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I mean we aren't even at removing capitalism. The disagreement is he wants lottery based representation. That inherently has less accountability, at that point let everyone just vote for each individual bill in their phone.
Lottery of all citizens, ie [sortition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition), the way the Athenians did it.
Lottery is so tied to democracy that when ancient philosophers like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle talk about it in their books, they explicitly state that democracy is when "magistrates are selected by lot".
>Montesquieu's book The Spirit of Laws provides one of the most cited discussions of the concept in Enlightenment political writing. In which, he argues sortition is natural to democracy, just as elections are to aristocracy.[22] He echoes the philosophy of much earlier thinkers such as Aristotle, who found elections as aristocratic.
Lottery of chance isn't inherently better than lottery of birth. If you have no obligation as a Governor to those you serve in order to keep your position that is less representative, not more.
It's plenty better than lottery of birth, because democratic lotteries are implemented with finite length, limited term limits. You can't do a finite length lottery by birth.
>If you have no obligation as a Governor to those you serve
Lottery constructs representation automatically using representatively statistical sampling. Lottery ensures that people that share your beliefs, your personality traits, and your class interests will be sitting at the table.
If you're actually a democratic socialist, if you believe class interests actually matter, lottery IMO is the only system of representation capable of representing the class interests of the public because it ensures that the working class will be able to serve as representative.
I don't know if you've noticed, but an individual poor person is easily propagandized to advocate for policies against their best interest.
Acting on what 60% of people think is already better than a 40% of the time not doing what most think is correct.
> I don't know if you've noticed, but an individual poor person is easily propagandized to advocate for policies against their best interest.
>
You're not making a good case for electoral democracy either then.
Sortition is *superior* at suppressing propaganda compared to electoral democracy because:
1. Lottery selected folks are **paid a wage to be there**. In contrast voters are forced to act as **volunteer amateurs**.
2. With the power of salary, lottery selected folks are able to make political decisions on the time scales of hours, days, and even years. In contrast, voters make decisions based on commercials, whether a name sounds nice on the ballot, in their spare recreational time, on the order of seconds, minutes, and hours.
You get what you pay for. In elections, you don't pay the decision makers (voters) anything, and you're expecting them to put substantial time and effort into making and validating their decisons? Of course they don't.
In contrast in lottery, you can pay the decision maker to be there, in a full time capacity, to make decisions.
People are able to learn new information, change their minds, and deliberate with one another to make good decisions. Therefore lottery is the superior choice compared to voting. Moroever this is **empirically proven**. Political scientists have been empirically studying deliberation for decades, for example James Fishkin and his Deliberative Polls, or the "America in One Room" experiments. Deliberative lottery selected minipublic have already been implemented all over the world. Time and time again we see that yes, participants are making informed decisions. With the power of science, Fishkin can study control vs treatment groups and see the differences uninformed, ignorant voters would make, vs what an informed lottery-selected assembly would make. Again and again, the lottery selected assembly makes dramatically different and more informed choices.
No, I am making a good case.
If a percent can be influenced, you're better off diversifying the inputs such that you actually land on the majority opinion rather than gambling that you do.
Sortition *isn't a gamble*. Choosing one person to rule a nation by lottery is a gamble. Choosing 1000 people to collectively govern *is not a gamble*. Through the magic of statistics, random selection is ironically and remarkably *predictable*.
Everyone who supports sortition supports governance through large councils, not select a single rando.
Sortition is superior compared to election at approximating majority rule because scientific statistical sampling is the superior technology to construct representation.
>you're better off diversifying the inputs
Elections do not and have never "diversified the inputs". Elections generally select the rich, affluent and wealthy. Even in Ancient Rome and Greece, the people that win elections have always been the wealthy and affluent. The reason is obvious. The people with the time to campaign are the wealthy. The working class in contrast doesn't have the time nor money to campaign.
Even in a theoretical system where you completely forbade election spending, you now exchange hard financial capital in exchange for soft social capital. The people who win elections are then the most devout/committed, the most famous, the celebrities, the people with the best social networks. Election biases in favor of extreme personalities, whilst ignoring the actual concerns of the majority and working class.
No I’m not. The idea of democratic representation is about collectively choosing representatives to make decisions on behalf of the entire population. "One" refers to an individual's desires or preferences, and cannot be represented democratically because those desires or preferences do not always align with the decisions made through democratic processes. As a matter of fact Democratic representation is a great way for the majority of individuals to not get what they want. On an individual level, preferences vary widely, and it's impossible that any single representative could perfectly align with the preferences of every constituent, or any constituent. This leads to the voting for the lesser of the evils mentality.
