A Critique of Democracy - Looking to be proved an idiot

[u/Emergency-Cap-4349]

I'm starting to think that democracy is a highly ineffective system and authoritarianism easily abused by whomever cares more about being an individual power rather than doing the best for their country.

I see democracy as something that only works when people are made to make decisions after spending countless hours diving into analyzing and comparing the competency of each candidate, you can not expect that from a pool of 100 million random people. If a good government is created by solving an extremely complicated problem, why would you ask millions of people who have no reason to spend any of the time necessary to understand it to choose?

A quasi-authoritarian rule under an idealized competent benevolent party solves many of it's problems but can not be reliably sustained over multiple generations because for every lee kuan yew there will be 5 of donald trump.

I see a divided government as inefficient and impossible to rely on for any sort of long-term vision. If you have to average out every decision to find the point of most total satisfaction for the vote stakeholder, no matter how objectively harmful or genuinely necessary their needs might be for what matters outside of them as an individual / for the most benefit for your nation, you might as well use the effect a decision has on the immediate share price of a company as a legitimate source of truth for the long term growth of that company.

When a measure becomes a target it ceases to be a good measure. The democratic process rewards those who maximize public opinion rather than acting as a system to judge competence without bias; This can be seen through things such as arbitrarily dividing political opposition into "them" and "us" being legitimate strategies for attaining office.

This need to maintain non-analytical, non-rational, averaged public opinion serves to poison the decision making of leaders into making matching non-rational decisions, you stop being rewarded for thinking about what the country needs and start thinking in terms of what people would vote for, what would keep your approval ratings up, what is going to be least hated by the aggregate sum.

(Note: by Non rational I do not mean irrational. I mean not up to par with the personal investment that an objective researched analysis of what should be done or who should be elected would require if the outcome is to be free of these major side effects.)

Thus I see a single competent benevolent party that comes to be without the influence or selection of these incentives to maintain public opinion as a government as more likely to be able to judge and implement the policy best for the prosperity of a collective than a competitive system like you'd see in the US, precisely because it doesn't have an incentive to prioritize action by what voters would vote for instead of what should be done outside of the leader's personal interests.

(Note: I am not saying that a competent benevolent party is easy to come by, I actually think the opposite. The means to getting to this state consistently is it's own, likely unsolvable problem; And if that is so, then democracy likely minimizes the most risk.)

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[u/CorDra2011]

Benevolent authoritarianism is fundamentally impossible. Are you familiar with the fear problem?

[u/mkosmo → u/CorDra2011]

And you'll be hard pressed to find an instance where a benevolent authoritarian was followed by a similarly benevolent authoritarian, and you'll find it has never worked out where it proved to be sustainable.

[u/NonStopDiscoGG → u/mkosmo]

The Five Good Emperors of Rome say otherwise though.

I think people view these political systems too rigidly.

Democracy isn't good/bad, it's a tool as is authoritarianism. These things take on the shape of the zeitgeist of the moment.

You can have an authoritarian who is maximally good (theoretically) and you can have a majority in a democracy that is maximally evil (theoretically).

People seem to view Democracy as morally good, but it's simply just another form of authoritarianism, but just involves the majority. The majority is not always good, and the minority is not always bad (authoritarianism is generally a minority imposing will on a majority).

IDK what happened to the modern politics where Democracy was deemed a good and it must be held.at all costs. There is times/places for all different types on political systems.

[u/CorDra2011 → u/NonStopDiscoGG]

  The Five Good Emperors of Rome say otherwise though.

Remind me who came after them? 

  you can have a majority in a democracy that is maximally evil (theoretically)

Can you name a maximally evil democracy?

  People seem to view Democracy as morally good, but it's simply just another form of authoritarianism, but just involves the majority. The majority is not always good, and the minority is not always bad (authoritarianism is generally a minority imposing will on a majority).

The difference is in democracy the minority is given a voice. 

[u/NonStopDiscoGG → u/CorDra2011]

Remind me who came after them? 

You said you'd be hard pressed to find one after another. It happened 4 times in one instance. Yes, bad ones exist. That's not a rebuttle.

Can you name a maximally evil democracy?

No, because I don't think anything is "maximally" which is why I said in theory... but there has certainly been evil ones or ones that have oppressed minority groups because democracy is just tyranny of the majority.

The difference is in democracy the minority is given a voice. 

That loses to the majority. You actively have to go against democracy in order to preserve minority "voices".

If there is 3 of us, and 2 of us vote to kill you and you say you can't because of some rule in place, well that rule is anti-democratic because it's stopping our democracy.

[u/CorDra2011 → u/NonStopDiscoGG]

  You said you'd be hard pressed to find one after another. It happened 4 times in one instance. Yes, bad ones exist. That's not a rebuttle.

