Why Democracy fails (1 Viewer)

[funkshen]

Democracy fails just like every other political affiliation does; because humans are egocentric and want power. In principle many political parties have great policies and moral standpoints. But in practice, everything comes down to the greed and/or reputation of a few powerful people. Most people would rather protect their reputation than bring about much needed social change.

Thanks for the insight Machiavelli.

 

[abbeyroad]

Wouldn't a degree of disorder be manifest in any social organisation with rational and irrational constituents with an incredible capacity for cognitive dissonance? What if our current (representative) system is based on incomplete or incorrect notions of rationality? People aren't pure causal relationship-seekers, this much is patently obvious (we are symbolic-seekers as well, semiotics blah blah). Your points are valid but fallacy of third cause (the bane of logical rationality)



Democracy in principle, as in the right for individuals to participate in decision making, tends to improve decision making and outcomes in that it is basically an injection of pluralism into previously unequal power relationships. But representative democracy is really just the marriage of political economies of scale and apathetic but not disinterested group-oriented individuals who have a notion of their right to participate in politics. My point is not that other forms of democracy are better, in fact a mix of democratic forms is probably "best", but what is the alternative?

im tired as shit so if my arguments aren't 100% cogent idk

Democracy, by definition, empowers the majority at the expense of the minority; it extols the worth and wisdom of the majority - the notion that the majority is entitled to an impetuous degree of deference, such that the boisterous sound of the majority's exoteric platitudes - "equality", "justice", "security", the "greater good" or some such thing, overwhelms the discontent of the minority.

Majoritarian democracy debases reason as much as it does the individual. That the minority of today might become the majority of tomorrow is of no consequence to the democratic man, and neither is the pursuit of truth. He is far too staid, too pious to his democratic principles to concern himself with such things. Lacking any ideas of his own, other than the "democratic" ideals instilled in him by the "democratic" majority, the democratic man stands proudly on the pulpit, endorsing whatever opinions the current majority happens to hold. He does it with such reverence that one wonders whether he would vote away his own democratic ideals if that's what the majority desires?

 

[Lolsmith]

Everyone has a right to have a say. Democracy and communism are far better than dictatorship.

Democracy is but the tyranny of the majority.

 

[funkshen]

if democracy is the tyranny of the majority

why are minority issues so important?

Democracy only implies the nominal equality of individual political participants. Thus minority voters are just as important/powerful as majority voters. In a democratic system it is the responsibility of individual participants to empower minority issues, and indeed it is often the incentive of political actors, over time, to do so, inevitably to the chagrin of others (which I believe is where your grievances really lie). The preoccupation with politics as the domain of the sovereign/macro state is an anachronism that typifies classic liberalism. Politics is anywhere and everywhere the conflict over distribution of resources and opportunity, and thus it is clear that democratic decision making occurs, or has the potential to occur, in almost any organisational arena.

If your argument is that democracy is not an appropriate form of macro political organisation, is it a legitimate form of micro political organisation, say in private, the household, or locally/communally? If your argument is that democratic national governance is unethical/unjust/etc, wouldn't macro decisions just become the domain of micro politics?

I don't get it. Your (somewhat sophist) rant on democracy seems purely existential. You don't offer an alternative, and the obvious ones (elitism/technocracy/monarchy) are demonstrably poor systems of governance too (see: Maoist China and Soviet Russia). Of course in general, bad decisions are made by macro level actors because of the inherent aggregation, but the solution of devolving decision making is merely devolving decision making to micro democratic institutions - an augmentation of democracy, and I'm all for progressive political organisation.

Democracy is but the tyranny of the majority.

As I said above, democracy is simply the nominal equality of individuals as political participants. It is only AFTER that fact that we decide how legitimate democratic decisions are made, which is clearly not a simple issue (such as the diverse ways in which constitutional reform is made in various nations). We learned a lot from Greek democracy (that was REAL tyranny of an arbitrarily defined majority) and instituted liberal democratic states with competing centres of power to afford and protect individuals rights regardless of whether the individual "belongs" to the majority or minority (an incredibly arbitrary categorisation). You should be glad that in modern democracies we don't execute sophists anymore. The dualistic depiction of political organisation as occuring on a continuum between tyranny of the minority and majority is plain Manichean (and probably has similar ontological origins). It's a completely ahistorical theory.

