the
community to make decisions which rest upon the approval of as
many of its citizens as possible, democracy takes the form of majority
rule. But the majority does not have absolute sovereignty. Rather, the
authority of the majority is limited by the welfare of the people as
a whole, all of whom have inalienable rights stemming out of their
inescapable duties. Hence, democracy in its Western form guarantees
the protection of certain rights of all of the people by law and con
stitutional provisions which are accepted by the people as a whole.
Among these rights is the freedom of the minorities of today to
speak and organize and seek to become effective political majorities
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Biblical Faith and Social Ethics