The Pros and Cons of Democracy

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What is democracy, and what are the benefits and disadvantages of it? This paper will focus primarily on three essays: The Social Contract by John Locke, Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau, and The Democratic Age by Fareed Zakaria. Each essay chosen is similar because each discusses what the advantages and disadvantages of free society are.

The Social Contract primarily focuses on 17th century liberalism and expounds on Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathin. Locke gives the vision of mankind living in a state of anarchy before formal government was established. In Chapter II, Of The State Of Nature, Locke focuses on the natural equality of mankind:

To understand political power aright, and derive it from its original, we must consider what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions and dispose of their possessions and person as they think fit, with the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave, or depending upon the will of any other man. (Locke 349)

In this passage, Locke magnifies the absolute freedoms given to man by God (or nature), and lays the blueprints for creating a sovereign society. Rights are not given to man by other men, but rather by his natural state of existence. The entire point of this chapter is to specify that man must understand and respect natural freedoms before a successful government can be established. Chapter IV elaborates on this chapter to justify equality of man, and the abolition of slavery.

A representative form of government is truly found in chapter VIII: Of The Beginning of Political Societies. Locke explains that in order for a community to be established every individual must form an alliance, and have the power to act a...

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...eign society” and very important, Wollstonecraft’s view varies drastically from what the others are trying to establish. This is another issue that brings me back to democracy. If majority rule that women should have to wear bikinis in January than what force is there to stop this from being enforced. This is the major flaw found in any form of democracy.

So back to thesis of this paper what are the benefits and disadvantages of democracy? The benefits are majority rule of the people, and the disadvantages are majority rule of the people. Thoreau would agree that democracy is not a plausible solution to government because the majority is not always right. These three essays are the most conducive in laying the grounds for modern day government. Each essay focuses on the positive and negative aspects of free society, and how it has affected the world.

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