Session 23 - The World is not a better place

According to Kant a world consisting of democracies would be the one with low probability of war. He bases his argument on the point that the general public has a say in running the state as opposed to the autocratic states that have the power concentrated in the hands of a single ruler. Kant here assumes that general public detest war and would try its best to not get involved in one, whereas if a single person gains a lot of power he could become ambitious and, blinded by his ambitions, would be more likely to go to war.

Here are a couple of points that I would like to raise. First one of them is that no democracy can be a democracy hundred percent. A true democracy would have its power distributed hundred percent over the entire population where each and every individual would have a say in running the country. But, generally when people vote they give their power to the person that they choose to make decisions on their behalf. As a result the power then again gets concentrated among a small percentage of the population and they end up becoming the rulers of that state. This becomes a major problem in the countries where democracies are not fully developed yet as the say of the average person does not account for much. In this case, it again depends on how that small ‘elite’ of population sees war and war can happen if they think there is a need for war.

The second point is that it would not matter whether the state is a democracy or an autocracy when its survival is at stake. They would go to war if they feel an existential threat from any other state. They could even go to war if they think they need more resources to cater to the needs of their general population. They would go to war for any reason they think would help them survive in this world. The structure of power may in some way affect the occurrence of war but a complete world peace is not a possibility in my opinion.