IS DEMOCRACY THE BEST OPTION FOR GOVERNANCE?

[Shaftdel]

Democracy as it's known the government of the people, by the people and for the people. In contrast to this simply definition, one begins to doubt if truly it’s the best option for governance.

The governments that supposed to protect the people, uphold the oath and defend the nation are the same contradicting the democratic acts of serving the people and the nation at large. The supposed servant becomes the master to the electorates, thinking the position is his inheritance. Where are the morals of the "so call" leaders, what a pity!

The geographical restructuring of the country, prudent management of national resources and providing for the people properly, the list been enormous, promised are better ideas to be imagine than been implemented.

Therefore, is democracy been truly practice?

[theymos]

Democracy sucks. Very few people are knowledgeable about important issues because:
1. A ton of people are just overall stupid to begin with.
2. Even smart people don't have much incentive to become knowledgeable about issues because they know that their vote is almost meaningless.

This is clearly demonstrated by the fact that referenda on raising the minimum wage almost always pass overwhelmingly, despite the fact that virtually every economist says that minimum wage laws are counter-productive.

Usually what you get in the end is a big mess of special-interest-backed laws which don't make any sense, hurt liberty, and drag down the economy. Example: A sugar company will gain $1 million per year from a sugar tariff. Every citizen will lose $0.01 per year due to slightly increased prices from that same tariff, for a total country-wide loss of $3 million per year. Most people won't know that this issue even exists because they are not sufficiently knowledgeable and don't have any incentive to become knowledgeable. For people who do know, it's still usually not rational to spend time and money trying to defeat this measure when you're only going to lose $0.01 per year. Whereas it is rational for the sugar company to spend money trying to get the tariff enacted. (The same sort of thing applies to niche ideological positions, too, not just money.) So these special-interest-backed initiatives often pass (there is in fact a sugar tariff in the US), and they accumulate over time.

The US founding fathers tried to set up the government such that it was more-or-less ruled by an elite set of intellectuals with democracy as only a distant check on possible tyranny, but it clearly didn't work, and nowadays democracy mostly prevails. I suspect that any mixed system of this sort will eventually fail. (Also see my post here.)

I've gone back and forth, but at the moment I tend toward thinking that monarchy would be better than democracy, even though monarchy is clearly also very flawed. At least the monarch can have some sort of guiding vision rather than the total schizophrenia we often see in democracies, and they have more personal skin in the game, since the state's success is their success, for their entire lifetime and extending through the lifetimes of their heirs. But I've never lived in an absolute monarchy, and maybe I'd think differently if I did.

In any case, it'd be better to:
 - Limit government involvement in everything. A government with little power can't do as much harm, even if it constantly makes poor decisions.
 - Have many smaller states rather than a few big ones. If there were 10,000 states and a worldwide culture of allowing freedom of movement, then you wouldn't have to worry so much about your state falling to tyranny or mob rule, since at least one of the other ones should still be OK.
 - Not brainwash people into thinking that democracy or absolutism is by definition good. I've met a lot of people who think that if a majority agrees to something, then that's the end of discussion: the thing agreed to is absolutely moral and correct. This is very stupid.
 - Not treat the law as your god, using it a comfortable shortcut for moral and/or utilitarian thinking.

[TallDragonfly]

Democracy on the surface sounds really great. But in its true practice, a lot of loopholes begin to surface. It is not the democracy that is described in theory that is practiced in reality. Democracy claims to be the kind of government that has the masses involved in the governance of the state. But the true situation is that it is still a certain group of people that get to run the way things are. Democracy, because of its "all-in" nature, results in a very slow process of development and decision making. Procedures that could take way less time to be executed take forever because of the politicking and bureaucracy. The annoying thing is how some countries insist that all countries and governments must be run by democracy. What works for some might not work for others.

[Incodium Coin]

No form of government today matches the exact dictionary definition of it. Politicians/rulers often bend laws and concepts to suit their purposes. My point? there is no true democracy, dictatorship, capitalist, socialist, communist state in the world. NO. some come close, others are further away, that's what we take from it.
That said, which system furthers governance the most? Democracy. Simple; checks and balances, separation of powers, freedom of speech and expression allow for more transparency.

[zcooipo]

I think that democratic elections are very good, because such a government will be restrained and not dictatorial. I think the most terrible thing is authoritarianism!

