Seriously, on the historical timescale of kingdoms, democracy is a very young concept. It's only really after WWII that democracy got promoted to this almost utopian ideal that we know it as today. It's not a all given that it's the "best" way to run a society - as Churchill famously noted, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms".
To dial the abstraction a little back, it's a well known mode for software projects to die, when they cease being a labour of love of a small dedicated team with clear purpose and direction and starts trying to be all things to all people through "democracy"/"design by committee". Of course, plenty of projects have survived and flourished too.
Just to add the end of that quote, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."
Platforms win over closed systems. Democracy makes government a platform for economic interests. Democracy doesn't necessarily reflect the will of the population, but it at least pretends to.
> Democracy makes government a platform for economic interests.
This seems to suggest that monarchies and other forms of government aren't platforms for economic interests. This isn't true. You have the exact same dynamics play out in monarchies of sufficient size, because economic interests depend on manipulating bureaucracies, not governmental leaders. What we have in America is a system where all the governmental leaders besides SCOTUS justices are bureaucratic officials.
It's actually not, whether you're talking about individual freeing of slaves (which has basically been a thing since slavery was instituted at all) or nation-scale emancipations.
A careful reading of that timeline and its sources shows that all the "emancipations" listed before the 18th century are highly localized and/or short-lived, so I would agree that the widespread concept of freedom from slavery as an inalienable right is fairly modern.
while real "universal suffrage" is a very new thing smaller scale "democracies" in the past arguably worked okaysh[0] and are imo a better simile to how projects work.
E.g. the plebe/end users have some saying but mostly stuff is run by the core devs/patricians.
There are basically two interpretations of democracy. One, the more classic, is that the demos is the moral legitimacy of power, as opposed to, say, God ("I am the king because God made it so; if you disagree, you're a heretic, and you will be burned at the stake/hanged/stoned"). While the monarch isn't elected, he can only rule through the consent of the people (which, conveniently, is vaguely defined). David Hume explicitly reserved the right of revolution - for the people to withdraw consent.
The more modern strand of democracy, the one I think may prove short lived, is that democracy means that the demos actually rules. With some checks and balances still in place, the prevailing narrative around "democracy" today is that as long as 50% kinda wants something, then there is full moral basis for doing it.
"Democracy is a poor system of government at best; the only thing that can honestly be said in its favor is that it is eight times as good as any other method the human race has ever tried."
Here I go quoting Robert A. Heinlein for a second time this month on HN. Democracy is to me the ultimate example of why "good enough today" is world better than "perfect tomorrow".
The problem, IMO, is that we have idealised democracy and forgotten that, indeed, it "is a poor system of government at best".
"Good enough today" doesn't mean that you get to go home tomorrow, it is the preference of incrementalism over getting everything perfect in one go. Incrementalism then implies that you continue to look for things that are better, and that your recognise that what you have is only good enough, not perfect.
There are plenty of suggestions out there for improving the political system, such as direct democracy and more proportional representation. My main problem with these are that they are argued in terms for being "more democratic", ie. closer to the ideal that we should realise is deeply flawed, not in terms of actually better for society, except in terms for policies favoured by the proponents being perceived as easier to vote through.
>The problem, IMO, is that we have idealised democracy and forgotten that, indeed, it "is a poor system of government at best".
I think the real problem is we think democracy is just a form of government, whereas (and this was known to ancient Athenians) democracy is simultaneously all about active citizen participation.
If people just vote once in 4 years, and at best do a few protesting here and there in insignificant numbers compared to the total number of citizens, then that's not any a democracy in the original sense, though we might call it that.
Agreed. Direct democracy doesn't actually appeal to me. While there is something to the idea of just directly voting up or down on laws of the land, that means that we now have completely clueless people with the up/downvote button making decisions. Think of what 4chan can do with a direct democracy system.
The way I see it, the basic problem of government is "how do we get honest and competent people into power?" I think if we start with that foundation, we get just laws, civil liberties, etc. as a result. Democracy solves this by saying that the government will be transparent, and the majority will surely spot the problems. However, as we can see this system is easily gamed, and when you have an apathetic majority of voters things get even worse. At some point one might argue that it becomes worth asking if it's better to have a monarch who fears revolution or an elected body that fears not being re-elected.
At some point one might argue that it becomes worth asking if it's better to have a monarch who fears revolution or an elected body that fears not being re-elected.
We have plenty of 'monarchs who fear revolution' today. A monarch is simply a hereditary autocrat, and there are tons of autocrats in the from of dictators today. It's no guarantee of even a mildly reasonable quality of life - indeed, scanning through a list of countries sorted by a quality of life index didn't show any autocratic countries in the top 50: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-of-life_Index
Edit: there is one - Qatar in spot #41
The way I see it, the basic problem of government is "how do we get honest and competent people into power?"
