Why I have fallen out of love with democracy.

[Grant]

Democracy is to a government as a santa clauss is to raising kids. The kids will behave above excellently in the short period before December 24, likewise politicians will talk the most fantastic words in the runup to an election.

It is the most perfect form of government indeed! And it works everytime, just like christmas does for kids.

"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time." - Abraham Lincoln

I call that Lincoln quote, the law of democracy. It's necessary otherwise democracy would defunct just like kids start to defunct the day they figure that santa is a fake.

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[myrkul]

Futarchy. All the egalitarianism of democracy, achieved efficiently through capitalism.

Better idea. Take the politicians out of the loop and just use Capitalism.

[AntiVigilante]

Voting isn't about choosing the best answer. Voting isn't a test. Voting is the exercise of power.

It should be. The best answers to questions are what society need. Voting is excercise of power, but the problem is that the amount of power is equal between educated an non educated voters.

Imagine a vote on the legality of bitcoin: Should people who have studied economics and the bitcoin system and understand it well have the same voting power as someone who have only read one single article full of wrong facts in some blog?

Elitist bullshit. Idiots and morons have creative, productive, and moral potential and therefore are entitled to rights and the power to exercise access to them.

Explain harder. Don't be a lazy ass tyrant. Get the hell out from that cubicle and talk to people. Maybe laugh at stupid jokes and swallow your ego.

[Explodicle]

Futarchy. All the egalitarianism of democracy, achieved efficiently through capitalism.

Better idea. Take the politicians out of the loop and just use Capitalism.

Perhaps. I don't want to start yet another minarchism vs an-cap debate, but if an-cap does indeed work better, futarchy would transition us there eventually. Imagine a poorly-planned an-cap society that serves as "evidence that capitalism doesn't work". I'm arguing for a means; pure capitalism is one of many possible ends.

[Anonymous]

No, it's not remotely close. It's slavery of the dissident minority.

[kylesaisgone]

Tyranny of the majority is never a good thing.

[FreeMoney]

Better is: You rule yourself and I rule myself.

edit: Ruling yourself means you can abdicate that to whomever you like. But you still can't rule me or give that power to anyone else.

[drawoc]

"Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."
      -- Winston Churchill

[em3rgentOrdr]

"Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."
      -- Winston Churchill

This quote always gives me a chuckle, since it completely ignores the possibility that anarchy may indeed be better than democracy.

[myrkul]

"Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."
      -- Winston Churchill

This quote always gives me a chuckle, since it completely ignores the possibility that anarchy may indeed be better than democracy.

Well, it is true in that Anarchy isn't a form of government, technically.

[The Script]

"Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."
      -- Winston Churchill

^^^  This. Yet...democracy is fatally flawed. So where does that leave us? All governments are flawed, time to try something else.

[Jessica]

Has an example of a 'perfect' government system been developed yet?

[Bind]

"Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."
      -- Winston Churchill

Says the man who's God is Empire.


Look folks, democracy is a tool indictrinated and manipulated into us so we do not question the Mob Rule. If enough people think or say something, the rest will fall into lock-step because it was "democratically" arrived at regardless of whether it is constitutional and regardless of our unalienable creator-endowed rights.

This indoctrination and manipulation affects everyone and reaches the highest court in the land.

Often, events are embelished and contrived to give us a push towards a direction of alternate, often esoteric, agendas to sway public opinion so they can democratically enact oppressive and tyrannical legislation meant to only take more of our wealth and rights, under the guise of making us safer.

Leave me alone to do what I please.

If I hurt someone else, damage their property, cause them loss, or infringe on anyone elses property or rights, then put me to task for my doings.

We have become a nation who assaults their own population for what they may possibly do in the future ... not just for what they have done.

[myrkul]

Has an example of a 'perfect' government system been developed yet?

Look in a mirror. That is the perfect government for you.

[GideonGono]

Has an example of a 'perfect' government system been developed yet?

Look in a mirror. That is the perfect government for you.

classic!

[blogospheroid]

I pitched for the taxpayers oligarchy in another thread.

Advantages over democracy

A little less of other people's money problem, since taxpayers are provided with votes proportional to taxes.

A natural counterbalance, negative feedback established between money and power.

[billyjoeallen]

"Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."
      -- Winston Churchill

This quote always gives me a chuckle, since it completely ignores the possibility that anarchy may indeed be better than democracy.

Well, it is true in that Anarchy isn't a form of government, technically.

Anarchy, at least individualist anarchy, is distributed governance- nonmonopoly governance. It has rules, but no rulers.

[Mittlyle]

Historically modern democracy is supposed to empower the elite giving false sense of power to the masses. That is quite openly stated in many sources by those who were building the system. I, however, think that democracy as an idea is good enough if few traps are avoided. First the democracy must be reasonably small to maintain efficiency. Second there needs to be good transparency. Third, political system must effectively represent peoples opinions. I think Switzerland gets closest to this with their direct democracy model. In many countries result of the vote hardly matters for the policies and thats not democracy in the sense of 'power of the people', what democracy stands for originally anyway.

Hardly anybody advocating democracy would deny it's about trade-off between freedom and obligations. It's just about values; in some set of values thats acceptable and democracy is based on those. Libertarians don't think same way but thats based on their values. Values are subjective so in the end the problem is solved by who manages to reinforce their values. Libertarians would do the same if they could and would reinforce the values they think are correct (strict property rights etc.). So I would narrow criticism of democracies only for inefficiencies they tend to have.

As said, I think government based on so called democracy may be functional or dysfunctional. It really is about how well it manages to represent people opinions accordingly so it truly matches the historical meaning of the word. If it does that well, by definition majority would be happy, and the minority might be discontent, but probably just okay. Thats just acceptable result as system in which all would be happy is hardly possible.

[AyeYo]

Historically modern democracy is supposed to empower the elite giving false sense of power to the masses. That is quite openly stated in many sources by those who were building the system. I, however, think that democracy as an idea is good enough if few traps are avoided. First the democracy must be reasonably small to maintain efficiency. Second there needs to be good transparency. Third, political system must effectively represent peoples opinions. I think Switzerland gets closest to this with their direct democracy model. In many countries result of the vote hardly matters for the policies and thats not democracy in the sense of 'power of the people', what democracy stands for originally anyway.

Hardly anybody advocating democracy would deny it's about trade-off between freedom and obligations. It's just about values; in some set of values thats acceptable and democracy is based on those. Libertarians don't think same way but thats based on their values. Values are subjective so in the end the problem is solved by who manages to reinforce their values. Libertarians would do the same if they could and would reinforce the values they think are correct (strict property rights etc.). So I would narrow criticism of democracies only for inefficiencies they tend to have.

As said, I think government based on so called democracy may be functional or dysfunctional. It really is about how well it manages to represent people opinions accordingly so it truly matches the historical meaning of the word. If it does that well, by definition majority would be happy, and the minority might be discontent, but probably just okay. Thats just acceptable result as system in which all would be happy is hardly possible.

Right on the money.  We must also remember that functioning democracy requires an educated, informed, and involved populace - something we currently don't have in the many failing democracies of the world.  When the masses become ignorant and apathetic, as we currently have in the US, the power of the government will quickly fall back into the hands of the elite.

[Mittlyle]

I'd like to add one important aspect relating to transparency: you can't have it without independent media. If big corporates can manipulate both the politicians and the media the democracy is pretty much doomed at that point. Unfortunately that happens to be the case in most of the so called democracies. That can be counted as a shortcoming of democracy as way of governing, but to solve those problmes, no I wouldn't abolish government, I would fix the transparency-issue to stop corrupt decisions.