Democracy... is there an alternative

Post Reply New Topic

As posted in another topic, I personally lost my faith in democracy. The question is: is there an alternative?


The reasons why I lost my faith in the efficiency of the system:

- following the majority's vote is OK as long as you are in a tiny society. In a more densely populated area however, 10% of the votes can still be 500000 to 1000000 people and IMO you cannot just ignore their needs or wishes even if 90% of the population voted otherwise. Of course it is tough to draw a line what is ignorable and what not, but if 10% votes for something and that 10% are still hundred thousands of people, then you cannot just close your eyes on them.

- my main reason for losing faith in democracy is what happened in my native Belgium and in Europe in generally. Far right is making more and more progress and racism is reaching an all-time high in Europe. People talk about "cleaning up Europe" and "immigrants polluting and endangering our culture". I strongly support multicultural societies and open borders, but people seem to turn their back on diversity. Racism is the biggest form of this behaviour and Islamophobia (which I find simply disgusting) is making steady progress here in Europe. Often the parties in this part of the spectrum are quite racist and populist, aiming at people who don't really look further than the TV screen and the words of their political leaders who found a new scapegoat in Muslims.
To see such racist politics making progress, makes me lose faith in the ability of democracy to work. If people cannot handle their power (given by voting rights) and vote for such dangerous ideologies, then maybe people are not ready to be in control.


Is there an alternative? I am not sure. Maybe a one-party system that is in full control would be the solution, though only if this party is caring a lot about human rights, respect for diversity and personal lifestyle of people (including religions such as Islam) .... If such a party for whom human rights are a key point are in charge, then I would not mind to have the country ruled by a one-party format. It is not ideal, but democracy also is not the right solution IMO.

I am struggling to be really convinced of any alternative though, but the one thing I do feel is that democracy is not the right way to go. Not like it is now in Europe, the current events in local politics not only robbed me of my believe in the goodwill of an entire society but also robbed me of my faith in the current political system. Maybe the day far right is going downhill again and especially the day people embrace other cultures and ditch racism, then maybe I will believe in the democratic system again.

Well, for one you've made assumptions about what the ideal society is, and claimed to have lost faith in democracy because it does not promote movement toward that society. I would consider that to probably be a valid reason to reject democracy (any political system is a means and not an end in my view) but I probably have a different idea of what the ideal society is than you do. That's another issue, so I won't touch it here.

I don't see why democracy is viewed as good in and of itself. People put too much emphasis in these types of debates on what method of decision-making is best as opposed to what decisions are actually made. I would view the latter as more important. If my ideals are carried out by a military dictatorship, I would support that military dictatorship.

The main problem I see with democracy is that people are idiots. Also, the electorate is so large that no one can make any impact. I personally would favor a republican system (no reference to the US party by that comment) with limited suffrage. My ideal would be to have some type of equivalent to the ancient Chinese Civil Service examination, and voting rights would be based on your score. The test would cover history, philosophy, economics, law, and an overview of current events. There could either be a cut-off point for who votes, or votes could be weighted on a sliding scale (ie if I score higher than you, my vote is counted as more than yours, and vice versa). In either case, the electorate would be kept small enough that each person's vote does matter, and by this system only people who were intelligent and informed would be able to vote. I still would desire that everyone be afforded the same civil rights, including political activism in the form of free speech and assembly, but political decision-making power would rest in the hands of an educated elite. ("Elite" here referring to knowledge and intelligence, not hereditary status or material wealth)

I also want a government that is more stable than democracy, and capable of long-term planning. That seems to be an issue that many people forget: leaders of democracies are of course short-sighted, since they are only in power for a limited time, and their focus isn't necessarily on what's best for the country but on what will get them re-elected. This leads to many willfully sub-optimal governmental decisions. There should be some accountability, but not a whimsical constant swapping of leaders that prevents any type of long-term coordination of policy.

Another issue is whether you can violate the rights of a minority, and if so how large of a minority. Rousseau had his idea of the "social contract" whereby everyone agreed to subordinate their individual will to the collective societal will. Most libertarians would oppose such a view, saying that it is just as wrong to violate the rights of one person as those of a million- after all, can human rights abuses additive? Is injustice not as unjust if it affects fewer people? Does the individual have worth on his own? These are issues that most societies struggle with, since most people want a balance (ie neither fascist elevation of the group over the individual nor anarchist rejection of all group loyalties in favor of each pursuing individual will) and you then have to bicker over where in the middle we should be, and how to stay at roughly that point.

