The Ideal Democracy in a Government

Carl Becker wrote about the ideal democracy in a government. The main purpose of the work is to make evident the nature of democracy. He compares it with other forms of government that depend on autocracy and the leadership of the few rather than the many. His concrete definition of democracy is “democratic government has always meant one in which the citizens, or a sufficient number of them to represent more or less effectively the common will, freely to act from time to time, and according to established forms, to appoint or recall the magistrates and to enact or revoke the laws by which the community is governed.” The Work of Carl Becker and his views on Ideal Democracy relates closely to the way our government and society works. Becker’s views also depict the wrongs in our way of conducting democracy. Throughout the text I found some parts personal because of the way it spoke about defining democracy. Becker points out that there are two ways of defining democracy, one ideal form in which everything could be exactly the way he would see fit, and the other realistic. Becker states, “(...) to define it as of the people, by the people, for the people; or to define it as government of the people, by the politicians, for whatever pressure groups can get their interest groups taken care of. Becker’s view of a “realistic” definition of democracy is what we as United States citizens see our own government as.

The definition of democracy in the real form, as the text states, is disturbing to me, being that it is the form of government we all follow. Democracy is explained to the citizens in ideal form, that the text described, which leads them to think that they have more of a role that they really do. This clashes with the morals and ethics that any human being should have, being that i feel the government should be more honest with the people they are leading, if for nothing else than the basis of trust. every citizen, or human at that, should have the right