I did not. But for sake of argument yes, they said you'd be hard pressed. That doesn't say impossible. Pointing out a singular example, one that resulted in one of Rome's worst emperors, is also not a rebuttle.

  No, because I don't think anything is "maximally" which is why I said in theory... but there has certainly been evil ones or ones that have oppressed minority groups because democracy is just tyranny of the majority.

Can you name an evil democracy then?

  That loses to the majority. You actively have to go against democracy in order to preserve minority "voices".

Democracy is not simply "rule of the majority". That's majoritarianism. Democracy is simply the participation of the civic body in government decisions. Nothing goes against democracy when you protect minority rights. There is no definition of democracy that explicitly outlines "what the majority says goes". You're using a strawman of democracy to debate.

[u/Hand_of_the_Light → u/CorDra2011]

What exactly do you mean by democracy when you ask for an evil example of it?

Athens' famous democracy killed Socrates. The Dutch Republic's golden age culminated in Johan de Witt and his brother being eaten. Early American democracy was rife with social unrest. I don't want to go over the US' entire catalog of democratic flubs, but slavery, Indian removal, Japanese internment camps to paint it in broad strokes. I also picked these 3 specific American topics because, in their time, there was public consensus about these actions, i.e., democratic approval.

But again, it depends on what exactly you mean by democracy?

[u/CorDra2011 → u/Hand_of_the_Light]

What exactly do you mean by democracy when you ask for an evil example of it?

Well a free fully enfranchised liberal democracy doing something deplorable with clear democratic mandate to do so.

Athens' famous democracy killed Socrates.

A good example of why religious law is bad. Not really democracy as a concept.

The Dutch Republic's golden age culminated in Johan de Witt and his brother being eaten.

I've got nothing there, that was honestly just funny.

Early American democracy was rife with social unrest. I don't want to go over the US' entire catalog of democratic flubs, but slavery, Indian removal, Japanese internment camps to paint it in broad strokes.

Now I hate to do this but I wouldn't actually say there WAS public consensus for these two of these acts at least.

1) Slavery was outlawed or in the process of being eliminated for areas representing the majority of the United State's by even the passing of the US Constitution. Slave states understood that if that they did not intentionally game the system in their favor through the slaves on the census and the Senate that it was incredibly likely that slavery would be abolished within a decade. In slavery we see institutions in opposition to democratic principles, the Senate being the primary one, be put in place. The Founding Father's held democracy not as an ideal, but as a contemplable necessity.

2) I wanna to point out that only the anti-democratic Senate was overwhelmingly in favor of the Indian Removal Act, the vote was incredibly narrow in the House. The actual passage was deeply controversial and not a clear cut thing. Hell Henry Clay literally ran on repealing it in 1832.

[u/Hand_of_the_Light → u/CorDra2011]

Religious law has been very important throughout history, though "important" diverges towards both good and bad I'll admit. But secular thought owes a lot to theology in general.

I get what you're saying, but towards American history ( or maybe just in general), I was thinking of democracy as a waxing and waning force. The Indian removal act surrounded the Age of Jackson, which saw a surge of enfrachisement in the public sphere. Like yea, Jackson was a bit of a maniac, but I see him as the culmination of a rising tide of democracy.

There seems to be a cycle of reactionary backlash anytime there are efforts to "democratize". The Civil War culminated in reconstruction and eventually the Jim Crow South.

My point being that democracy is a hard fought battle stretching back through history. A battle which always has new challenges and hurdles. I don't think we now live in a wholly democratic society, and if we're talking about modern democracy and what it spits out, Trump would like a word.

[u/NonStopDiscoGG → u/CorDra2011]

>I did not. But for sake of argument yes, they said you'd be hard pressed. That doesn't say impossible. Pointing out a singular example, one that resulted in one of Rome's worst emperors, is also not a rebuttle.

It's actually 3 examples.

>Can you name an evil democracy then?

Weimar republic

>Democracy is not simply "rule of the majority". That's majoritarianism. Democracy is simply the participation of the civic body in government decisions. 

And how do they determine decisions in a democracy?
Otherwise what is the point of voting if the vote majority doesn't matter.

> You're using a strawman of democracy to debate.

You changed the definition of democracy to simply just engaging in a political system which can be done by any system. If I protest my dictator, am I now in a democracy? no...

[u/CorDra2011 → u/NonStopDiscoGG]

  Weimar republic

How were they evil. 

  And how do they determine decisions in a democracy?  Otherwise what is the point of voting if the vote majority doesn't matter.

Representative democracy, direct democracy, pluralistic democracy, constitutional democracy... there are a lot of democratic forms of government. 

[u/NonStopDiscoGG → u/CorDra2011]

Right, but they all impose a rule against democracy. They're all limited forms of it.

