Obviously a lot of time has passed since Montesqueie presented his ideas. We have replaced the republic with democracy. However, It would be an oversimplification as well as a case of intellectual lazyness to merely forget about ”old” ideas. It would seem that in this extract Montesquie is proposing a model of governance in which values and principles hold the state together: ” : in this case they grow indifferent to public affairs, and avarice becomes their predominant passion. Unconcerned about the government and everything belonging to it, they quietly wait for their hire.” In Montesquie´s model the state is based on universal participation in the public affairs. Once the people grow wealthy and comfortable, they also become increasingly disinterested in the public affairs. This is the decline of the republic, since the republic is dependent on common participation.

Modern day social philosophy also faces the problem of public participation. Democracy is even more dependent on the people´s interest than the republic.  Yet participation keeps declining in national and multinational elections around the European Union.  Is this not the decline of the state that Montesquie refers to? We have grown weathy and disinterest in our own public affairs. What, then, should we do about it and is our disinterest purely caused by ”corruption” and ”avarice”?

I would like to suggest that our democratic system is indeed declining, but that it still has potential left to save itself. I will also make the argument that general decline of public participation is caused not only by our lazyness. Unlike Montesquie, we live in a world of weak ideologies. What  should we believe in a world, where capitalism is almost omnipotent? Surely the lack of options is one cause for the decline of democracy. The democratic system, in theory, is the universal representation of the people, for the sake of the people. Yet it is currently controlled, almost without exceptions, by strong capitalists and dying alternative ideologies. Is it really a wonder that people lose interest in their affairs, when there is no alternative to the current state of things?

 Of course we must remember that the lack of rivalling notions also provides ground for the birth of new ideologies. It is entirely in the hands of the people to provide the society with new models of governance.

This brings us back to Montesquie: lack of interest in our common affairs is the reason for the decline of the state. This is one of the challenges of modern social philosophy. How do we get people involved and what techniques are acceptable? For example, could we rely on Kantian ethics and demand citizen participation in exchange for the state´s services, such as healthcare? This certainly would increase participation in the public affairs but it could also cause bitterness toward the state. I might even go as far as to argue that forcible participation would merely lead to resistance by the people. This could even lead to the internal destruction of the very state we are trying to save.

We also have to ask ourselves, if the implementation of this type of system would even be democratic. Perhaps if we follow the path Plato set us. The individual primarily exists to serve the greater whole, the state. The republic aims for utilitarianistic results. However, Plato´s republic is not our democracy. Democracy is not only coloured by universal participation but also by social liberalism.  Individual freedom, to the largest possible extent, is an essential part of our current system.  This is in a compelete contrast with the notion of a ”control state”, in which the individual is always a servant of the state.

Ideas are not meant to stand at one point of time forever. They tend to progress and change over time. Modern model of democracy is beginning to answer the problem of participation with social liberalism: easier access and increased freedom. A good example of this, is what generally is called ”wikidemocracy”. People are granted a 24/7 access to their representatives through the use of the internet. In the same way they can also participate in the forming of political ideas and programmes. This has gained large support in the younger generations.

Easier access is one way to increase citizen interest in their own affairs. Another way is quite obvious. A controversial modern polish philosopher has suggested that the ”crisis of democracy” could be solved with the rebirth of ideologies.  Why? Because ideologies provide common values and unity. They also make it easier for the people,who seem to be wealthy and disillusioned from public affairs, to interpret and make judgments about our politics.

What would this ideology be, then? The problem is that most ideologies have failed: socialism, communism, pure capitalism… all of them have failed to provide the utopia they preach about. Socialism and communism collapsed under the power of human greed and selfishness. Pure capitalism suffers from the same illness. How could we move toward something new? Well, the problem is actually smaller than one might imagine.

We do already have growing ideologies. These are the ideologies of global problems. Climate change, poverty and immigration have all either re-energized old ideologies or given birth to new ones. Especially growing immigration has lead to the rebirth of right-wing nationalism. Climate change and ecological catastrophes, on the other hand, have created the global environmental movement.

While our political system is suffering from a decline of participation and loss of common values, corruption and disillusionment, it still has much potential. New ideological politics, such as wikidemocracy and the environmental movement, are growing in popularity while the ”politics of the old” are declining. With the growth of easy-access democracy (wikidemocracy) we might yet be able to see our democratic form of governance grow in strenght rather than decline and disappear.