Main Text
Abridged.
Take any of our contemporary phrases — ‘self-determination,’ ‘liberty,’ ‘the right to work,’ ‘international solidarity,’ and so forth. They all have a kind of dim meaning, but as they are currently used they have many very different meanings, and these meanings are often contradictory. I think it was Lord Acton who once said he had counted two hundred definitions of ‘liberty.’
Perhaps the worst sinner in this respect is the word ‘democracy.’ As commonly used, it has a dozen quite distinct meanings, when it has any meaning at all, and we are all familiar in political discussions with the circular argument — that such and such a measure is good for the people because it is democratic; and if it be asked why it is democratic, the answer is, ‘Because it is good for the people.’
‘Democratic’ really describes that form of government in which the policy of the State is determined and its business conducted by the will of the majority of its citizens, expressed through some regular channel. It is a word which denotes machinery, not purpose.
‘Popular,’ often used as an equivalent, means merely that the bulk of the people approve of a particular mode of government. ‘Liberal,’ the other assumed equivalent, implies those notions of freedom, toleration and pacific progress which lie at the roots of Western civilisation.
The words are clearly not interchangeable. A policy or a government may be popular without being liberal or democratic; there have been highly popular tyrannies; the German policy of 1914 was popular, but it was not liberal, nor was Germany a democracy. America is a democracy, but it is not always liberal; the French Republic has at various times in its history been both liberal and democratic without being popular. Accurately employed, ‘democratic’ describes a particular method, ‘popular’ an historical fact, ‘liberal’ a quality and an ideal.
The study of history will make us chary about the loud, vague use of formulas. It will make us anxious to see catchwords in their historical relations, and will help us to realise the maleficent effect of phrases which have a fine rhetorical appeal, but very little concrete meaning.
