Democracy

[Malchik]

So democracy is the ultimate is it?

 

A great deal has been talked of in these debates about democracy. It is being put forward, as indeed it often is by western governments, as the form of government all should aspire to.

 

You may know from my earlier posts that I believe democracy, like any other form of government, suits only certain kinds of society, and then at specific points in their development.

 

It cannot be imposed because it will only work with a society that has the will and the power to keep it (- impossible in Afghanistan and highly improbable in Iraq IMO.)

 

Nor am I prepared to accept that it is the form of government that we will have for very much longer. Indeed my opinion is that we don’t actually have it now.

 

The concept of democracy enshrines two aspects; that everyone has an equal chance to vote and that everyone has an equal chance to stand for election. The term comes from the Greek as the ancient Greeks are supposed to have invented it. However, the Greek approach would hardly be considered democratic today as it excluded slaves, certain classes of citizens and IIRC women.

 

The internationalisation of business, globalisation of economies and increasing realisation of the need for action on a global basis is going to have to lead, whether we like it or not, to elements of supranational government. It is already moving that way in Europe. Each country has the right to elect its own government and in theory to the increasingly regulatory European Commission. But the latter organisation is so opaque the votes cast are meaningless. It is impossible to know who or what you are voting for. The organisation, as with any such international power, is not accountable to the voters and ‘the government’ cannot in any serious sense be voted out.

 

The US situation is different but their ‘democracy’ is severely constrained. There is no real choice of party and no one can stand for president who does not have substantial resources behind him. It effectively excludes the majority of people from standing and means those who do are remote from ‘real life’. It would be interesting to look at the two legislative bodies and compare their proportional make up to the average US population in terms of ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion and socio-economic group. When I last saw it done there was precious little correlation. Has it improved?

 

So Europe is increasingly becoming a Bureaucracy and the US is a Plutocracy.

 

And democracy is fragile. Even in the later twentieth century, we have seen countries that were supposedly democratic become dictatorships (Peru, Portugal, many African examples) or Stratocracies (Greece, Turkey). Even today Turkey is a democracy only for as long as it suits the military.

 

Other ‘democracies’ are often fallacious e.g. India, Japan. In neither country is the government representative or even effective. Or take Israel where proportional representation puts the real power into the hands of extreme minorities who make or break governments by changing sides when it suits them.

 

I’m not arguing for or against changing any one of them per se. But I think it is time we stopped vaunting ‘democracy’ as the great ideal and started thinking what has to be done and how best to do it in each specific situation.

 

And let us start by being even handed. You cannot insist on democracy in Iraq while turning a blind eye to what is going on in Saudi Arabia.

 

Please let us take the meaningless (in practice) word democracy off the international agenda. Let us look to find ways to run our society that most benefit the majority. It will differ from place to place and over time.

 

There are countries in the world that could benefit from help from those with economic power. By all means link this help to openness and absence of corruption/oppression. But not to democracy!

[Darnoc]

Well put, Malchik, I agree with you. But there is something which you didn't mention: What comes beyond democracy? Is democracy really the final stage of political development? They believed the same of the feudalistic system in the middle ages and still it changed. So I would be very careful in expressing that democracy is the endstage of development. There is no end-stage to any development.

 

So, when democracy is not the end, what comes next?

 

I have my own theories. The older political systems put power into the hands of a few people and most of them weren't even qualified. People came to power because of their birthright. These were the nobles. Later on this system changed, as economic power became more and more important. Now one comes to power when one has economical power. This is what is common in the capitalistic society. So what comes next?

 

Perhaps it will not be the next, but it will come: Those who receive power are selected because of their qualities, their intelligence, their experience and their abilities. The son of the poorest man in the land can become the mightiest man, when his furfills certain expectations, like high intelligence, ability to think rationally, ability to organize, to lead and when he has earned his share of experience. People are selected from school to attend a special school for political training. Those trained politicians will become the new ruling class, the perfect ruling class. At least in theory the perfect ruling class.

 

"The right place for everyone" will be the new motto. When everyone gets the right job for himself, the efficency of society encreases. This is logical. There are people born to rule, others are born to work with their hands, teach, research etc. etc. But not because of their heritage, but because of their abilities. The new system will try to use the human abilities in full efficency.

 

The methods of selection and training will be refined more and more, the methods will become more efficient. The goal of the society will be to be perfect. The individual will lose its importance, only the society as a whole will be important. If certain elements have to be sacrificed, this will be done. Welcome to the inhuman future of humanity! Humanity is lost, society will move as one, will be like one. We will begin to resemble the Borg more and more...

[Hir_Nesta]

There is another form of democracy.

In Switzerland (no, not Sweden!!) for example the democracy is handled like that:

Every citizen has the right to vote; about everything!

In every fourth year we can vote for the new government. That means,

every seat in government could be (theoretical) replaced. They define

the federal council (7 People).

We can vote for every single thing. For example new taxes, Stadions, Route Building.

Well it's too complex IMO because every case you could intervene, make it

new, then everyone has to accept it. And most of the time noone goes voting.

 

And in the last votes for the government it seemed that the left side (socials) and the right side (conservative) were split into two even groups, so it's even more

difficult to find right solutions for the problems.