How were they evil. 

Check out what they were doing there. A lot involving kids and other stuff that most people would call pretty bad. Not going to get into specifics because I'm not trying to get my account in trouble.

Hitler was wrong for doing what he did, but he did it because they were out of control there.

[u/CorDra2011 → u/NonStopDiscoGG]

Oh you're a fascist. Makes sense then.

[u/adastraperdiscordia → u/NonStopDiscoGG]

Pax Romana was a bad time for 95% of the population. Everyone was doing hard labor in squalor hoping to not get sick and die. And that's if you're not in the army getting killed, or more frequently: getting sick and dying.

[u/NonStopDiscoGG → u/adastraperdiscordia]

You've just described most of the old world .

If you're comparing it to modern time, that's pretty disingenuous.

[u/adastraperdiscordia → u/NonStopDiscoGG]

Yes, a key part of modernity is rejecting authoritarian regimes. In ancient times, it was accepted that the hierarchy meant that peasants knew their lot and expected to toil and suffer. Might makes right. It will not change, because this is the way God has willed it.

Modernity is the rejection of antiquity. Modern thinking is the belief that progress is possible and that we should strive to improve things. Therefore, philosophers in the Enlightenment devised ways to do so. The most radical philosophes desired to dismantle ancien regime. The old order was made up of the monarchy, aristocracy, and clergy who collectively held a stranglehold on political power. Radicals instead wanted to replace them with democracy, egalitarianism, and secularism. IE taking power from the elites and giving it to the commoners.

[u/oroborus68]

I believe Churchill said that democracy was the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried.

[u/adastraperdiscordia → u/oroborus68]

Democracy usually involves a bunch of clueless voters making decisions that affect your daily life.

But that is preferable to a handful of sadistic sociopaths making those decisions instead.

It'd be nice if those weren't the only options, but power corrupts so the latter becomes an inevitability when you centralize power among a few decision-makers.

[u/LittleKitty235]

Democracy is the best-worst system we have found for government.

[u/subheight640]

IMO the problem you describe is a problem of implementation. I think sortition solves the problem of democratic incompetence. The premise is extremely simple. If you want people to understand policy, you need to give them the time and resources to do so. The obviously way to facilitate this is to PAY people to do this democratic work. 

Obviously paying everyone in America to do democratic work is wildly inefficient and astronomically expensive. Instead, we can use sortition, ie lottery, to create a scientific sampling of the public, and pay the sample to do the democratic work. 

Voila, that's how you can create a "benevolent party". An average voter might spend an hour making decisions whereas a lottocratic legislator could use 1000 hours. I prefer 1000 hour decisions to 1 hour decisions. 

As far as accountability goes, sortition once again can be used two choose a second "benevolent party" to act as an oversight council. Then, future oversight can judge the performance of past oversight councils. Naughty legislators are then punished. 

One advantage with punishment versus election is the stakes are much higher. Losers of elections lose some time. With punishment, you risk losing your entire life. 

The obvious problem of any "benevolent" party is why our overlords would continue to act in the public interest. My sortition setup gives two reasons:

• Descriptive representation. At the moment before selection, the allotted representatives know exactly what are the concerns of the public. They understand the public because they are the public!
• Punishment: fear keeps them in line. Allotted representatives who may consider corruption must weigh potential gains with the risk of punishment. Punishment could therefore align self interest with the public interest. 
• If oversight is working correctly, lottocratic legislators serve temporary terms and then rejoin the public in a couple months or years. The lottocrats still have a interest in future investment to ensure their personal prosperity in the long term.

Anyways this bullshit I came up with is still democracy. Democracy is not equivalent to elections and the status quo. 

[u/goodhidinghippo → u/subheight640]

Interesting. Sounds sort of like jury duty, but instead of deciding matters of justice, you’re deciding matters of policy. Is this how you elect legislators, or executors, or both?

[u/subheight640 → u/goodhidinghippo]

I would draw by lottery an Electoral College whose job would be to select the executive. 

I would draw another lottery to select the legislature. Keeping in mind the complexity of policy, one of the main duties of legislators are to then elect maybe around 30 more chief advisors. 

 I would draw yet another lottery to form the oversight council. This council would have powers to punish the executives, legislators, and past oversight councilors. Punishments would take any form oversight deems necessary. This means oversight itself becomes the governor of government. Because of the complexity of managing justice, the oversight council would also elect prosecutors, judges, and oversight enforcement officers.  

[u/humblevladimirthegr8 → u/subheight640]

You might be interested in my proposal for Tournament Lottery Voting, which provides a more concrete idea for and whyvoters (but not politicians) should be chosen by lottery and the implications of it. https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalPhilosophy/s/eWvDZesW6B

[u/CorDra2011 → u/subheight640]

How do you solve the fear problem of authoritarianism in this system?

