Combining the Greek words for “knowledge” and “rule,” epistocracy is “government by the knowledgeable.” Philosopher David Estlund from Brown University introduced the term “epistocracy” in his 2008 book “Democratic Authority.”
Imposing an intelligence requirement in order to vote may seem heresy to Americans. But throughout history, voting has been restricted, just as we still limit voting to age 18 and above. We recognize that a minimal amount of intellectual maturity is required to cast an intelligent vote, although there is evidence that youngsters do not make judgements independent of their parents until their early 20s.
Of course, the U.S. is a republic or representative democracy, but not a pure democracy where individual voters decide every policy and regulation.
In ancient Greek city states, those pure democracies excluded women and slaves.
In “The Case Against Democracy,” author Caleb Crain points out how “…Plato thought to entrust power to carefully educated guardians.” And he notes that John Stewart Mill provided a “more practical suggestion…give extra votes to citizens with university degrees or intellectually demanding jobs.”
Few writers reflect on the fact that at the founding of the United States, voting was effectively restricted to the educated elite. Voters were mostly landed gentry who could afford to educate their sons, the future voters. Women and slaves were excluded.
Crain reminds us: “In the United States, elites who feared the ignorance of poor immigrants tried to restrict ballots. …in the next half century the tests spread to almost all parts of the country. They helped racists in the South circumvent the Fifteenth Amendment and disenfranchise blacks, and even in immigrant-rich New York a 1921 law required new voters to take a test if they couldn’t prove that they had an eighth-grade education. About fifteen per cent flunked. Voter literacy tests weren’t permanently outlawed by Congress until 1975….”
The idea of limiting voting to those with a specified level of education opens questions that the average American never ponders. But following the U.K. Brexit vote and then the U.S. Presidential election, a flurry of columnists rediscovered Estlund’s epistocracy concept.
Philosophical ethicist Jason Brennan examined the Brexit decision last June: “Political scientists have been studying voter knowledge for the past 60 years. The results are uniformly depressing. Most voters in most countries are systematically ignorant of even the most basic political facts….”
Brennan asks: “Should we be ruled by the few or the many? What this amounts to is the choice between being ruled by the smart but selfish or dumb but nice…. If a king holds all the power, his decisions matter. He will likely use that power in a smart way, but smart for himself, rather than smart for everybody. Suppose instead we give everyone power. In doing so, we largely remove the incentive and ability for people to use power in self-serving ways at the expense of everyone else. But, at the same time, we remove the incentive for people to use power wisely. Since individual votes count for so little, individual voters have no incentive to become well-informed or to process information with any degree of care. Democracy incentivizes voters to be dumb.” Brennan is a professor at Georgetown University and discusses much more in his new book “Against Democracy.”
While our elections have stimulated discussions of the shortcomings of our form of representative democracy, none of these discussions examined Singapore where the level of education is the highest in the world and their elected leaders have all been highly educated intellectuals.
Many of my overseas colleagues in Asian countries are thinking twice about our U.S. democracy where gridlock and government shutdowns have been recent realities that would be devastating in Asia.
Economist Joseph Schumpeter characterized our representative democracy as where “electorates normally do not control their political leaders in any way except by refusing to re-elect them.”
This flurry of critical discussions should challenge the superficial political education we provide most students. It is time for our teachers to help students discuss and explore both the strengths and weaknesses of our system.
Since it is not right to impose an intelligence test in order to vote, our only recourse is to promote “government by the knowledgeable” through more education, both before and after graduation.