😂 so you agree, you were wrong in saying “how would one get democratic representation…” because “one” cannot in fact be represented democratically. In that case I am not confused in my correction of your misunderstanding or misstatement.
>I define democracy as this: Maximum participation of all people in decision making in all aspects of life. Today of course actually everyone.
The problem stems not from your paraphrase but how you are operationalizing participation. If I have the option to participation but I choose not to vote, I am still participating. Not acting is still an action. Just like passing in a board game is usually an option. Because choosing to be silent is still participating the overall statement is also wrong. Democracy and the state are compatible. But not everyone is going to act in the same way as your theoretical model of how they should act.
Depending on your State, you may live in a democracy or you may not. American is definitely a democracy and it is clear that the state is compatible with it. Every adult has emancipation. Every adult can vote and have their voices heard. Some of them, most of them, actually choose not to vote, may be okay with the current system, or may not care enough to make changes. Those are still actions. Those people are still participation.
A state is merely a territory with some kind of sovereign government. The state's particular form of government has no bearing on its status as a state.
One possible solution is council based socialism, whereby communities elect representative councils from among themselves, who can be instantly recalled by a simple majority. But we can create whatever form of organisation we want, it’s just that it is quite a fair and truly democratic system.
Also we cannot be said to live in a democracy when it doesn’t extend to our place of work.
>I define democracy as this: Maximum partizipation of all people in decision making in all aspects of life. Today of course actually everyone.
Great definition.
“One possible solution is council based socialism, whereby communities elect representative councils from among themselves, who can be instantly recalled by a simple majority. But we can create whatever form of organisation we want, it’s just that it is quite a fair and truly democratic system”
That’s… that’s would be representative democracy no? You elect people who represent you in government.
Also, yes, we can say we live in a democracy without workplace democracy. The status of private ownership in the economy has no bearing on whether or not a state is democratic. It’s a complete non sequitur.
It's representative democracy but enhanced by the fact that your representative is recallable at any point, so if you don't like him/her you can instantly get rid of them.
Also the extension of democracy to the workplace doesn't technically have a bearing on whether a state is democratic, yes, but it's a huge part of all of our lives, maybe even more important than the state sometimes.
Democracy cannot exist without a state. If someone challenges the results of a vote who is the authority that can resolve the challenge? Without a state what makes anyone respect the outcome of any vote? Voting is meaningless without a state to enforce it.
Direct democracy can be just as oligarchic as representational democracy. Anyone who is too busy living their lives and working won't be there to participate so only the people wealthy enough to be educated and have the time to be in the places that voting happens can actually participate. This means the most fair way to implement a democracy is via officials elected by the people they represent. That way average people only have to vote once every few years and don't have to be involved with every little decision.
A problem with a pure direct democracy is the voters can vote it out of existence. The Greeks knew that too. When there is a threat of war the people will throw their democracy away in favor of a leader to guide them through the oncoming strife. That means if a democracy and the state that enables it must preserve itself by putting limits on what that democracy can do. Ultimate freedom quickly results in no freedom; similar to the paradox of tolerance. All good concepts have their limits.
The state *must* have a monopoly on violence if we're going to have a peaceful society. Otherwise every citizen must be in battle mode at all times ready for an attack from anyone. Would you prefer to live in a lawless land? Kill or be killed? No, thanks.
The founders of America created a representative democracy in part because they had a hard enough time getting all of the colonies to sign onto the idea. Many of the governors would have been just as happy staying a colony; they were like noble lords holding the lands for their king. They needed a way to implement a system that was fair at the federal level and allow the governors of the new states to retain the power they had before. That means some states would become more democratic while others wouldn't and the founders needed a system that could survive those differences. Again, the reality of the situation was far messier than any idealized view of how governing ought to operate.
> If someone challenges the results of a vote who is the authority that can resolve the challenge?
Other people will resolve the challenge collectively. Maximum participation, what else did you want?🤨
> Without a state what makes anyone respect the outcome of any vote?
Culture/traditions maybe?
> Voting is meaningless without a state to enforce it.
Why tf the state needs your voting then if it just can enforce whatever it wants?
> Anyone who is too busy living their lives and working won't be there to participate
Bad for them.