Well, I see basically 2 solutions:

1. Enlightened ruler(s).
Given that an enlightened ruler is who you consider enlightened, they can theoretically act perfectly in accordance to your desires.

Pro: The ruler can be designated as being perfect according to your position on what perfection is. The ruler can be given incentives to do well with his ruled area.

Con: How do you make sure that this ruler is your idea of perfection? How do you curb the power of a bad ruler?

2. Anarcho-capitalism
Given that capitalistic organizations tend to have less racism due to profits not discriminating based upon color as shown in research by Gary Becker on labor markets and as supported by other research, including that on pirates. This idea will remove that problem. As well, given that anarcho-capitalism is all about marketing products to people, the notion of government being efficient at handling a local population is possible.

Pros: If accepted as tenable, the idea could theoretically promote the most efficient society.

Cons: Capitalistic. Can be seen as promoting warlordism. No government.

3. Constitutionalism
If a government is set up as having a certain framework and permanently so, then the good ideas can be enshrined in law forever and ever. A common idea like this is the notion of minarchism, where government is limited to certain sections of society.

Pros: The government is limited to certain spheres and actions by nature. Laws remain relatively constant.

Cons: The government cannot really change or adapt to situations. Lack of adaptation may mean very strict minimalism is the only efficient way to handle this system..

Umm.... I only see those 3 solutions. I think most other anarchist ideas depend heavily upon democracy, and so, other than rule by less people, rule by markets, and rule by predesignated constants, I don't see any other way to run society.

AG! I've missed you, either you've been taking a hiatus or we've been participating in different threads. Either way, nice to see you again. I enjoy debates with you.

You forgot the issue of what to do when that leader dies or is no longer able to rule for whatever reason. This is my main opposition to enlightened despotism, issues of succession can be very problematic. Other than that, I like this system.


OK, but Communism is also theoretically best if accepted as tenable. Really, the problem with such "pure" systems is that they fail to take real humans into account, instead postulating the type of person who would populate such a society. This person tends not to be very similar to humanity at large. Anarcho-capitalism may be closer to the mark of what people are like than is Communism, and makes more modest and achievable promises, but still seems unrealistic to me. BTW, how is "capitalistic" a con? That seems a strong point in its favor to me.


That's pretty much the universally accepted system, more or less all currently operating systems are some variant on this. The problem is how to decide what exactly goes in the constitution, how often/easily it can be changed, whether some parts are more inviolate and impervious to change, to what extent you can adjust interpretations of it, etc. The failure to adapt in a minarchist state shouldn't be a significant issue, after all if you promote anarchism surely you're not worried that a minarchist state would lack the power to act when it needs to?

I would go for constitutionalism, because anarchism isn't practical and enlightened despotism has issues of succession. Really though, constitutionalism is pretty broad and can encompass quite a few different forms of government. My constitution would be a fairly minarchist state, with some built-in elitism in such regards as my limited-suffrage proposals in an earlier post.

Overall, I think there needs to be some balance, as I would promote a constitutional state (which you referred to as "rule by predesignated constants") but it would also be elitist ("rule by less people") and generally capitalistic ("rule by markets") so incorporating some aspects of each of your solutions. Still not perfect, but no one can even agree on what perfect is anyways, so why bother trying for it?

Thanks same here on all accounts.


I think I assumed smooth transitions and variate leadership for this issue. I included leadership issues in the cons because of this.


I recognize that, the reason I put this as "theoretically best if accepted as tenable" is to avoid too much in-depth discussion of the issue as I assumed it would be flat-off rejected. The issue with saying "pure systems fail" is because the statement lacks the supporting logical evidence. Obviously supporters of the idea believe that the system fails. I already stated the areas where it can be seen as failing though, and the strengths or weaknesses can be debated using logic and facts.

Capitalistic is a flaw because most people will consider it a flaw. I simply reduced away the theoretical failures of capitalism into a single point labeled "capitalistic". I also reduced away the benefits of capitalism into a point of "theoretical efficiency".


Well, a variant, yes. The issue is I was defining constitutionalism more strictly than you were. Under your ideas, constitutionalism is a mechanism for constraining another decision making mechanism, this prevents it from being a separate idea. I was promoting constitutionalism as it's own idea, a constitution designed such that all laws are merely the enforcement of this constitution. The failure to adapt by a minarchist state would be a major one for a minarchist if the areas that fail to adapt are the legal systems regarded as necessary. I included it though because most people are not minarchists and want a government capable of activity.