[SkyFlakes]

Based on what I'm expeiencing under a democratic form of government, I think it is not the best option. Although we can get the freedom we all should have, but the system sucks in here. Well, we can't really conclude about that because I also believe that the effectiveness of it is also determined by the persons regulating the entire country. If there are people who does unrighteous things in their position, then we can expect a worst effect of the government. There's really no best government, the way we manage that form of goverment would really matter to say that it is the best and in our case, there's really a problem.

[Badman-Crypto]

I'm sure if I listed every form of government, you could pick faults with all of them. I guess the main thing to think about is, Is democracy the best option out of the current choices we have?

I'm not clued up on the ins and outs of a lot of the other forms and what I do know could well be biased due to actually living in a democracy, but giving the power of choice to the citizens is a far better choice than say, a dictatorship.

On the other hand, Democracy is beginning to show it's weaknesses a lot more in recent times with the freedom of information that is available through the internet. You've all seen people who think the world is flat or that evolution is real and a lot of this has come from people "researching" questionable "facts" via google and Youtube. Should these people really be able to influence the running of a legitimate country? Just look at Brexit or the Donald Trump election.

I don't care if people like Trump or his policies, you cannot deny that a lot of the people that voted for him did so due to being ill informed about the issues currently facing America and the Brexit vote was exactly the same for the UK.

Maybe it would be better if Democracy was a bit less democratic.

[Bitchef2112]

Democracy sucks. Very few people are knowledgeable about important issues because:
1. A ton of people are just overall stupid to begin with.
2. Even smart people don't have much incentive to become knowledgeable about issues because they know that their vote is almost meaningless.

This is clearly demonstrated by the fact that referenda on raising the minimum wage almost always pass overwhelmingly, despite the fact that virtually every economist says that minimum wage laws are counter-productive.

Usually what you get in the end is a big mess of special-interest-backed laws which don't make any sense, hurt liberty, and drag down the economy. Example: A sugar company will gain $1 million per year from a sugar tariff. Every citizen will lose $0.01 per year due to slightly increased prices from that same tariff, for a total country-wide loss of $3 million per year. Most people won't know that this issue even exists because they are not sufficiently knowledgeable and don't have any incentive to become knowledgeable. For people who do know, it's still usually not rational to spend time and money trying to defeat this measure when you're only going to lose $0.01 per year. Whereas it is rational for the sugar company to spend money trying to get the tariff enacted. (The same sort of thing applies to niche ideological positions, too, not just money.) So these special-interest-backed initiatives often pass (there is in fact a sugar tariff in the US), and they accumulate over time.

The US founding fathers tried to set up the government such that it was more-or-less ruled by an elite set of intellectuals with democracy as only a distant check on possible tyranny, but it clearly didn't work, and nowadays democracy mostly prevails. I suspect that any mixed system of this sort will eventually fail. (Also see my post here.)

I've gone back and forth, but at the moment I tend toward thinking that monarchy would be better than democracy, even though monarchy is clearly also very flawed. At least the monarch can have some sort of guiding vision rather than the total schizophrenia we often see in democracies, and they have more personal skin in the game, since the state's success is their success, for their entire lifetime and extending through the lifetimes of their heirs. But I've never lived in an absolute monarchy, and maybe I'd think differently if I did.

In any case, it'd be better to:
 - Limit government involvement in everything. A government with little power can't do as much harm, even if it constantly makes poor decisions.
 - Have many smaller states rather than a few big ones. If there were 10,000 states and a worldwide culture of allowing freedom of movement, then you wouldn't have to worry so much about your state falling to tyranny or mob rule, since at least one of the other ones should still be OK.
 - Not brainwash people into thinking that democracy or absolutism is by definition good. I've met a lot of people who think that if a majority agrees to something, then that's the end of discussion: the thing agreed to is absolutely moral and correct. This is very stupid.
 - Not treat the law as your god, using it a comfortable shortcut for moral and/or utilitarian thinking.

I'd say you're cotnradicting yourself a bit theymos... Monarchy is a system that gives way too much power into hands of one person, which is a danger in itself. As we know, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Then you say limiting the government is good, but a monarch would be able to rebuild the control with much more ease than democratically chosen government.

Democracy is great, but it works way better in educated societies, such where not much power is in hands of the federal govt but instead in hands of the smaller, and much more reliable states.
A great example of this is how decentralized and well-rounded the Swiss system is, they have frequent referendums, their states compete for people etc. It's all working great, and i think that's how a government should be ran - as close to the citizens as possible. Federal govt can't rule well, considering the size and differences in the country - which brings us back to a monarch, who would be obviously much worse than that.
Decentralization is the name of the game.