Sure, liberal democracies have a poor history of protecting individual rights, but it is fallacious to ascribe these failures to democracy: it could clearly also correspond to the failure of political actors, indeed 'society' as a whole, to uphold the individuality of certain peoples (such as by classifying them as sub-human, or as 'others' e.g. terrorists, criminals etc).

"An honest politician will not be tolerated by a democracy unless he is very stupid because only a very stupid man can honestly share the prejudices of more than half the nation."

The virtue of democracy is stability and economies of scale but it is still an incredibly powerful forum for stupid people (would eugenics solve the democratic problem cosmo?????)

p.s. democracy is still shit but what can you do (besides be a utopian marxist)

 

[funkshen]

hey guys it turns out even in democracies people take what they want and give no fucks

 

[abbeyroad]

if democracy is the tyranny of the majority

why are minority issues so important?

Democracy only implies the nominal equality of individual political participants. Thus minority voters are just as important/powerful as majority voters. In a democratic system it is the responsibility of individual participants to empower minority issues, and indeed it is often the incentive of political actors, over time, to do so, inevitably to the chagrin of others (which I believe is where your grievances really lie). The preoccupation with politics as the domain of the sovereign/macro state is an anachronism that typifies classic liberalism. Politics is anywhere and everywhere the conflict over distribution of resources and opportunity, and thus it is clear that democratic decision making occurs, or has the potential to occur, in almost any organisational arena.

If your argument is that democracy is not an appropriate form of macro political organisation, is it a legitimate form of micro political organisation, say in private, the household, or locally/communally? If your argument is that democratic national governance is unethical/unjust/etc, wouldn't macro decisions just become the domain of micro politics?

I don't get it. Your (somewhat sophist) rant on democracy seems purely existential. You don't offer an alternative, and the obvious ones (elitism/technocracy/monarchy) are demonstrably poor systems of governance too (see: Maoist China and Soviet Russia). Of course in general, bad decisions are made by macro level actors because of the inherent aggregation, but the solution of devolving decision making is merely devolving decision making to micro democratic institutions - an augmentation of democracy, and I'm all for progressive political organisation.



As I said above, democracy is simply the nominal equality of individuals as political participants. It is only AFTER that fact that we decide how legitimate democratic decisions are made, which is clearly not a simple issue (such as the diverse ways in which constitutional reform is made in various nations). We learned a lot from Greek democracy (that was REAL tyranny of an arbitrarily defined majority) and instituted liberal democratic states with competing centres of power to afford and protect individuals rights regardless of whether the individual "belongs" to the majority or minority (an incredibly arbitrary categorisation). You should be glad that in modern democracies we don't execute sophists anymore. The dualistic depiction of political organisation as occuring on a continuum between tyranny of the minority and majority is plain Manichean (and probably has similar ontological origins). It's a completely ahistorical theory.

Sure, liberal democracies have a poor history of protecting individual rights, but it is fallacious to ascribe these failures to democracy: it could clearly also correspond to the failure of political actors, indeed 'society' as a whole, to uphold the individuality of certain peoples (such as by classifying them as sub-human, or as 'others' e.g. terrorists, criminals etc).

"An honest politician will not be tolerated by a democracy unless he is very stupid because only a very stupid man can honestly share the prejudices of more than half the nation."

The virtue of democracy is stability and economies of scale but it is still an incredibly powerful forum for stupid people (would eugenics solve the democratic problem cosmo?????)

p.s. democracy is still shit but what can you do (besides be a utopian marxist)

the question at hand is not whether minority issues are more important than majority issues. the real question is liberty, ie what happens when a minority disagrees with a decision made by the majority. democracy is built on the violation of individual sovereignty: don't like taxation and only want to pay for the services you actually use? tough luck, pay your taxes or go to jail. Terminally ill and want to die with dignity? Sorry, you can't even kill yourself peacefully because the fucking majority says so. Don't like that tree in your backyard and want to replant it somewhere else? Can't because the community!11!one11!!

