Who will Guard the Guardians: Direct Democracy as Suspicion of Authority
Towards Autonomy
There no longer are any checks on political life, no sanctions beyond those of the penal code, which, as various “affairs” have shown, functions less and less. At any rate, in such a situation the question is posed, as it always has been: “And why the devil would judge themselves, or their ‘overseers,’ be exempt from the general corruption, and for how long? Who will guard the guardians?” [1]~Cornelius Castoriadis For a long time there has been this persistent and deeply entrenched idea that direct democracy, or popular self-management, is impossible to attain on society-wide scale because people are not good enough. One of the earlier expressions of this argument can be found in the works of great Swiss thinker Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He suggests, in his magnum opus The Social Contract, that “were there a people of gods, their government would be democratic. So perfect a government is not for men”. Although he...