An epistocracy would try to copy what makes democracies work but do it better [1]. For the past 70 years, we had tried democracy with the exception of few decades in military dictatorships. Although, we consider military dictatorship as an evil form of governance but democracy has also not provided benefits to the people. Researchers have shown that Pakistan has progressed economically better in a military dictatorship than civilian democracy [2]. Democracy provides the right of voting equally to everyone. An uneducated person’s opinion is considered equal to the opinion of PhD for the selection of the best person who can govern the country. In Pakistan, education has not remained a priority for the civilian governments [3] because it is easy to buy the vote of an uneducated person than the educated person. Instead of falling back to military dictatorship due to the continuous failures of the democracy, we should try Epistocracy in Pakistan. In epistocracy, more knowledgeable citizens’ vote count more [1].
Jason Brennan has challenged the morality of democracy in his recent book [4] and has created the debate on democracy vs epistocracy worldwide [5][7]. Epistocracy is different from technocracy where Government is done by some bureaucrats. As described in [1], Technocracy revolves around “what the government does rather than who the government is” [1]. Epistocracy is similar to the ideas of an ancient Greek philosopher Plato who was the student of Socrates and was the teacher of Aristotle about restricting the governance to the knowledgeable [6]. Unlike, restricting the governance to a small elite that can abuse the power, Brennan presented many strategies in his book to improve the quality of the electoral system. Brennan divides the citizens into three broad categories, namely Hobbits, Hooligans, and Vulcans and has shown that majority of people do a poor job in considering political issues. Hobbits have no interest in politics and have very little knowledge. Hooligans do possess political knowledge but they see only through their party lenses. Vulcans are the ones who have great knowledge of political issues and consider each issue on merit. As Hobbits and Hooligans use to be in large numbers as compared to Vulcans and carry equal right to vote, the biasness of democracy tilt in their direction. The epistocracy makes sure that fate of the knowledgeable should not be drowned by the many ignorant [6].
Due to lack of education in Pakistani population, we see that majority of voters in Pakistan fall into the categories of Hobbits and Hooligans. The poor masses of Pakistan fell into the category of hobbits. For them, surviving a day in this expensive world is more important than selecting a good politician for a country. They easily sell their votes to the corrupt politicians and destroy the fate of educated people in Pakistan. Therefore, there is a need to look into our electoral system and improve it. We should experiment with epistocracy that should be closer to the idea of Johan Stuart Mill. Johan Stuart Mill was the English philosopher in the nineteenth century and was considered as the most influential thinkers in the history of liberalism. He was of the view that extra votes should be given to the people with university degrees. However, in [8], Harisan Nasir has argued that by just giving extra votes does not necessarily overcomes the number of ignorant people. Nasir was of the view that Universal inclusion must be ensured as it enables adequate feedback and not result in marginalization. However, in our Pakistan context, we have seen that Universal inclusion has not brought positive results and have added a dent to the image of democracy in the eyes of people. Instead of giving extra votes to the people with university degrees, the right of votes should be restricted to the people with the university degrees. This will encourage governments to invest in education to increase their voters. I am of the view that educated person can provide better feedback than the uneducated person and can take care of goodwill of uneducated one along with himself. Although, no system can be perfect but epistocracy has signs that can improve the fate of Pakistan as compared to democracy and military rule. What is your point of view?
References:
[2] M. N. Hayat, K. Fatima, U. Mukhtar, and S. Bano, “Economic Performance of Pakistan Under Democracy and Military Regimes,” Journal of Economics, Business and Management, Vol. 4, No. 12, December 2016
[8] https://nyphilosophyreview.wordpress.com/2017/01/14/essay/