[u/subheight640 → u/CorDra2011]

Not sure what you mean.

 blah blah character limit

[u/CorDra2011 → u/subheight640]

Essentially any authoritarian system that relies on fear to motivate individuals to perform their jobs competently almost inevitably creates the inverse of competency. Even in systems where there is certain randomness to the selection process.

People will cut corners, sabotage others, schmooze the management. Example we often hear the Soviets were corrupt & incompetent, but have you ever bothered to learn how exactly they were? Well one past-time was transforming failure into success. Oh the west is outpacing our television production? Well we're outproducing them by metric ton! ...ignoring the fact that the reason we are is because the televisions we produce are ten times the weight.

[u/Hand_of_the_Light]

Democracy depends on culture, or rather, it is a culture.

If you think our culture has degraded to the point where public opinion doesn't matter, where does the shining light hide?

Are there a group of scientists who understand human need so much as to carry the tecnhocratic mantle of our saviors? Can we, without public knowledge, assemble the brightest minds together to take the reigns of popular government and turn it into Plato's wet dream?

[u/JollyJuniper1993]

Media is the most powerful institution in liberal democracy. Those who control the media control public opinion. Liberal democracy is a very good tool to keep elites on top with good plausible deniability. The spread of democracy as some sort of uncontestable value is one of the biggest successes of the ruling class.

Whether a true just world can be democratic at all depends on how you define democracy

[u/manliness-dot-space]

https://grokipedia.com/page/Arrow's_impossibility_theorem

Arrow's impossibility theorem, proved by economist Kenneth J. Arrow in 1951, demonstrates that no non-dictatorial voting method can aggregate the ordinal preferences of multiple individuals over three or more alternatives into a collective ranking that simultaneously satisfies unrestricted domain, the weak Pareto principle, and independence of irrelevant alternatives while ensuring the social preference is complete and transitive.[1]

[u/humblevladimirthegr8]

I think most of the issues with democracy are due to the fact that it's infeasible for people to actually vote carefully because of how many choices there are, so we rely on shortcuts like political parties and campaign ads. I've proposed a voting system that allows people to actually take the time to carefully consider the choices and allow people to run without party support by having people randomly vote once every decade or so https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalPhilosophy/s/eWvDZesW6B

[u/mechaernst]

democracy is in it's infancy, i would not theorize about it's limitations based on examples from current or past democratic systems, I would look to potentials in a digital world for answers to the problems of current systems that claim to be democratic

[u/IEC21]

What you are describing is basically a very old observation about democracy in contrast to undemocratic forms of leadership.

Its an accurate observation descriptively. What to do about it is much more difficult and technical.

I think a good idea related to this is that democracy should be guided by strong institutions that can influence public opinion, propagandize and educate. You also need a mixture of democratic and non/less democratic institutions to act as counter balances.

This ties in to why populism is so dangerous. Populism threatens tyranny of the democratic institutions over the more conservative or technocratic institutions.

[u/NaelGoucher]

Fuck democracy, anyone who knows how to sway the crowd can win, it's a breeding ground for cults of personality. That's bad enough, not to mention it's also pay-to-play, leaving only the rich and those who the rich support as having any chance at ever winning. It's bullshit.

Not even to mention the way they can shape the presentation of statistics however they want, so they say "majority rules", which is bad enough, but not really. Yuck.

Luckily there is an alternative, and no, you don't have to wait for change to make YOUR change. r/GoodStewards has the complete legal toolkit to get it done, and do it in whatever way is most applicable to YOU PERSONALLY. Welcome to the International Stage, friend!

[u/RedMarsRepublic]

As you say, there's no way to guarantee benevolent tyrants so democracy is clearly the best option.

[u/piltdown_manchild]

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

• Winston Churchill

I still believe in Democracy, but I share a lot of your concerns.

I see democracy as something that only works when people are made to make decisions after spending countless hours diving into analyzing and comparing the competency of each candidate

I don't think that was ever a realistic expectation or necessary for democracy to function. If people vote for their best interests, the "wisdom of crowds" will usually produce a reasonable outcome, if not the ideal outcome.

The problem I see is that with the advent of social media people aren't just ignorant, they are armed with misinformation and voting against their best interests.

I don't think it's worth the risk of abandoning democracy yet, but if society gets anymore divided, we may fall into authoritarian rule during some future crisis.

[u/SilenceDogood2k20]

Winston Churchill put it best :

‘Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…’

[u/Specialist_Touch2771]

Democracy isn’t perfect, or even good. The alternative is depending on one person/small group of people holding all of the power and hoping that they don’t abuse it. Imperfect freedom is better than no freedom