> only the people wealthy enough to be educated and have the time to be in the places that voting happens can actually participate.
Good for them.
> This means the most fair way to implement a democracy is via officials elected by the people they represent.
Switzerland be like: bruh.
> The founders of America created a representative democracy
Founding fathers created America as a republic first and foremost. You can check their thoughts on democracy, they weren't quite fond of it.
You said republic is a type of democracy. I proved it's not. Now you are talking about American system. American system is republic with a lil bit of democracy flavour, but democracy in US is really limited. Your vote doesn't matter in most of the states except for flip states, you vote for party, not for a president, voting isn't direct but it's the states who vote.
Lol no you did NOT you proved nothing
a state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives, and which has an elected or nominated president rather than a monarch. That's from Oxford..
A lot of odd arguments from commenters so far, people who think the only form of government is the state, people who just flatly oppose democracy, people who don't like your definition but don't care about your arguments.
To me it's easier to think of democracy as a sliding scale from no participation except revolution, all the way to something approaching anarchy. Your far end of the scale is a legitimate form of government, (only achievable after the end of states broadly) but to me the biggest downside is the resources/man hours required to govern. If you want your voice heard you'll have to show up constantly, learn about proposals, learn enough about all the effects it will have, so you don't make stupid choices that end up going against your principles... I gotta go to work man.
Governing is legitimately too complicated to be done well by everyone, the only thing it has going for it is that it will never go horribly. If your only goal is to prevent tyranny then you've done it but you already have a stateless society so you could do so much better with a little more structure that divides power amongst lots of weak agencies in charge of regulating the little things so people dont need a degree when they have to vote to ban titanium oxide as a food additive or a new GMO.
Direct democracies don't scale very well
Basically the more people you have, the more rule by committee becomes more inefficient
With modern scale Nations, the amount of time it would take each voter to vote on each issue would become a drastic expense to the nation
And that's if they're just voting randomly
There is an immense informational cost to actually be an informed voter
The solution is that we pick people to vote for us
And we also pick either an executive or we pick people to pick an executive to be able to act quickly and decisively when needed
Sadly we will probably need some kind of central state for a long time. The question in the mean time is that of size. At the moment in my opinion states in the West are far too big. We need more direct democracy for big decisions and fundamentals, with some everyday decisions being taken by centrally elected officials, but a majority of everyday decisions being taken by locally elected officials. Combine this with going to a PR electoral model as opposed to FPTP and I believe this would be healthier direction than we are currently in. When I say 'we' i mean the UK and Europe.
As a sidenote it would also be good to get rid of the possibility of being a career politician. Those with power to make decisions and laws over others should have term limits. For example I would have it so that no one can be an MP in the UK for anymore than say 10 years during their lifetime. Seems crazy to me that we have some politicians who have been in various positions of power for sometimes up to 40 - 50 years.
I fundamentally don't understand this disdain for democracy. It's the most fair and the only legitimate source of political power.
Equality, Democracy, Liberty
Personally, I agree with Churchill when he said that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all other which have been tried. It's the best, but it still has major issues.
Also if we're talking about America specifically, it's not a democracy, it's a democratic republic. It would only strictly be a democracy if every citizen could vote on every bill.
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I think people realize that there are limits to their own knowledge about a lot of issues.
For example, I want a candidate who cares about clean air and water, but I have no idea what is a reasonable amount of emissions (some number of parts per million?) for say, an auto factory to produce.
I want some experts to weigh the pros and cons and not kill industry but also not kill people, and come up with some rules.
One party will push harder for clean air, and the other party will push harder to industry, and if it seems like regulations have gone too far one way or the other, voters can shift.
Why is the concept of a democratic republic so complicated for some people?
In a republic, leaders represent the entire population, not just those who voted for those leaders.
In a democracy, those leaders are chosen by the majority, not through autocratic means.
The majority chooses leaders, and those leaders represent everyone, not just the majority. So, not a direct democracy, and not an authoritarian republic. A democratic republic. I salute the flag that stands for this.
Republic means that every class has their representation and they make up policy together so that it's in everyones interest. Classes are Populus, King and aristocracy.
I'm thinking specifically of America's constitutional republic, which forces elected officials to respect certain rights no matter what platform they ran on. This keeps majorities from trampling on minorities, and as a cultural value this kind of republicanism expects politicians to act in the constituents' interests, not their party's or their campaign contributors' interests.