Well, you are using a different definition than the one I was using. You are assuming constitutionalism as a supplement, and I was trying to think of it as an end-all. I suppose that you are ultimately combining a few systems.

Well, it does include bits of all of my solutions. It would probably also be slightly democratic too, unless you are promoting some weird oligarchy or monarchy or something, which I would think you'd distrust too much. The reason we bother trying for perfection is because we seek what we consider "good", and because there are gradations, and more good is better than less, we seek perfection.

Well, most of our disagreements seemed to be semantical misunderstandings, so thanks for clearing those up.

By "pure" I meant more extreme systems, which take an idea (such as "markets are more efficient than central planning") and apply it to its logical extreme. Those tend to involve simplified, idealized perceptions of human nature and fail to take into account some complexities.


Eh. I regard socialistic as a flaw. Theoretical efficiency also is not the only benefit of capitalism, there is also liberty, which most people would regard as good.



OK, so by constitutionalistic you mean there would be predeterimined rules for most things, and little need for a standing government except to enforce these rules? No regularly convening legislature to determine new rules, etc. Essentially an algorithmic approach to ruling. That has some interesting ramifications, but yes, I see what you mean by it not being flexible enough.

Yes, but then you have the dispute over what level of activity is appropriate. We were arguing from different definitions, though, so I think this was largely a misunderstanding. I would think most people, aside form extreme situations, do want there to be some limits on government power, which would technically make them minarchist, depending on how strict a definition you take.


I didn't realize constitutionalism could be much else than the formal codification of some other system (democracy, monarchy, etc). If it were its own system, you would then have the whole other issue of how to frame it. Also, it would be quite a long process to write all the laws needed for the rest of time.


Depends on where you draw the line between oligarchy and democracy. The system I proposed would be rule by a few, but not a hereditary or wealth-based elite (I am assuming relatively easy access to education for most people) and there would be some democratic elements, but most people would not acknowledge it as truly "democratic" because I've rejected the ideal of universal suffrage. A monarchy I associate with a hereditary ruler, which I certainly would distrust, but I do want some type of long-term guiding force to coordinate government activity. Perhaps an elected monarch, as in the Holy Roman Empire?


Yes, I suppose. I just wrote a paper on "What is the ideal society?" and my conclusion was that there is none, so I've grown rather skeptical of attempts to perfect government. We can try to make it better (or less bad, depending on your perspective) but there probably needs to be an admission that we will always be compromising in some manner and should come to terms with that. "The best is the enemy of the good." Sometimes striving after the theoretical best will hamper efforts to reach the most good practical option.

Anyways, my point was more that we really haven't even defined what characteristics we're looking for in this idealized society, so what's really the use of arguing over the best way of implementing it? It's nearly impossible to come to an agreement on what qualities are necessarily to be desired, and that rather throws off any attempts to work towards the perfect world. You can't work towards an undefined goal, or at least can't do so very effectively.

I see a few problems with this system.

First, it's bigoted, or at least biased. That's really the point - those who demonstrate a particular form of intellegence, and likely come from a certain background, will recieve more power then those who do not. This is a dangerous proposition. If the testing was so stringent that only a minority could pass, then you run into the normal problems of a minority ruling the majority via authoritarian means. If it was relaxed enough that most could pass it, then that might partially defeat the point, and risks stimatizing any who can't pass it. I'm sure you're familiar with all of this, you may even have learned more on the subject then I have. But it's still a valid critism of your system that would need to be addressed.

Second, you could end up with the Elites controlling who becomes an Elite by limiting access to education. This doesn't even have to be done out of malice or or even conciously - an Elite will naturally devote more attention to the needs of a school within his own community, and so overlook the needs of a school in another. You could end up with "ignorance" ghettos, particularly if the society had inequality issues before your system was implemented.

Third, you could end up with an Ivory Tower system. The Elites are the ones with power, and so the ones who decide what is taught and goes on the test. So what happens if the Elite culture starts to lose touch with reality, and recreates the selection process to reflect this? What mechanism would you use to ensure that they stay rooted in reality, and don't go running off after some ideological fantasy, or get stuck in stagnent dogma? A good example of this is Enron. Enron was run by some increadibly competent people, most of whom could probably passed your test if they exerted themselves a bit. They still managed to do some enormously stupid things.

