Legal Literacy - Choosing a leader in a challenging era of democracy. This article discusses criticisms of democracy and offers guidance on choosing a leader based on the values of Liberte, Egalite, and Fraternite.

Criticism of Democracy

By definition, democracy is often interpreted as government of the people, by the people, for the people. Democracy itself first set foot in ancient Greece, which received sharp criticism from a famous philosopher of that time, Socrates.

Socrates stated that democracy is like a ship. A person who does not understand navigation could become the leader of everyone on the ship, and this is certainly very dangerous. Socrates interpreted democracy as a group of people who do not understand the direction of navigation but ask to sail in a certain direction; if the captain also does not understand navigation well, then the ship is very likely to get lost.

Besides Socrates, Plato also offered an alternative criticism of democracy. According to him, democracy has the potential to produce officials who are oriented towards oligarchy, namely the election of a group of people due to their wealth to obtain strategic positions in the government, which are used to carry out all forms of their interests.

Jacques Ranciere a philosopher from the country where modern democracy was born, namely France, has a similar opinion to Plato that the problem with democracy itself lies in the vulnerability of the government being held by an oligarchy.