[m.roth]

Clearly, with the existence of so many different interests, generations, cultures, customs, opinions and so on, there can never be one system which is fair for everyone.

I still think democracy is the way to go to face this heterogeneity, maybe applied on a more local level, within a similar cultural setting. Everyone should be able to take part in political decisions. It is the obligation of the leaders and expert to inform and influence us (stupid) correctly.

In this matter, there should also be more independent organizations rating political material and statements. Blockchain will hopefully help designing more transparent and less corrupt frameworks.

Furthermore, we should turn our back on the classic group "party-thinking" and focus more on the substance.

[KingScorpio]

Democracy as it's known the government of the people, by the people and for the people. In contrast to this simply definition, one begins to doubt if truly it’s the best option for governance.

The governments that supposed to protect the people, uphold the oath and defend the nation are the same contradicting the democratic acts of serving the people and the nation at large. The supposed servant becomes the master to the electorates, thinking the position is his inheritance. Where are the morals of the "so call" leaders, what a pity!

The geographical restructuring of the country, prudent management of national resources and providing for the people properly, the list been enormous, promised are better ideas to be imagine than been implemented.

Therefore, is democracy been truly practice?

there is no such thing as absolute best, it always depends on more factors.

[Ladysmith]

I don't consider "democracy" to exist until equality of education can be established. In theory, yes it is the best option for governance, but it has yet to be achieved.

[BADecker]

Democracy is rule by majority. If 51% of the people want something, then the 49% must obey.

The thing that is interesting is, the U.S. government is not a democracy. Even if the people voted like a democracy, governing people are set in place. These governing people do not obey what the majority wants, or what the minority wants.

This means that the U.S. is a dictatorship by a small group of people rather than by one person.

The best way is to allow everybody to do anything he wants as long as he doesn't harm anybody or his property. That's freedom.

Let government do only one thing: prosecute people who harm other people.

Interesting enough, that is the way the U.S. government is set up pertaining to individual people in America. The jury has the right and duty to judge everything about a case. For example, if you get pulled over for doing 120 in a 25 zone, but you haven't harmed anybody... and in your trial-by-jury, the jury says you have the right to drive 120 in that particular 25 zone, the jury rules. And if they say that government must pay you $120,000 dollars for pestering you, the jury rules. You win... if you can get the jury to judge in your favor.

[theymos]

I'd say you're cotnradicting yourself a bit theymos... Monarchy is a system that gives way too much power into hands of one person, which is a danger in itself. As we know, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Then you say limiting the government is good, but a monarch would be able to rebuild the control with much more ease than democratically chosen government.

A democracy and a monarchy are equally capable of increasing the size of the state or refraining from doing so. If the members of the US congress all agreed to do so, they could turn the US into a communistic system where everyone was employed by the state. A monarch could, on the other hand, keep his government very limited. Just because a government is democratic doesn't limit its ability to grow, and in fact democratic institutions have a natural propensity to expand over time.

[tvbcof]

Democracy is rule by majority. If 51% of the people want something, then the 49% must obey.

The thing that is interesting is, the U.S. government is not a democracy.  Even if the people voted like a democracy, governing people are set in place. These governing people do not obey what the majority wants, or what the minority wants.

As I understand it the U.S. was conceive of as a 'constitutional republic'.  This means that in certain things (namely those in the constitution) even if 99% of the people voted one way they still could not get what they wanted...or think they wanted.  They would have to change the constitution.  The 'republic' part means that there are a bunch of smaller 'democracies' and what people want (and thus vote for) in one area is not necessarily the same in another area.

This lack of control drives some people crazy.  They find it cumbersome to get their way, and they are bent on destroying it.  One way of destroying the U.S. is to make it more of a straight 'democracy'...especially if mass migration is engineered.  Unfortunately these attackers have the modern-day 'liberals' on their side in this effort.

These are my understandings.  I'm not saying I 'know' them to be 'correct.'

This means that the U.S. is a dictatorship by a small group of people rather than by one person.

Some recent 'academic' work I was reading classified the U.S. currently as an 'oligarchy.'  I would not disagree with this.

[Vaccaria]

With the kinds of people that rose to seats of power in democratic countries in recent years, democracy is losing its appeal.

