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Is democracy a failure? (1861)

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Re: Is democracy a failure? (1861)

#71

Post by FreedomToCreate »

nostrademons wrote: post #65
FreedomToCreate wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is great and all in words, but in reality a lot of democratic decisions end up with really close counts like 51% against 49%. If you look at it like this, a majority is forcing the minority into something even though there is actually a significant number of people it effects who are against the motion. This is far better than a dictatorship, but it is a flaw and something that human society still needs to find…

What's the alternative, assuming that you can't reach into peoples' heads and change their positions on an issue? Regardless of the decision, you would still have 51% of the population in support of it and 49% opposed (or vice versa, if the system were minority rules). If I could reach into peoples' heads, there's a solution: "mind your own damn business". If we didn't care so much what other people did, then we woul…

As I stated, there is no alternative as of today, and that is the flaw. Its not terrible flaw, and I think that the democracies on this earth are far better than any other form of government, but maybe one day someone will think up the alternative. Mind control though would just be an uber-dictatorship.

Re: Is democracy a failure? (1861)

#72

Post by y80 »

Hondor wrote: post #61
y80 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I would interpret democracy as the ability for others to control my life Interesting, I'd disagree though. Say you live in a fascist society or a feudalist society, you get absolutely no say. Democracy allows us to make decisions that influence our own life, however we must obviously respect the fact that we live in a society with other people, and they must be respected. Beyond living in a vacuum, we have no real w…

Bills of rights don't address the problem of the majority voting to define crimes that suit themselves and punish the people who commit them, even if they're not very bad. For example, various drug and sex related laws that keep changing and we can never agree if something should be an important right to be supported or a crime to be punished.

Very true, but if you dig down at the root causes of drug dealing and sex trafficking, you'll see a definite profit motive which drives these systems, that is capitalists which monopolize these trades and continue them for profit. Drug cartels are a perfect example, and basically all organized crime. People who voluntarily participate in these systems (i.e. drug dealers and prostitutes) do so usually out of desperation and the necessity of a capitalist society where poverty means participate in shady pursuits (especially when you're alienated from the work force due to blacklisting like having gone to prison) or go hungry.

I am however not saying that a purely democratic society would eliminate all of societies ills, I'm saying it would make many of the constructs which perpetuate these sorts of problems would become non-viable.

Re: Is democracy a failure? (1861)

#73

Post by sjclemmy »

gragas wrote: post #56
y80 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I would interpret democracy as the ability for others to control my life Interesting, I'd disagree though. Say you live in a fascist society or a feudalist society, you get absolutely no say. Democracy allows us to make decisions that influence our own life, however we must obviously respect the fact that we live in a society with other people, and they must be respected. Beyond living in a vacuum, we have no real w…

I've really become more and more for states' rights as time goes on. It's very clear that most states (especially rural states) fundamentally disagree with California, New York, and the other blue strongholds. I want to preserve the culture I grew up in. I want everyone to contribute to society. I want a culture where what you get is what you worked for. I don't want "diversity" or a bunch of people from other countr…

>> I don't want "diversity" or a bunch of people from other countries to move to the town I grew up in.

Yet you have moved to California? Can you hear the irony?

>> It's very hard to see the merit in one culture, being from the other.

You don't have. You just have to accept other people think differently and want different things to you.

Re: Is democracy a failure? (1861)

#74

Post by FreedomToCreate »

hasenj wrote: post #69
nostrademons wrote: post #3

Democracy is interesting because it requires you to step outside your own head, understand that there are people who hold different values and different experiences from you, and then mentally engage with them, holding your own doubt and revulsion at bay, until you can come to a consensus that's acceptable to everyone. It's a thoroughly unnatural and uncomfortable experience that can be both fatiguing and time-consum…

It doesn't work when the population is composed of different social groups with vastly opposite systems of values. Iraq for example (I was born in Iraq). We can already see a similar thing happening in America with different ethnic groups not getting along well together. I think this will only get worse over time. Pro Trump and anti Trump camps are really about how a significant number of whites are not getting along…

Unless of course those groups mix and form new ones. Unfortunately people like to self-segregate and push down others for their own cultural pride.

Re: Is democracy a failure? (1861)

#75

Post by y80 »

cderwin wrote: post #42
y80 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Democracy is not about having control of your own life. It is about a large group of other people having control over your life. Democracy is about balancing individual freedom with the demands of living in society. There is no other system of decision making which even attempts to reconcile these two adversarial relationships (individual vs. society). >What you are thinking about would be volunteerism/Non-aggressi…

> Democracy is about balancing individual freedom with the demands of living in society. No it's not. Democracy does not inherently balance individual liberty with societal necessity. In fact, democracy says absolutely nothing about individual liberty or societal necessity at all. Democracy is a form of government that holds regular public elections. It is not anything else. It might be argued that democracy is a nec…

>Democracy is a form of government that holds regular public elections

Democracy is a group of people co-operating in a system through equal representation. This does not require a state apparatus or government.

>It might be argued that democracy is a necessary condition for liberty, but it is certainly not a sufficient one.

Solely sufficient? Absolutely not, that's what I'm saying, but yes it is a necessary condition. It's is the sustinence on which liberty grows.

