The Moral Myth Used to Corrupt Democracy: Why Majority Rule Was Never the Problem
BY: OMOLAJA MAKINEE
One of the most frequently invoked justifications for the corruption of democracy into its contemporary indirect and hybrid forms is the claim that the will of the majority is not always ethically or morally correct.
This argument is presented as prudence, wisdom, and restraint. In practice, it has functioned as a moral pretext for elite capture—an excuse for governments to detach themselves from the lived realities of the governed while retaining the language of popular rule.
Consider the prevailing condition of the global monetary economy. Through an enduring coalition between the ruling-class and the elite-class, an arbitrarily standardised monetary system has been imposed upon human society. This system institutionalises unequal distribution of national wealth—between employers and employees, between goods and services, and between varying capacities to participate in economic activity. Inequality is not an unintended outcome of the monetary economy; it is its organising principle.
Across societies, citizenry populations have been conditioned to accept the monetary economy as an unavoidable necessity. People are taught to believe that society cannot function without money; that unequal measures of value and worth must govern economic exchange; that bureaucratic structures should determine wages; and that insufficiency of income—regardless of labour rendered—is an acceptable norm. In this worldview, extreme disparities of wealth are normalised, where some accumulate millions or billions while others subsist on economic marginality.
Although the unsocialist nature of the monetary economy is deeply regrettable, it persists because it reflects the prevailing ideology of ruling and elite classes. Through policy instruments, banking regulations, and financial governance, these classes enforce their conception of State power and economic-order upon society. What is sustained, therefore, is not collective consent but systemic imposition.
This claim has become the cornerstone upon which indirect-democracy defends its authority to override, suspend, reinterpret, or entirely ignore the will of the people. It is the intellectual shield behind representative insulation, technocratic dominance, judicial overreach, and executive discretion. Yet when examined closely—historically, psychologically, and structurally—it collapses under its own contradictions.
1. Majority Rule as a Govoxical Process, Not a Moral Absolutism
Within populocracy, majority rule is not elevated as a claim to moral perfection. It is recognised as a govoxical process—a functional mechanism through which collective decision-making occurs among those who must live with the consequences of that decision. Every voter’s choice contributes to a shared outcome, and policies are adopted according to the option that secures majority consent within a defined social and territorial context.
Majority rule does not assert that the majority is always right. Rather, it asserts something far more grounded and defensible: the majority is the most legitimate decision-maker, because it represents the aggregated lived experience of the population affected by the outcome.
In this sense, majority rule prioritises collective welfare over ideological abstraction. It seeks the greatest practical benefit for the greatest number, not moral purity imposed from above. It is a mechanism of social coherence, not ethical absolutism.
2. The Elite Fallacy: Who Decides What Is “Morally Correct”?
The claim that the majority may be morally wrong immediately raises a deeper question: wrong according to whom?
In indirect democracy, this authority is arrogated to:
- Political elites.
- Judicial institutions.
- Technocratic experts.
- Ideological minorities with disproportionate influence.
These actors position themselves as moral guardians—asserting superior ethical insight over the collective population. Yet there is no empirical, historical, or biological evidence that elites possess a more accurate moral compass than the governed majority. On the contrary, history overwhelmingly demonstrates that elite morality has been the principal engine of exploitation, domination, and social harm.
Slavery, colonialism, apartheid, patriarchal exclusion, criminalisation of sexuality, eugenics, forced sterilisation, and mass incarceration were not driven by spontaneous majority uprisings. They were systematised, rationalised, and enforced by elites—often against popular resistance.
The moral myth is therefore inverted: it is not the majority that requires restraint, but concentrated power in the hands of the ruling class and their elite cohorts.
3. Majority Rule as a Dynamic, Not Static, Ethical Process
A central failure of indirect democracy is its treatment of morality as static—something fixed, codified, and guarded by institutions. Populocracy recognises instead that human morality evolves, because human experience evolves.
Majority rule within populocracy operates as a dynamic process, not a terminal verdict. At any given moment, a majority decision reflects the prevailing collective consciousness—shaped by cultural context, scientific knowledge, material conditions, and shared experience. Importantly, this consciousness is not frozen in time.
Minority positions are never extinguished. They remain structurally empowered to challenge, persuade, demonstrate, and accumulate evidence. Through continuous public deliberation, lived outcomes, and experiential proof, minority positions may mature into majority consensus.
This is not theoretical. It is precisely how human societies have always progressed.
4. Historical Proof: How Minority Truth Becomes Majority Wisdom
Every major moral advancement in human history followed the same trajectory:
- A prevailing majority belief dominates social norms.
- Minority perspectives challenge it using evidence, experience, and moral reasoning.
- Over time, the collective consciousness shifts.
- The minority becomes the majority.
The abolition of slavery, the extension of women’s rights, the recognition of gay rights, changes to age of consent, labour protections, and civil rights all followed this pattern. None were imposed permanently by enlightened elites against popular will. Even when elites initiated reforms, those reforms only endured once they aligned with evolving majority consciousness.
This demonstrates a crucial truth: majority rule is not the enemy of moral progress—it is its vehicle.
5. The Real Corruption: Interrupting Social Evolution
When governments legislate against prevailing majority consciousness under the claim of moral guardianship, they interrupt the natural evolution of society. This creates:
- Alienation between governance and lived reality of the governed.
- Declining legitimacy of institutions.
- Social resentment and resistance against government bodies.
- The illusion of stability masking moral stagnation.
Rather than allowing society to test ideas, observe outcomes, and revise beliefs, indirect democracy freezes moral authority within elite structures. The result is not ethical governance, but moral inertia enforced by power.
Populocracy rejects this interruption. It allows societies to learn collectively, including through error. Mistakes are not failures of the system—they are inputs for correction.
6. Provisional Authority and Continuous Revision
In populocracy, every majority decision is understood as provisional. No outcome is sacred. No policy is beyond revision. Each decision exists within a continuum of evolving conditions and collective understanding.
This is why populocracy does not fear majority rule. It does not equate decision-making with permanence. Instead, it treats governance as an ongoing dialogue between experience, evidence, and outcome.
Minority positions are deferred, not suppressed. Their continued advocacy is not only permitted—it is structurally necessary. Should their arguments acquire sufficient empirical and experiential weight, they will naturally ascend to majority status. This is not instability. It is adaptive governance.
7. The Ethical Superiority of Collective Experience
The most profound ethical insight of populocracy is this: those who live with the consequences of a decision are the only legitimate authors of that decision.
Elite morality abstracts ethics away from consequence. Populocratic morality anchors ethics in lived reality. It recognises that collective experience—accumulated across millions of lives—possesses a form of wisdom no individual, expert, or institution can replicate.
This does not deny expertise. It contextualises it. Evidence informs deliberation, but does not replace consent.
Conclusion: Majority Rule Was Never the Threat
The corruption of democracy into indirect and hybrid forms was not driven by concern for moral correctness. It was driven by fear of losing control. Majority rule threatens elites not because it is immoral, but because it is uncontainable. It cannot be permanently captured, frozen, or monopolised. It evolves as people evolve.
Populocracy restores majority rule not as dogma, but as collective self-governance—a system that trusts the collective of human society to learn, adapt, correct themselves, and mature together. In this sense, majority rule is not merely a voting mechanism. It is the ethical engine of social evolution itself.
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