All forms of democracy use violence and coercion to enforce their decisions. They are as juvenile as they are vile. Ever noticed how when two grown ups can't reach a compromise in a rational discussion, one can choose to simply walk away and the other won't force him to stay? Well democracy puts a fucking knife to your throat and demands that you agree with him, or else. No decision can be considered legitimate, whether it is reached by a majority or a minority, if it is violently enforced. You'll have to be a credulous unthinking idiot to believe that democracy is an institution in which the rights of the individual are preserved. The only political system that is compatible with individual sovereignty would be a consensus "democracy", whose decisions are non-binding on the dissenting minority. Call it anarcho-democracy or democratic anarchism or what have you.

I know it's tempting to scream "sophistry"11!!!11! when you read something that is beyond your intellect, regardless of whether it is genuine sophistry or actual philosophical reasoning, since that saves you the trouble of actually refuting it critically, as all ad homiums do. In fact that's what the ancient Greeks used to do. They condemned Socrate to death for asking too many damn questions that they didn't know the answers of; in other words, for being a honest philosopher. Still, in the future, try to ignore what you can't comprehend rather than resorting to ad homiums, it doesn't reflect well on you.

 

[Chemical Ali]

why is retributive force following a broken contract or violation of property rights in libertopia legitimate but force used by the state e.g. to make someone pay tax not legitimate given that the state owns the country in a sense?

 

[abbeyroad]

because in libertopia an individual can freely choose to enter or leave a society. The social contract is binding and enforceable because it was voluntarily entered into, and there's usually an exit clause. On the other hand, the ownership of a "country" by the state can not be considered legitimate. No country had ever been founded with the full and explicit consent of all it's people, past or present and one cannot simply renounce the authority of the state at will. Therefore the social contract, in the context of the nation-state, is not valid nor binding.

If you're feeling philosophical and want to explore it in depth, have a read at Hume's Essays, Moral, Political and Literary

II.XII.8

But the contract, on which government is founded, is said to be the original contract; and consequently may be supposed too old to fall under the knowledge of the present generation. If the agreement, by which savage men first associated and conjoined their force, be here meant, this is acknowledged to be real; but being so ancient, and being obliterated by a thousand changes of government and princes, it cannot now be supposed to retain any authority. If we would say any thing to the purpose, we must assert, that every particular government, which is lawful, and which imposes any duty of allegiance on the subject, was, at first, founded on consent and a voluntary compact. But besides that this supposes the consent of the fathers to bind the children, even to the most remote generations, (which republican writers will never allow) besides this, I say, it is not justified by history or experience, in any age or country of the world.

II.XII.9
Almost all the governments, which exist at present, or of which there remains any record in story, have been founded originally, either on usurpation or conquest, or both, without any pretence of a fair consent, or voluntary subjection of the people. When an artful and bold man is placed at the head of an army or faction, it is often easy for him, by employing, sometimes violence, sometimes false pretences, to establish his dominion over a people a hundred times more numerous than his partizans. He allows no such open communication, that his enemies can know, with certainty, their number or force. He gives them no leisure to assemble together in a body to oppose him. Even all those, who are the instruments of his usurpation, may wish his fall; but their ignorance of each other's intention keeps them in awe, and is the sole cause of his security. By such arts as these, many governments have been established; and this is all the original contract, which they have to boast of.

II.XII.10
The face of the earth is continually changing, by the encrease of small kingdoms into great empires, by the dissolution of great empires into smaller kingdoms, by the planting of colonies, by the migration of tribes. Is there any thing discoverable in all these events, but force and violence? Where is the mutual agreement or voluntary association so much talked of?

II.XII.11
Even the smoothest way, by which a nation may receive a foreign master, by marriage or a will, is not extremely honourable for the people; but supposes them to be disposed of, like a dowry or a legacy, according to the pleasure or interest of their rulers.

II.XII.12
But where no force interposes, and election takes place; what is this election so highly vaunted? It is either the combination of a few great men, who decide for the whole, and will allow of no opposition: Or it is the fury of a multitude, that follow a seditious ringleader, who is not known, perhaps, to a dozen among them, and who owes his advancement merely to his own impudence, or to the momentary caprice of his fellows.

II.XII.13
Are these disorderly elections, which are rare too, of such mighty authority, as to be the only lawful foundation of all government and allegiance?