Unfortunately, most of the people who desire power aren't the kind of honest people we'd like in power. The ideal system would be less about how to get the honest in power, and more about how to control for corruption.
Fair enough. My main point is that those in power should be held more responsible, not less, for their actions. Currently, in the US, those in power very rarely feel personal consequences of performing poorly.
On the other point, yes, it's an old old idea that you should give power to those that are refusing it the most. Ideally, once again, a transparent government where everyone is held responsible individually, not in their position, will fear its people and will be much less likely to become corrupt.
On the other point, yes, it's an old old idea that you should give power to those that are refusing it the most.
This is an adage to be said over a few beers, but doesn't really work in real life. Plenty of folks would heartily refuse to govern while also being incapable of governing. Refusal of power doesn't equate to proficiency in governance.
Your first point is the real goal - checks and balances. Just today in the paper here in Aus, there are reports of a freshly retired politician who had his wife on payroll for quite a nice amount, but the staff in the office report never having seen her for three years. All up it'll be a couple of hundred thousand worth in fraud, but will he actually get anything more than a slap on the wrist? How different would be the treatment if it was welfare fraud instead?
a transparent government... will fear its people
The idea of a government being scared of its constituents is a peculiarly American viewpoint; that things should be kept in place by fear of putting a foot wrong. Checks and balances should obviously be there, but the semantics of philosophically starting out from a place of fear is just bizarre.
The US is very much into polarising anything political into two groups (government vs people in this case) - very odd given that it's got one of the greatest varieties of cultures on the planet.
Heh. I never thought of it any other way. No I don't think that people who work for the government should actually experience fear when doing their jobs. I use the term "government should fear its people" as a turn of phrase to mean that the government that is elected by the people to serve the people should perhaps face very direct consequences when it fails. For example, when a congress fails to perform its basic function of passing a budget, the whole lot of them should be recalled as they are clearly unable to perform a simple task. So by fear I really mean "respect and be accountable to".
Edit: regarding giving power to the unwilling: my point was that extreme want of power is a negative when it comes to a candidate, but a lack of that specific type of ambition is a necessary but insufficient qualification.
Well, if that politician had feared anything - public outcry, mob action, loss of reputation, consequences of his fraudulent action - he might not have done what he did.
Not to say that politicians should go to work daily with trembling anxiety. But it would really help if they dreaded letting their constituents down (on the negative emotion side) and aspired to serve their constituents honorably (on the positive emotion side).
> The way I see it, the basic problem of government is "how do we get honest and competent people into power?"
I entirely disagree.
The basic question of political theory is "How do we create and maintain a just society?" Government, and the kind of government, is a large part of this answer. Just laws are another large part. The distribution of power is another part. But first you have to answer what constitutes a just society at all, and you will already have disagreements. For me, I turn to Martha Nussbaum's Capability Theory, and her Ten Central Capabilities, for guidance on what capabilities every individual in a just society should have. It's not a clear-cut answer, but it's an excellent starting point.
Your mistake, as I see it, is to conflate governmental positions with power. But power isn't that simple; or rather, it's much simpler than that. Getting honest and competent people into power involves more than governmental hiring practices and elections; it involves controls on the private sector and on the wealthy and on the charismatic. That seems a slippery slope to go down.
In an interview from Lee Kwan Yew, he suggests that it would be better for democracy if people with children between the ages of 35 and 60 had two votes. One of the common criticisms of democracy is that it promotes short-term thinking because pandering to the people is always popular. Giving extra political power to the portion of the population with the incentive to think long-term might counteract that.
It seemed like this model was a hypothetical, and not something he thought politically possible. But he is very skeptical of the one-person one-vote model, which to be fair has crashed and burned in many places it has been tried outside of its region of origin. Yew thinks China converting to a Democracy would set back its economic development by a hundred years.
Why that specific group? Why not the wealthy? Or the poor? Or women? Or landowners? This sounds like a terrible idea, along the lines of the government subsidizing home ownership the way it does in the US. The only version of this that I've seen that I actually liked was the idea that to declare war a referendum was necessary (can easily and quickly be orchestrated nowadays) and that the people that vote Yes are the first to be drafted. Naturally, only the people eligible to vote are the ones eligible to serve. I think almost everyone can agree that war is bad, while I doubt that we can all agree that choosing to be between 35 and 60 and have kids is the most ideal state of being for the country/economy/the world.