Fourth, how would you handle retesting? Testing people only once would defeat the purpose. You'd need citizens who consistantly kept track of what was going on, not ones who jump through a hoop once then stop working at it. This isn't a particularly difficult problem to solve, but it's still one that would need to be addressed.

Yes, those are all valid critiques of my proposal. You also forgot to mention the issue of what knowledge we decide should be valued. A criticism of the Chinese Civil Service Exam was in regards to its ideological content, and if we're testing over economics, history, philosophy, we're going to get a bit subjective, or at least dictating what the correct view would be.

I disagree that it is necessarily bigoted. I am assuming easy access to education, even for those who are not born into an "elite" family. A friend of mine is from a working-class family and attending Yale next year, so we already have a significant degree of class mobility. I don't think that's an issue.

For the elite taking control, mix in some constitutionalism to limit the extent to which they can change laws in their favor. Some parts of the law code could be absolute, and others open to change and revision. A minority will always rule (come on, don't even try to pretend that true direct democracy is possible with a population numbering in the hundreds of millions) this is just an alternate method of choosing that minority.

The elite needn't be geographically concentrated, but I suppose their children would benefit form having parents who could help them study for the exam. Nevertheless, that's even more of a problem in our current system where family connections get one started in politics, and I already gave my friend as an example of the potential of education to provide class mobility.

"Ivory Tower" is a concern, especially since intellectual elites can grow attached to unrealistic beliefs. Even so, I tend to think that they are more capable of coming to rational decisions than are the masses. How to keep them rooted in reality is a sticky issue, but that's an issue for any system. Perhaps a decentralized decision-making system, with many small semi-autonomous areas under the jurisdiction of a supreme but limited in scope central government would allow such experiments to screw up on a smaller scale and show the rest of the world that certain ideas will fail and others will succeed. Essentially what the US Founders intended with federalism. Being rooted in dogma isn't likely to be an issue, intellectuals are fond of challenging authority if for no other reason than the fact that they can.

As far as retesting, one option might be to base voting privileges on percentiles, and as people who aren't going to pass opt out of taking the test (it would not be mandatory of all citizens, just required of anyone who wished to apply for voting power) the average scores would gradually rise (due to test-takers being self-selected to some extent) and people who took the test earlier would have to take it again to retain their voting rights. Another option would be just to mandate periodic re-testing, or to have a shortened quiz format at the polls when one goes to vote.

So yes, as you pointed out, there are several potential flaws in my system, and it would probably be impossible to fix all of them. That doesn't necessarily mean it is bad, though. Our current system has plenty of flaws, and I am saying that my solution is less bad. Certainly not perfect, and I'll admit that. But I see it as akin to the debate over nuclear power: there are problems associated with nuclear power, but they seem much less daunting when compared against those of fossil fuels. We haven't yet found a perfect political system, so right now we are arguing over which option sucks less. I think mine could be a contender for that title.

Oh, it might be workable, and possibly better then what we have now. I'm still want to find holes in it. In a lot of ways I'm a compulsive devil's advocate - I like to find flaws in every arguement, even the ones I agree with.

I stand by my potentially biased or bigoted comment. The system in its very nature favors some over others. A political journalist's vote would likely be more valuable then a doctors using your selection criteria, dispite the fact that both of them could have come from equally educated backgrounds. The journalist would have more time to learn the information he would need on the test; the doctor in contrast would have to spend her own time to learn it, which would particularly vexing if she didn't like politics. She might ever bit as qualified as the journalist, and in fact see some medical issues with greater clarity due to her profession, but she wouldn't have the same say.

This goes back to the critism I left out I suppose, that some knowlege would be valued over others. IMO this is a bit different then simply deciding what should be tested. It would be stupid to test everyone on in depth medical knowlege, or chemistry, or computer code; most people don't need to know stuff like that to make informed decisions. Nevertheless society would still need for people to specialize in these areas; but anyone who does that becomes inferior to an Elite, unless they devote their own time to catch up, which could also be called unfair.

