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Is democracy a failure? (1861)

nytimes.com

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Re: Is democracy a failure? (1861)

#151

Post by eli_gottlieb »

nostrademons wrote: post #36
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…

They're complementary. A sibling thread on this article says that the problem with democracy is that votes based on a gut feeling that doesn't reflect reality count for the same as well-researched votes by experts with a full understanding of the consequences: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12878457 Capitalism solves this problem with bankruptcy & business failure. People whose beliefs are shown to be false los…

>Capitalism solves this problem with bankruptcy & business failure. People whose beliefs are shown to be false lose their businesses and are forced to work for other people whose decisions turned out well.

And how often does this work in real life?

Re: Is democracy a failure? (1861)

#152

Post by pessimizer »

rayiner wrote: post #138
urza wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am faving this comment. Huxley was a true visionary. However I dont agree with the "...new kind of non-violent totalitarianism..." Our democracies are non-violent only if you obey. Otherwise they use violence and force to lock you up. Most people in prisons are there for victimless crimes like drugs. That is not a non-violent system in my opinion.

I mean that's verifiably not true if you look at the statistics. A majority of prisoners are not in for drug crimes. The ones that are are overwhelmingly in for drug trafficking, which is violent (selling something that physically hurts people). You can argue that consent should make the act legal, but that doesn't make it non-violent.

> drug trafficking, which is violent (selling something that physically hurts people).

Only if selling sugar, rifles or skateboards is violent.

Re: Is democracy a failure? (1861)

#153

Post by rasengan »

pessimizer wrote: post #152
rayiner wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean that's verifiably not true if you look at the statistics. A majority of prisoners are not in for drug crimes. The ones that are are overwhelmingly in for drug trafficking, which is violent (selling something that physically hurts people). You can argue that consent should make the act legal, but that doesn't make it non-violent.

> drug trafficking, which is violent (selling something that physically hurts people). Only if selling sugar, rifles or skateboards is violent.

Beat me to it! ;)

Re: Is democracy a failure? (1861)

#154

Post by tormeh »

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…

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

I think that's too strong. Some dictatorships have more liberty than some democracies. Democracy increases the odds of liberty immensely, but is neither necessary nor sufficient.

Re: Is democracy a failure? (1861)

#155

Post by cmrdporcupine »

erikbye wrote: post #89
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…

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/03/ber... Why stubbornly claim capitalism is a failure when America is not capitalist? It is not laissez faire capitalism, like Chomsky says, it is a nanny state, where government bails out failed business. That is not capitalism.

Au contraire it's just a matter of what definitions you are working with, and to many of us the US is the penultimate expression of the rule of capital over society -- capital-ism. The rule of capital. The rule of the interests of those who own capital.

Classical liberals and libertarians of course run with a different -- IMHO utopian -- definition of capitalism which puts the emphasis on the act of individuals trading goods with each other. From my perspective it's an ideological smoke screen which papers over the reality of the asymmetrical distribution of power that arises naturally out of the particular 'natural rights' of property that classical liberalism embraces. And they were embraced historically precisely because of that distribution of power -- during an era of expanding colonialism, imperialism, and enclosure.

To put it another way -- the US may not look like a textbook laissez-faire capitalist society that a Friedman, Hayek or Randian would advocate -- but the unjust power structure of the US and societies like it are what actual-existing capitalism _creates_. It is capitalists who rule, and capitalists who made it that way.

Re: Is democracy a failure? (1861)

#156

Post by ZenoArrow »

zigzigzag wrote: post #146
gragas wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Significant relaxation of federal power is the only way USA and Europe can be politically stable over the long run, but good luck getting people to let go of the idea of federalism.

How so? The general public in the USA and Europe seem fairly docile, we've had massive political scandals on both side of the Atlantic over the past couple of decades, and the general public barely reacts at all (in any meaningful way at least, in terms of organising resistance).

Re: Is democracy a failure? (1861)

#157

Post by eli_gottlieb »

Sniffnoy wrote: post #77
y80 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 re…

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

One in which we workers are rid of all absentee bosses and run enterprises ourselves, democratically. Hence "democratic economy".

Re: Is democracy a failure? (1861)

#159

Post by lisivka »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #151
nostrademons wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're complementary. A sibling thread on this article says that the problem with democracy is that votes based on a gut feeling that doesn't reflect reality count for the same as well-researched votes by experts with a full understanding of the consequences: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12878457 Capitalism solves this problem with bankruptcy & business failure. People whose beliefs are shown to be false los…

>Capitalism solves this problem with bankruptcy & business failure. People whose beliefs are shown to be false lose their businesses and are forced to work for other people whose decisions turned out well. And how often does this work in real life?

Too often.

Re: Is democracy a failure? (1861)

#160

Post by eli_gottlieb »

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 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 countries to move to the town I grew up in.

>Having moved to California from Iowa, I can totally understand how Californians value diversity and equality (not necessarily equal opportunity) above all else. But where I'm from, people value equal opportunity and hard work. It's very hard to see the merit in one culture, being from the other.

Can you phrase your political philosophy in terms of real proposals rather than thought-terminating cliches? When I hear the term "value" or "values", I reach for my gun.

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