II.XII.14
In reality, there is not a more terrible event, than a total dissolution of government, which gives liberty to the multitude, and makes the determination or choice of a new establishment depend upon a number, which nearly approaches to that of the body of the people: For it never comes entirely to the whole body of them. Every wise man, then, wishes to see, at the head of a powerful and obedient army, a general, who may speedily seize the prize, and give to the people a master, which they are so unfit to chuse for themselves. So little correspondent is fact and reality to those philosophical notions.

II.XII.15
Let not the establishment at the Revolution deceive us, or make us so much in love with a philosophical origin to government, as to imagine all others monstrous and irregular. Even that event was far from corresponding to these refined ideas. It was only the succession, and that only in the regal part of the government, which was then changed: And it was only the majority of seven hundred, who determined that change for near ten millions.*4 I doubt not, indeed, but the bulk of those ten millions acquiesced willingly in the determination: But was the matter left, in the least, to their choice? Was it not justly supposed to be, from that moment, decided, and every man punished, who refused to submit to the new sovereign? How otherwise could the matter have ever been brought to any issue or conclusion?

II.XII.16
The republic of ATHENS was, I believe, the most extensive democracy, that we read of in history: Yet if we make the requisite allowances for the women, the slaves, and the strangers, we shall find, that that establishment was not, at first, made, nor any law ever voted, by a tenth part of those who were bound to pay obedience to it: Not to mention the islands and foreign dominions, which the ATHENIANS claimed as theirs by right of conquest. And as it is well known, that popular assemblies in that city were always full of licence and disorder, notwithstanding the institutions and laws by which they were checked: How much more disorderly must they prove, where they form not the established constitution, but meet tumultuously on the dissolution of the ancient government, in order to give rise to a new one? How chimerical must it be to talk of a choice in such circumstances?

II.XII.17
dThe ACHÆANS enjoyed the freest and most perfect democracy of all antiquity; yet they employed force to oblige some cities to enter into their league, as we learn from POLYBIUS.*5

II.XII.18
HARRY the IVth and HARRY the VIIth of ENGLAND, had really no title to the throne but a parliamentary election; yet they never would acknowledge it, lest they should thereby weaken their authority. Strange, if the only real foundation of all authority be consent and promise!

II.XII.19
It is in vain to say, that all governments are or should be, at first, founded on popular consent, as much as the necessity of human affairs will admit. This favours entirely my pretension. I maintain, that human affairs will never admit of this consent; seldom of the appearance of it. But that conquest or usurpation, that is, in plain terms, force, by dissolving the ancient governments, is the origin of almost all the new ones, which were ever established in the world. And that in the few cases, where consent may seem to have taken place, it was commonly so irregular, so confined, or so much intermixed either with fraud or violence, that it cannot have any great authority.

II.XII.20
My intention here is not to exclude the consent of the people from being one just foundation of government where it has place. It is surely the best and most sacred of any. I only pretend, that it has very seldom had place in any degree, and never almost in its full extent. And that therefore some other foundation of government must also be admitted.

 

[Lolsmith]

why is retributive force following a broken contract or violation of property rights in libertopia legitimate but force used by the state e.g. to make someone pay tax not legitimate given that the state owns the country in a sense?

In this specific example I'd also posit that libertopia is more justified because violating property rights is by far more identifiable and legitimate than avoiding your money being stolen.

 

[abbeyroad]

haha stolen more like robbed.

backed by the army, the police and the law, which they also happens to write by the way, they fucking forcibly take your shit, you call that stealing, I call it the worst fucking form of violent robbery there is.

 

[Lentern]

haha stolen more like robbed.

backed by the army, the police and the law, which they also happens to write by the way, they fucking forcibly take your shit, you call that stealing, I call it the worst fucking form of violent robbery there is.

lololololololololol. Is it cold on pluto?

 

[abbeyroad]

geez I don't know is uranus wide?