 

I'd say every party gets his own land (in the land they live) and there they could

affect the environment and the laws at their will. The ones who stand behind

the party would be their people. The ones who don't have a party have do decide.

 

Just a dream, but a good one...

[Darnoc]

Yeah, the Swiss system is the one which comes nearest to democracy. That is why I like to live in Switzerland. What I have written above more resembles a nightmare, like "1984" or "Brave New World". But who knows, humanity goes strange ways. And never expect that it gets better, always expect that humanity gets worse, finds more efficient ways to destroy, not to create.

[Malchik]

I mentioned before that your suggestion, Darnoc, sounds a little like Eugenics (or Gattaca). It may well be that that is a possible future, though I hope not. Problems will arise with whose definition of Ubermenschen is used. And are we talking about IQ, emotional intelligence or practical wisdom?

 

Also a race that is highly intelligent may not succeed against an army that is all but mindless but incredibly powerful. (Thinks HGWells 'The Time Machine'). Also they cannot be protected against those who believe martyrdom will ensure them a place in heaven as they have no moral restraints against wiping out the whole planet if they choose.

 

Those who get voted into power in the UK are usually those who command the best 'spin' as a party. Individual wealth hardly comes into it. This makes it easier for anyone to stand. Though, as in the US, it is becoming increasingly expensive to fund an election campaign as an independent.

 

Fortunately most 'spin' gets penetrated after a while. But it isn't very pleasant to think you have voted in a bunch of liars.

 

It simply makes me feel more strongly than ever that the west should not link its offers of help to the irrelevancy of 'democracy'. Which is not to say there should be no conditions but ones that will really help the people.

[Darnoc]

If you ever have time to read my theories of state and government, you will notice that I also included the problem of religion and religious fantatics. In order to solve this, the ruling class has to force a new religion which they can control or perhaps they even let themselves be worshipped like the Cesars of Rome. But it sounds like Gattaca, you're right there.

[surian]

Well, a lot of the founding fathers of the US were actually against having our country become a democracy. They feared the tyranny of the Majority. Today that's what we see in some instances, however we have adapted around it and become a more socialistic democracy than we once were. It's the only way that the individual rights of the minority can be adressed in a democracy. In the days of our fore-fathers during the founding of our country, "democracy" was a dirty word. "Democrat" meant someone believing in democracy, but it also was used as a form of name-calling.

 

To me, socialism has a lot more going for it than democracy. It's not perfect either, but you can easily see that our government is slowly leaning that way.

[Icefiddell]

as has been said Democracy is far to fragile and so is many if not all governements all around the world. But also as has been said before it was the Greeks that began Democracy and keeping on the Greece thing i'd like to mention Sparta, a greek city state.

 

Now there government was one of if not the most stable government of all time it was a democratic timocratic monarchical oligarchy. At the top of the government was the monarchy however this was a duel monarchy. Below the monarchy was a counci composed of the two kings plus 28 nobles all of which were over 60 which meant they were ritired from the military.

 

The council debatedand set legislative and foreign policy, and was the supreme criminal court. Below the council (or above it), was an assembly of the Spartiate males (elite Spartans) that selected the council and either apposed or approved council proposals. Above them all, however was a small group of five men called the ephorate.

 

For all practical purposes the Spartan Government was the Ephorate, for these five men led the council, ran the military, ran the educational system, ran the infant selection system, and had veto power over everything that came out of the council and assembly.

 

They even had the power to depose the king: however, they needed powerful divine proof (in the form of omens or oracles) to exercise this power.

 

Well i'm not saying that we should just throw down all the governement and turn our countrys into Militaristic States lol but you've got to wonder why Ancient people such as the Spartans (who are classed as Primitive by todays standards, ok maybe not primitive but you know what i mean) could create a government so stable and so uncurruptable that it stood for over 600 years (i think). Makes you think.

 

If any of you dont know what Sparta was or would just like an indepth conversation about Ancient History feel free to PM me.

[surian]

I think that the concept of a democracy was created by the greek Democratus he also developed a pretty good estimation of the atomic world and was the first to delve into the idea of multiple worlds in the universe. Aristotle didn't really agree with much of Democratus's ideas though. Aristotle was an advocate of (take a guess) aristocracy. He was strongly opposed to Demagoguery which is litterally a system where everyone has an equal voice. He disliked it because it would lead to a Mob rule where the majority was always going to win. To be fair, I think that Aristotle disliked Demagoguery so much because it would uproot his aristocracy. Aristocracy is a system oc class structure where the "best people" lead the general population. A Demagoguery (which we consider to be the ideal democracy today) would have toppled this stucture and thus his place in society.

 

But he does have a point about the mob rule that a democracy can bring with it.

 

Oh, a neat side note about Democratus: He died at the age of 109... pretty old for someone living in 400BC.

[Icefiddell]

I think either way we look at it you will never have the perfect world, government, god will we ever have a perfect anything. The way i see it everything will have its faults.

 

With Democratus and his veiws, it was good because even the people at the bottom the poorest people will get a say, but as you mentioned it could turn into a mob ruling.

 

And then with Aristotle his views were also good in theory, but then the people at the bottom the poorest people will get no say in the running of the country. Rather like the social class system that was in Britian in the 19th Century.

 

So each government will haves its pros and cons lol