This problem becomes worse as you start factoring in less intellegent people. Highly intellegent people might be able to grasp the relevent topics with little effort, but there are lots that would have to work harder. How would you deal with people who are probably smart enough to grasp the topics, and willing to contribute to the process, but can't spend the time to learn the test due to the amount of time they have to spend doing their job? Yes arguably those who don't have time to learn are not going to make the most reasoned decisions, but by excluding them you create counter-productive incentives. Either the people in those jobs start to disregard the political process, planting the seeds of an ignorance ghetto; or you end up with people avoiding the jobs that will deny them voting privilages, creating labour shortages.

As far as the elite not being geographically concentrated, what's going to stop this from happening? Just because it might not happen doesn't mean that it won't. When you look at the world today, it's not to hard to see that it already does happen. Kids in rich districts go to nicer schools, while those in poorer districts go to lesser ones. IMO this isn't necessarily classism or racism or greed, but at least partially the fact that birds of a feather flock together. Smart, successful people are attracted to smart, successful cultures, and so will start to clump together. Unless something is come up to stop this, or to counter-balance the eventual concentration of power, then you are going to run into favoritism issues. And, particularly if you were to implement your system on a society with existing inequality issues, some method would have to be developed to deal with over and under concentrations of power.

Going to stop here because I am getting sleepy Good night

The problem isn't political ideological systems, technically any political ideological system could work fairly under the right conditions, and if people had the right mentality to keep it fair and working. After all it's the people who make the system work the way it does and can determine it's fairness and functionality. So basically, the issue lies with the people themselves I would think.

People would need to wise up basically, if anything is going to change.

Politicians in Europe are more blatant about their racism than in America. I find that ironic.

In a general sense there are two types of governments, ones with peaceful transfers of power between political-ideological factions/coalitions and ones that change through violence, revolution and coups. Governments of the former type are obviously preferable to governments the latter type. Philosopher Karl Popper called governments of the first type "democracy" and the second type "tyranny." It is no use to try to define what "true" democracy is because "democracy" is one of those terms that act as nice-sounding buzzwords that people of many different ideological stripes have different definitions of so as to fit their ideologies. A Marxist and a Neo-Liberal are very different ideologically yet both claim to support "democracy," but ask them to say what they mean by "democracy" and you get different answers and claim that the other person doesn't support "democracy.

Absolutistic discussions about "who should rule" are, IMO, misguided; the question leads to an authoritarian answer. The proper question one should as is "How can we make things so as to minimize the damage caused by bad rulers?"

The problem with this is that such a test will inevitably degenerate into an ideological litmus test because the meritocratic elite are the ones that votes for the politicians (themselves being of the elite) that crate the tests that decides who gets to become part of the meritocratic elite. This is a fatal flaw in all meritocratic/technocratic systems.

Exactly.

Always a good thing to do. I'll be the first to admit that my proposed system has some flaws. And of course, simply being better than the current system isn't necessarily cause to implement it, as there tends to be a preference towards stability and preservation of the status quo. To justify a change, it would be necessary to demonstrate that the new system is a great deal better then the old. Minor improvements don't justify major changes.


OK. And why shouldn't a political journalist have more say than a medical doctor in political questions? If they have more expertise, their opinions should count for more, at least according to my system. If the doctor doesn't like politics, they either won't vote or shouldn't vote anyways, so that argument is worthless.


Well, some knowledge is more important to governmental decisions than other. Calculus isn't important to politics, but economics is. So obviously knowledge of economics should be valued over knowledge of calculus in this test. Doctors and engineers don't always really need to be politically active, and besides, if you accept the concept of "g" then these people will have an easier time passing the test anyways. As far as being inferior to an elite, I did already specify that everyone, whether eligible to vote or not, would still retain the same civil rights. "Fairness" is a poorly defined and ambiguous concept. Define it more clearly if you want to debate that point.


Really, the point of this system is to prevent less intelligent people from influencing political decisions. If someone is intelligent enough and willing enough to gain the expertise necessary to make genuine contributions to informed decisions, they should be permitted to vote. Otherwise, I would rather they stay out of the process. You're getting into ideas of opportunity cost of becoming informed on the issues vs other things people need to do, and I think if someone is unwilling/unable to be informed on the issues, they needn't participate in the political process. I doubt we would see a labor shortage as a result of people flocking to professions that will give them an excuse to study for the exam; even in our current system many can't be bothered to take the five minutes to register.


Well, I already said that I am assuming easy access to education. Besides, if we're referring here to America, we already have plenty enough class mobility. Favoritism is more an issue in the current system that rewards wealth rather than intelligence.

Last edited by Orwell on 04 Jun 2008, 3:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.