 

[funkshen]

blah blah blah

In no way or form did I resort to ad homs, beyond saying (somewhat sophist), I'm sorry you felt it as such, although I'm not surprised it provoked such an impassioned response. Accusations of sophistry aren't even ad hominems, in fact quite the opposite. They are an accusation of "a specious argument used for deceiving someone" (cf. Wikipedia). They are an attack on language and substance and not character (which would be to label SOMEONE a sophist). Your rant was somewhat sophist (as opposed to Socratic dialectic) in that the virtue of your notions lies in persuasive language, in psychological aberrations. It is legalistic and tautological and thus its virtue is in in arete and not truth or reality. It is wholly normative, and is deceptive in that it paints a utopian picture of a world of contractual relationships based on an internally consistent logic comprised of numerous abstract notions (humanity and reality) that are the product of unmediated philosophising and unfettered liberalism and not real inquiry, where justified criticisms are unacknowledged. Such criticisms question your a priori assumptions and absolutism, especially surrounding of the nature of justice (Foucalt), of human behaviour etc.

Socrates wasn't executed for asking too many questions, he was killed because he made specific criticisms of the sophist foundations of Greek democracy, of the courts, lawyers and orators, and subsequently was a true victim of the tyranny of the majority. Democracy was not the problem though, instead it was clearly that continuing to exist was not in fact a right but a democratic decision. Over time, the right to continue exist became the sole realm of absolute monarchs, administrators and other tyrants who empowered their subjects to end the life of others. Such tyrants' domain over determining the continuance of existence has constricted over time but still has a long way to go.

I hesitate to channel Foucalt but democracy is not a political system and is not an ideal. It is material, a political property - the property of the nominal equality of all individual participants, and not of the subhumanity or subordination of any participants. Ironically in this sense it is your libertopian ideal - it is a unanimous liberty. Majoritarianism is a pragmatic addendum to democracy - it is the notion that the democratic majority tends on average to be correct and thus majority decisions are most often correct. This is in some senses historically justified, as democracy and the development and upholding of individual rights have tended to improve outcomes (for conquered and discriminated indigeneous peoples, for women [see; feminism]). In this sense, it is important to remember to make relative-historical judgements on democratic outcomes, a notion which informs many marxists/etc. who for instance call for workplace democratisation as a means of improving outcomes. It's all very well to appeal to the normative or ideal grounds of democracy and the workplace (the workplace will become a tyranny of the majority!!!!!!!!!!!!! contracts and liberty!!!!!!!!!). Ahistoricism is clearly intellectually fraudulent - and the only way abstractions such as yours, or of workplace democracy, could be discounted under any terms would be its practical application.

The democratic property came into existence within a preexisting social/political/economic/religious/geographic context and thereafter has been embedded within it. Democracy exists within politics, but politics has obviously never been completely democratic. The progressive will probably see this and then argue that there is an inevitable march over time towards utopian democracy but I highly doubt this, and unlike you I'm skeptical of any utopian ideal (such as anarchism, which places the centrality of almost all human suffering on the abstract notion of the alienation of sovereignty, self and otherwise - international relations is an interesting case study on anarchism).

Your objection is that "All forms of democracy use violence and coercion to enforce their decisions." This is of course true of any system of decision making, as they must have the ability to make credible, and enforce, their decisions (which is why democratic-anarchism is both an oxymoron and paradoxical). It is thus obvious that a contractual relationship which defines the specific terms of compliance/redress etc, is your only legitimate decision making tool. But to be quite honest, this pure decision making system seems like a regression to primitive micro-community humanity. Contractual relationships have clear evolutionary beginnings in human society, even animal, in the existence of regret, of retribution etc. This was the oral contractual relationship, whereby contractual terms were understood whether explicit or implicit (I'll club you over the head if you don't do what I asked you to). Contractual relationships thus developed in concordance with the increasing sophistication of language and the material conditions of human life. But they were always subordinate to the dynamics of power relations (such as I'm bigger than you, you're smaller than him, etc etc.) and because of this they gave way to the collectivisation of political problems. Therefore, I'm in no way confident that an anarchical system of contractual relationships would not replicate such power relations, though in nowhere near as savage forms, yet still as sinister in its exploitative and unequal outcomes. Furthermore, the very notion that there is unitary 'state', and that all power could even emanate or be monopolised by it is simplistic, vulgar and reductionist.

I do not have a great faith in [democracy and national governance], and would like in my lifetime to witness a devolution of democratic decision making. Mostly, I concur with yours and many others' criticisms of the modern state and how it is often an instrument for prejudice, suffering and violence. But I do not endorse your structuralist grand narratives that that conflate democracy with this fact. Nor do I ignore the interdependence of human life, of human decisions, consequences and externalities and the dispersal of responsibility and ownership of costs and benefits.

