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I've always wondered: is there a paper/thesis somewhere suggesting a better alternative to democracy? I don't mean the usual (monarchy, dictatorship, etc), but rather something entirely new. I imagine there must be at least one political sciences/philosophy student somewhere who gave this a thought, but I never found anything.
I haven't finished reading it yet, never mind digesting it, but it is fascinating and though-provoking. The following paragraph should wet your appetite:
In Moscow’s view, history is back and nothing is inevitable, least of all liberal democracy. Others, in Beijing, Ankara, Cairo, Caracas, and even Budapest, share Russia’s hostility to Western notions of progress, as do growing numbers of apostates in the West. Are they wrong?
This book is my attempt to answer that question. Let me declare now that nothing is pre-ordained. To a person whose life has coincided with the rise of democracy, the spread of market economics and signs that the world had finally subscribed to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (even if much of it is paid only in lip service – hypocrisy, as they say, being the compliment vice pays to virtue), merely to pose the question is troubling enough. Wasn’t that debate settled a long time ago? Isn’t the march of human freedom unstoppable? Doesn’t the whole world crave to be Western? We can no longer have any confidence in that. It was remarkably arrogant to believe the rest of the world would passively adopt our script. Those who still believe in the inevitable triumph of the Western model might ask themselves whether it is faith, rather than facts, that fuels their worldview. We must cast a sceptical eye on what we have learned never to question.
For the US specifically, I think we should be going back to letting states take the lead on social issues like wellfare, gay marriage, abortion, drug decriminalization/legalization, gun control and whatnot instead of trying to do everything at the federal level - especially via ever more contorted constitutional interpretation.
The benefits from this kind of approach would be the ability to do quicker, more focused policy iterations with less controversy at the state level for the willing states before getting locked in federally and difficult to change as opposed to the opaque backroom deals and guessing games of today.
Democracy with universal suffrage has barely been around a century. In South Africa, it is just over 2 decades old. It's new, it's messy, it doesn't always go our way. What amazes me is that the USA can swing from one side of the political spectrum to the other and the country holds together and happily repeats the process every few years.
Sorry to break it to you buy Democrats are not left, if anything they are center right by western European standards, the Republicans on the other hand are going right off the cliff https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/03/politics/trump-maralago-remar... aside: Last time Europe had politics like above it ended badly for millions of people worldwide, except this time nuclear weapons abound
“There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat.”
I've always wondered: is there a paper/thesis somewhere suggesting a better alternative to democracy? I don't mean the usual (monarchy, dictatorship, etc), but rather something entirely new. I imagine there must be at least one political sciences/philosophy student somewhere who gave this a thought, but I never found anything.
There's demarchy - a random sampling of the population. Like democracy, it ensures that people have a way to change laws they don't like. Unlike democracy, it doesn't suffer from the fact that the corrupt or power hungry rise to the top. Lobbyists would have less power. There are also some suggestions that a random sampling of a population will lead to a better selection mechanism - similar to suggestions that promot…
Democracy has never been about electing the brightest, never. Democracy is actually not at all about how we choose the person who will rule (as is demonstrated by US who elected twice this century someone who lose the popular vote). It is about the fact that in face of enough unpopularity, the current leader will be gone in less time it would take to overthrow them.
The goal of democracy is not good governance, it is civil peace.
When you look at it this way, from the outside, democracy is working perfectly well in the US. The big test will be to see if the next transition goes peacefully, impeachment or not.
As far as systems go, the main competitor for the US system is the Chinese system, that is a meritocracy. Well, as imperfect a meritocracy as the US is a democracy, but looking at the diplomas of the leaders there, you will see far more scientists and less lawyers. For decades, it has managed to offer transitions and to evolve its dogmas. Xi Jinping's power grab offers a similar test than Trump's US. We shall see what happens at the next transition. We, democrats (in the non-US sense), do not thing that a power structure like the PCC can stay decent without counter powers and elections but the PCC's endurance and success at managing the biggest country in the world is to be acknowledged.
Another system that could, unexpectedly, reappear and offer a competition is plain old absolute monarchy. I keep an eye on the kingdom of Saudi Arabia where the crown prince has decided to clean up some corruption and has (correctly, IMO) identified religious extremism to be the main reason his country lags behind. He has announced staunch reformism. It is yet to be seen if this will actually happen or if it just PR, but if it does, monarchies may come back in front of the scene too.
All in all, as much as I love democracy, I am happy that we seem to stop being complacent about our imperfect systems and may finally seek improvements. I believe that democracy is the most advanced and workable system but it is not the easiest to manage and our societies and cultures still have a lot of room for improvement.
I may be naive but I think this is a tech problem. The vast majority of us share a common set of ethical norms. We are also relatively savvy. If we know someone has acted against our interests before we wont be keen on working with them again. Eg. A dodgy Mechanic. And this goes for everyone, regardless of education level or armchair-economist status. There is a technical solution out there that combats misinformatio…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry to break it to you buy Democrats are not left, if anything they are center right by western European standards, the Republicans on the other hand are going right off the cliff https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/03/politics/trump-maralago-remar... aside: Last time Europe had politics like above it ended badly for millions of people worldwide, except this time nuclear weapons abound
Not really. Trump is a third gen immigrant with an immigrant wife. If he were in Europe, he would talk about bloodline heritage, and how his people were French for centuries. There is a level of protectionism, homognity, and xenophobia that Europeans simply take for granted.
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It is so hard to see that people who are dependent on social assistance will vote for nothing but more social assistance, dragging whole society into the hole? To me, Chinese model sounds optimal: make strict, public, rarely changing rules of who can get suffrage, which may be a combination of education, income, wealth, and some other (say criminal record) requirements, in part replaceable by one another. 6% of adult…
China is a kleptocracy. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/oct/26/wen-jiabao-wea...
If you disagree, reply, and give your reasons.
Reserve downvoting and flagging for Reddit type meme humour, abusive comments, comments which spread fake news or conspiracies, pointless humour, off-topic comments, those sorts of things. Just because you disagree with someone is no grounds to downvote them. Think about what that means, please. Let's keep the level of discourse on HN elevated. Thank you.
@dang or another moderator: would it be possible to unflag anovikov's posts here to allow discourse to happen or is that sort of thing not done?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And the US’ right would be considered quite far left compared to many Asian and Middle Eastern countries. I’m not quite sure what point you’re trying to make or how it’s relevant to GP’s. It’s quite clear GP was referring to the US’ policies spectrum, not that of the entire world.
The point I am trying to make is that the US is not oscillating happily between left and right as the OP claims, but is veering further and further into authoritarian right territory. I doubt many people in US would like their country to become a "shithole country" to quote their current president, but yet here we are watching history unfold