The Importance Of Democracy

To begin with, democracy often leads to system inefficiency. Unlike authoritative regime, a democratic society needs to reach a majority consensus before policy implementation. Nonetheless, consensus-reaching process is often time-consuming. As social policies cannot be enforced before attaining consensus, a democratic state may not respond to different changes promptly. The separation of powers further adds fuels to the governance inefficiency. With checks and balance among the executive, the legislature and the judiciary (Montesquieu, 18th century), the policies or bills proposed by the executive can be turned down by the other two branches. For instance, as the republicans obstructed the passage of the federal budget, the US government was forced to shut down, which incurred a cost of $ 24 billion . This reveals that a democratic system may hinder the proper functioning of the government, incurring an expensive social cost. Also, in a bid to solicit people’s support and be re-elected, some politicians may be pressurized to provide more social welfare. This does not only increase the government’s financial burden but also undermines the working incentives of the nationals, which might lead to economic inefficiency. (Milton Friedman)

In line with the above is the problem of “majority tyranny”. As decisions are made by majority consensus, democracy does not guarantee rights and freedom for every citizen, especially the minority groups. Thus, the interests of the minority