Cognitive dissonance is the bane of rational social organisation (maybe human social evolution is dialectical??????????). Many are proud to live in a democracy, yet most don't exercise, shun, or arren't even conscious of their democratic rights (I suggest you read John Ralston Saul). To many, "political" decision making is simply an abstract notion impenetrable by individual participation. THIS is the modern democratic man! What a sore sight. How would you, abbeyroad, know that the failure of the modern democratic state wasn't because of this and/or many other inclusive explanations than for abstract or theoretical criticisms of democracy, coercion, monopoly over violence etc? You privilege structure and ignore free will and dynamism of agents (even their legitimation of legal-rational/democratic dominance - have you read Weber?)

 

[SylviaB]

People aren't pure causal relationship-seekers, this much is patently obvious (we are symbolic-seekers as well, semiotics blah blah).

All conscious/purposive action is based on the belief of causal relationships,though this is often implicit, and at least in the context of my post, I define rational action as using X means to attain Y ends, where you believe there exsts a causal relationship.
This relationship may very well be false, but this makes the action no less rational, though the reasoning that led you to this supposed relationship may be.

but what is the alternative?

Statelessness.

 

[SylviaB]

why is retributive force following a broken contract

It is unlikely that contracts would be violently enforced, but rather a (decentralised) system of reputation similar to that of credit scores would be the norm. If there was a system in which broken cotracts were violently enforced, this would be written into the contract. Yes, this is not perfectly anti-aggression and I don't believe such a system would ever exist, but explicitly agreeing to a contract and being forced to pay a portion of your wealth to the state for living on their turf are clearly worlds apart.

but force used by the state e.g. to make someone pay tax not legitimate given that the state owns the country in a sense?

Hardcore propertarians will tell you that the state doesn't actually own the country because they haven't homesteaded it etc. I believe (recognise?) that ownership is subjective and that property exists only in the context of an established property norm, so I don't buy right into tis. However, the idea that the state can just claims vast tracts of wildnerness that they've never touched and force everyone who happens to live within it's boundaries to follow its laws is clearly far, far worse than saying 'this is our community and if you want to live here you have to follow our laws, and if not you can go somewhere else", and you really can go somewhere else. And given the expense and impracticality of violently enforcing laws on a small scale, most laws can be dealt with through non-violent ostricision.

 

[chrisong1]

ur a total nut whoever wrote this.
You suppose you can come up with a new way of governing? you wanna-be nut case

 

[funkshen]

My point is: I'm disillusioned with the modern state because it seems to inevitably pursue behaviour modification of it subjects (people convinced of their own individuality, of their democratic equality etc!) regressing them to the norm. It's anti-human.

That isn't democracy.

 

[cheezcake]

Technocracy/Scientocracy will be the next step in the evolution of democracy.

Peter A. Ubel - "Scientocracy: Policy making that reflects human nature," he writes, "When I talk about Scientocracy, then, I'm not talking about a world ruled by behavioral scientists, or any other kind of scientists. Instead, I am imagining a government of the people, but informed by scientists. A world where people don't argue endlessly about whether educational vouchers will improve schools, whether gun control will reduce crime, or whether health savings accounts can lower health care expenditures,... but one instead where science has a chance to show us whether vouchers, gun control laws, and health savings accounts work and, if so, under what conditions."

 

[Chemical Ali]

Technocracy/Scientocracy will be the next step in the evolution of democracy.

Peter A. Ubel - "Scientocracy: Policy making that reflects human nature," he writes, "When I talk about Scientocracy, then, I'm not talking about a world ruled by behavioral scientists, or any other kind of scientists. Instead, I am imagining a government of the people, but informed by scientists. A world where people don't argue endlessly about whether educational vouchers will improve schools, whether gun control will reduce crime, or whether health savings accounts can lower health care expenditures,... but one instead where science has a chance to show us whether vouchers, gun control laws, and health savings accounts work and, if so, under what conditions."

I'm pretty sure the USA and lately Australia is going in the exact opposite direction right now

 

[davidbarnesfan1]

again we come back to eugenics..