"Democracy and the market are not machines that can run themselves," according to public intellectual, George Weigel, from the Ethics and Public Policy Centre in Washington DC. "It takes a certain kind of people, who are living a certain set of virtues, to make democracy work. As we have seen in Europe recently, a deficit of democratic culture can be as dangerous to the future of societies as fiscal deficits."
At recent guest lectures for Maxim Institute, Weigel spoke about the three interlocking elements of a flourishing democracy, namely a democratic political community, a free economy, and a vibrant moral culture. The last of these "is the key to the success of the former." This is because freedom (both political and economic) "sets loose" a lot of energy that can be directed in many different ways. It can lead to human flourishing or it can equally lead to decadence and degradation. Weigel says we should never speak only of the "free society" but always of the "free and virtuous society."

For Weigel, one of the threats to a vibrant moral culture is our understanding of freedom. As freedom has become detached from a concept of tenable truths that are publicly identifiable and available, freedom has become a matter of individual choice-something we can choose to attach to anything we want, as long as nobody else gets hurt. But contrary to this view, Weigel suggests that freedom is actually not just about letting one's will rule, rather in the history of western democratic politics, "freedom was always understood to have a deep connection to moral truth."

He describes freedom as being like learning to play the piano. For a long time we practice our scales, developing our habits, so that we can then improvise "freely," but in a way that leads to good results. Similarly, Weigel says, "freedom needs to be undergirded by the habits of virtue" and it "must be tethered to moral truth if freedom is not to be self-cannibalising."

As we look at the flailing democracies across the globe, Weigel's arguments become highly pertinent. He offered no easy solutions, but a compelling refocusing of our efforts, not to simply tinker with the "machinery" of democracy and the market, but to remember that the "habits of heart and mind of the citizenry" are fundamental to the entire democratic project.

~ Reprinted with permission from Maxim Institute

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