Re: Is democracy a failure? (1861)

#76

Post by vacri »

y80 wrote: post #22

Democracy isn't a failure. Capitalism is. Now before you dismiss me, I'm not defending socialist states, they are far far worse than liberal democracies, however liberal democracies are run by money. Politicians are bought and sold, and we see an undemocratic group of very powerful individuals influencing legislation and pushing around politicians and manipulating public opinion. How can we claim to live in a democra…

> Now before you dismiss me, I'm not defending socialist states, they are far far worse than liberal democracies

The countries with the highest quality of life are Social Democracies. Places like the nordic countries and the 'new world' anglo countries excluding the US.

It's bizarre just how much the US has demonised the concept of socialism in its political dialogue.

Re: Is democracy a failure? (1861)

#77

Post by Sniffnoy »

y80 wrote: post #50
wyager wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we need a democratic economy Ah, excellent idea. Put the same people who elected Clinton and Trump in charge of the most complicated emergent system in the world. What could go wrong? > a democratic workforce "We voted for you to work on this cotton plantation, so get to it! We also have a democratic economy, so you don't need to worry about getting payed anymore!" > if you believe democracy is a failure, you're sa…

>Ah, excellent idea. Put the same people who elected Clinton and Trump in charge of the most complicated emergent system in the world. What could go wrong? The people that placed them on the frontstage already are in charge of it? If you think the people decided on these two I'd say you misunderstand the process by which these two reached the forefront. A very small minority selected Clinton and stacked the odds in h…

> You fundamentally misunderstand what I'm saying here. I'm not proposing elected slavery, and truly fail to see how you reached that conclusion. I don't know what part of my pro-democracy comment implied I believe in forced labor, but I'm interested in hearing what process you went through in your mind to reach that point.

This is an unproductive comment. If you say something and you aren't understood, the better response would be to explain.

(I, for one, also have no idea what you might mean by a "democratic economy".)

Re: Is democracy a failure? (1861)

#78

Post by Swizec »

stevendhansen wrote: post #37
nostrademons wrote: post #3

Democracy is interesting because it requires you to step outside your own head, understand that there are people who hold different values and different experiences from you, and then mentally engage with them, holding your own doubt and revulsion at bay, until you can come to a consensus that's acceptable to everyone. It's a thoroughly unnatural and uncomfortable experience that can be both fatiguing and time-consum…

"...until you can come to a consensus that's acceptable to everyone." In my (admittedly anecdotal) experience, democracy rarely seeems to come to any consensus that is acceptable to everyone, but rather serves as little more than a moral battering ram that the 51% can use to impose their will on the 49%. Perhaps one day people will realize that democracy, given its cultish appeals (e.g. "but don't you know other syst…

That's why real democracies have more than 2 [real/major] parties. Governments are a lot more interesting and concensusy when they're made up of 23%, 27%, 24%, and 26% for example. Suddenly there's no single majority to ram its will down everyone else's throat.

Re: Is democracy a failure? (1861)

#79

Post by pyrale »

Sniffnoy wrote: post #49
y80 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I would interpret democracy as the ability for others to control my life Interesting, I'd disagree though. Say you live in a fascist society or a feudalist society, you get absolutely no say. Democracy allows us to make decisions that influence our own life, however we must obviously respect the fact that we live in a society with other people, and they must be respected. Beyond living in a vacuum, we have no real w…

> Interesting, I'd disagree though. Say you live in a fascist society or a feudalist society, you get absolutely no say. These are hardly the only alternatives. In case you haven't noticed, the other people here aren't implicitly contrasting democracy with e.g. monarchy; they're implicitly contrasting it with anarchy (probably anarcho-capitalism). Again, there's lots of possibilities out there. Personally I like the…

Anarchy (and some of its branches) value very much the values of democracy, with the added benefits of stressing the search of compromise.

In my opinion, anarcho-capitalism is merely feudalism, with some brainwashing for people to accept their fate. There's a reason some prominent anar-capitalists want to be differenciated from anarchists.

Re: Is democracy a failure? (1861)

#80

Post by y80 »

FreedomToCreate wrote: post #63
y80 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A worker controlled economy. Many different forms this could take, perhaps a syndicalist approach. Not state controlled, no central control.

Sounds like a lot of buzz words. Is there any papers or research you can provide links to to flush out the concept. Or maybe provide some insight yourself. There are millions of workers. How do they control the economy and coordinate? And syndicalist push in Europe and even the US is a proven failure of the idea.

Sure, Anarcho-Sydnicalism is a book by Rudolph Rocker the founder of anarcho syndicalism. For other approaches there's mutualism a market based approach, for that I'd see the works of Proudhon, Participatory Economics. There's also anarcho-communism. Here's some books that flesh out the ideas:

Participatory Economics: https://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~wright/Published%20writing/Alterna...

What is Mutualism? : https://c4ss.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/what-is-mutualis...

Anarcho-Syndicalism https://libcom.org/files/Rocker%20-%20Anarcho-Syndicalism%20...

The Conquest of Bread (Anarcho-Communism): https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-the-c...

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