Looking at it more broadly, "governance" does not have to just mean running a country. This thread reminds me of the ideals behind blockchain technology. Connecting decentralisation and democracy in my head also conjure up a creeping shadow: It makes me worry of the possibility that even an ecosystem or platform built based on blockchain can be corrupted. I found a discussion at Researchgate about this.

Now, about monarchy. Here's something I can share some opinion on.

I've gone back and forth, but at the moment I tend toward thinking that monarchy would be better than democracy, even though monarchy is clearly also very flawed. At least the monarch can have some sort of guiding vision rather than the total schizophrenia we often see in democracies, and they have more personal skin in the game, since the state's success is their success, for their entire lifetime and extending through the lifetimes of their heirs. But I've never lived in an absolute monarchy, and maybe I'd think differently if I did.

I live in an absolute monarchy. As you said, the good thing is there is a guiding vision, and the monarch has a stake in the country's well-being, because it reflects his/her personal capability as the nation's leader + his/her heir will live in that country in the years to come. A monarch have to rely on a bunch of people to run the country though, so that's where issues like nepotism and corruption crops up. The silver lining is that big daddy can smack your ass and throw you out if you aren't a good boy.

Fortunately, I live at a time when my country is led by a good monarch who listens to the people. He made sudden visits to check on how his people live, and how well-run government departments are. This is a by-product of a system where government officials pander to one royal family in order to keep their position. Now, whether or not its good depends on one's perspective...

When it comes to federal budget, the country's treasury and the monarch's pocket is most likely connected. In this respect, should the monarch decides on a more involved government (more socialism than capitalism), the people stands to benefit from this pocket-treasury binding. My country is currently emphasising free medical care and education, even at the expense of the monarch's personal stash. But I can easily imagine how things would turn sour too.

If you have a monarchy, you can put all the nurture and care to a smaller group of individuals. Place your hope, future, dream, in one basket and make sure that basket is the most compassionate and competent basket the world has ever seen. There's always two sides of a coin, like you said.

[Makkara]

 - Have many smaller states rather than a few big ones. If there were 10,000 states and a worldwide culture of allowing freedom of movement, then you wouldn't have to worry so much about your state falling to tyranny or mob rule, since at least one of the other ones should still be OK.

Well this is actually never going to happen, if you would have 10,000 states, I find really hard to believe those will allow freedom of movement. The main trend would be populism and being constantly afraid of people coming in and "stealing our women and jobs"

[tvbcof]

 - Have many smaller states rather than a few big ones. If there were 10,000 states and a worldwide culture of allowing freedom of movement, then you wouldn't have to worry so much about your state falling to tyranny or mob rule, since at least one of the other ones should still be OK.

Well this is actually never going to happen, if you would have 10,000 states, I find really hard to believe those will allow freedom of movement. The main trend would be populism and being constantly afraid of people coming in and "stealing our women and jobs"

The solution to that problem is relatively simple; be more of a benefit to the target state than a hindrance if you wish to move there.  Unfortunately this is easier said than done for the majority of people.

The fall-back is to work to make the state you are stuck in be more close to the state you like.  Or move to a state who will have you (and others like you), and where such an evolution is a realistic possibility.

This may sound like 'open borders' from a mile-high viewpoint, but it not.  The basic goal of 'open borders' is to make all states the same and eventually glue them into a single uniform entity.  Such a thing will be very much more easy and very much less expensive to control and manipulate.

[Cryptojuni]

According to Abraham Lincoin, Democracy is a government of the people, by the people and for the people. Democracy is simply the option of government because power is centralized among members. In democratic system of government, every citizen have right to vote and to be voted for without compromise.

[Spiritless13]

We all know that every form of government has advantages and disadvantages just like democracy, but for me democracy is the best option for governance since this kind of government give us freedom and we are not deprived on our rights as a human and as a member of our country..but this kind of government has a disadvantage also because other people abuse their freedom and power.. I can say that it will become the best depend on the political leaders who govern us and our country..

[RameTesli]

Democracy as it's known the government of the people, by the people and for the people. In contrast to this simply definition, one begins to doubt if truly it’s the best option for governance.

The governments that supposed to protect the people, uphold the oath and defend the nation are the same contradicting the democratic acts of serving the people and the nation at large. The supposed servant becomes the master to the electorates, thinking the position is his inheritance. Where are the morals of the "so call" leaders, what a pity!

The geographical restructuring of the country, prudent management of national resources and providing for the people properly, the list been enormous, promised are better ideas to be imagine than been implemented.

Therefore, is democracy been truly practice?

As Churchill said “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.”