The reason why that specific group was chosen is that they represent non-voting citizens. There are 73 million Americans too young to vote. They are subject to laws and pay sales taxes, but have no representation in the government. The proposal isn't a "reward" for being a good breeder, but an attempt at rectifying that almost a quarter of the population has no electoral power. I believe that the age range was mostly chosen to ensure that these are parents of children who are not of voting age, but I think it would be easier to allocate one vote to each social security number and let parents proxy vote for their children. Honestly, I'm not sure that this is a good idea, I'm not sure that it's any worse than just denying representation to a segment of the population.
My other concern is your policy on referendum for war. I'm opposed to war and would vote no on pretty much any referendum. However, I also have cerebral palsy and am completely ineligible to serve. Do I not deserve a say in our foreign policy? Also, the US has gone through its past few wars without instituting a draft. My more bellicose relations would be able to vote for this war without any serious fear of being drafted.
I think the much bigger problem than the minors not being able to vote would be the problem of apathy. 3/4 of American voters don't vote for whatever reason. Of the 1/4 that do, most don't know foreign policy from a strongly worded statement about Christian values. The reality is that voters are much easier to influence than they imagine and elections are not won on the fundamentals of the party but on the way that the team spins the personality of the candidate.
Now, as for the referendum thing... It's not my idea, I'm paraphrasing an idea that is twice as old as I am. I think it can be tuned and refined. The idea behind it is that war should be declared only when a majority of the country's draft-age people are willing to lay down their lives for the cause. What we have now is that a few hundred people get to decide to send a small minority that is the military into harm's way based on any reason they want. Making people more directly responsible for declaring war is a good idea.
You are right in that we have not had draft for the past few conflicts. Also remember that the United States has not declared war since WWII [1]. The rest of these conflicts were not wars but "military engagements". And the military probably does not want to get an influx of draftees who have no idea what they are doing either. They are going to be much more likely to die in the conflict due to lack of training, etc.
All that aside, I think the idea here is more valuable than implementation. The idea that if you decide to do something so major as to declare war on a foreign country, you should feel the consequences more immediately. Perhaps if you vote yes, and the majority wins, then your taxes are raised to pay for this war. Or maybe if you vote to raise taxes, then your are raised by double of what you voted for one year (not for/against raising taxes, just using it as an example of a major change).
"subject to laws and pay sales tax" is a broad argument. Tourists and legal residents do the same, but have no representation.
Granted, that's a nit pick. What's much more serious is widespread (and horrible) practice of disenfranchising adults who have been convicted of a felony. There are some 6 million adult Americans citizens who have no representation in Congress.
And it disproportionally affects blacks. From a couple of years back: "In Virginia, 20 percent of blacks can't vote. In Florida, that number is 23 percent. ... (Kentucky, which is safely in Republican hands, is the only other state where 1 in 5 African Americans can't vote.)"
I see a bunch of difficulties with the proposal (if the parents are felons but the child is not, can the parents vote? if the parents are divorced, who gets to control the voting right? what of children in foster care? if the child is mentally disabled, with the cognitive state of a 1 year old, then can the parents still vote? Why is the scaling factor 1 instead of, say, 0.5?)
These can be worked out, and civil rights shouldn't be ignored just because "it's complicated." But the proposal's doesn't feel right. If a felon can be disenfranchised, then that felon no longer has representation. If representation is that important for a non-voting child, then surely it's that important for a non-voting adult. So shouldn't some other adult be able to vote on behalf of the felon?
BTW, you might be interested in Mark Twain's short story 'The Curious Republic of Gondour."
(Also, your 73 million number is a bit too high. I came up with 70 million, based on the census numbers minus the number of non-citizens living in the country, and adding the number of citizens living outside of the country, then scaling the sum by the percentage of people in the US who are under 18.)
The problem with the concept is not that it's inherently a bad idea to temper democracy, it's that it will become just another way of gerrymandering: Make it easier/harder to people you agree/disagree with to vote their mind to stack to deck in favour of a given outcome.
The two are one and the same. Every time you introduce a crude new exception to the rule, you create an imbalance and complexity. Simple is better than complex. Organic is better than artificial. Otherwise emergent behavior is always a way to hack the system (e.g.: gerrymander). The beauty of one vote per person is that it's simple. Now, in the US, things get complex when we start talking about swing states, the fact that 3/4 of voters don't give a crap, etc. You can easily have a system where a few thousand Ohio residents decide who becomes president. However, the more complexity you introduce the more loopholes you will create.
Yes.
Seriously, on the historical timescale of kingdoms, democracy is a very young concept. It's only really after WWII that democracy got promoted to this almost utopian ideal that we know it as today. It's not a all given that it's the "best" way to run a society - as Churchill famously noted, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms".
To dial the abstraction a little back, it's a well known mode for software projects to die, when they cease being a labour of love of a small dedicated team with clear purpose and direction and starts trying to be all things to all people through "democracy"/"design by committee". Of course, plenty of projects have survived and flourished too.