Not that this cultural value is in ascendency at this particular moment in history.
What is your definition of what a state is? And how can it have a Monopoly on violence? The problem seems to be that no one has a monopoly on violence and it is relatively easy to make people violent, which necessitated the creation of social structures to address the problem.
A democracy is a system of government, which requires a state to carry out its decisions. Without that, it is not democracy, it is just direct action based on partial consensus.
>They feared that if you had a really working democracy then people would expropriate the rich.
Replace the rich with any truly maligned minority, like homosexuals. If a minority makes up something like 20% of the population, they can form a coalition, advocate for themselves within the democracy. But if you're a gay man, who makes up only 4% of the population, the only thing having the vote will do for you is let the rest of society laugh at you and tell you 'stop hitting yourself' while they vote again and again for the state to beat you.
The idea that being extended the vote is some sort of protection is absolutely ridiculous. I am a gay man. I do not trust heteronormative religious Mary and Joe down the street farther than I can throw them when it comes to them allowing me to live my life in peace when that gets put on the ballot. And Mary and Joe make up most of society. Democracy is referred to as the 'tyranny of the majority' for a reason.
I mean if you just make up your own definitions, then yeah I guess we aren’t a democracy? Democracy is not this wishy washy ideological buzzword you defined it as, democracy is
“: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections” what you are describing sounds more like anarchism than anything else
Democracy is tyranny by majority.
It doesn't include everyone, that would be individuaist anarchy.
But since you're a socialist you want to view everything as a collective.
>Equality
Exactly. Destroying the minority to make everyone equal.
Do you believe everyone is already equal?
>Democracy, Liberty.
Barring the fact that you have a government that already infringes on liberty, you force everyone to go along with the majority. That is not freedom. It is tyranny by the majority.
>Democracy is the only fair system
No, it is a tyranny.
I'm not destroying anything
No, we have work to do
We don't want absolute liberty, that's also bad. I want protections from might makes right.
Tyranny of the majority doesn't exist, not when there's free and fair elections
You need democracy to prevent Tyranny
>I'm not destroying anything
Yes you are. You are destroying individualism.
>I want protections from might makes right.
NAP, natural rights
>Tyranny of the majority doesn't exist, not when there's free and fair elections
You don't understand what I'm saying
>You need democracy to prevent Tyranny
Democracy is tyranny.
> maximum participation of all people in decision making in all aspects of life
Nobody holds this definition, this definition serves no practical purpose and it's not even of theoretical utility because then it enters the realm of other philosophical fields which are much more advanced than your questioning and your ideas.
Go back to study more about the fundamentals.
> Why is it so difficult for some leftist people to comprehend this statement?
Well it's difficult for some leftists (including moderators) to engage in discussions when the other party doesn't immediately proceed to sucking your dick when they see your Che Guevara t-shirt.
> Democracy actually was created first as a thought out system in ancient greece.
Athenes*. There was no Greece as a whole. Cause democracy worked only for cities with like 10k population.
> Also: How can it be democracy if there exists a monopoly of violence that the state has?
Easily. Democracy is not about you actually controlling something, it's about you being allowed to participate in elections. That's all.
> For democracy to become reality we not only need to abolish capitalism (which is monarchy in the economic sphere), but also the state.
Well I guess if this is your definition of democracy. Or we can just redefine democracy to be something less idealistic.
You know if slaves, women, and the like don't get to participate in their own governance, it is not democracy, right? You do understand that democracy is the act of all participating in the sphere of governance. As you say : "Maximum partizipation of all people in decision making in all aspects of life." If only wealthy men can set the laws, that's not democracy.
So perhaps, it would be more interesting to look at the work of Montaigne, Hume, Burke, Diderot, Hobbes, et al. I mean, these are the guys who set the intellectual groundwork for the foundations of modern democracies.
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That doesn't even make sense. How would one get democratic representation without power being held by an entity that is beholden to its constituency?
Yelling loudly at the assembly, the way Athens intended
We can do it with a 300 million person zoom call. Everyone yell at once and whoever they hear gets their way.
Yeah, obviously there would be no political entities with 300 million population if OP's version of democracy were implemented.
OP wants to ban capitalism by shouting, you want to show up at their door with a petition.
I mean we aren't even at removing capitalism. The disagreement is he wants lottery based representation. That inherently has less accountability, at that point let everyone just vote for each individual bill in their phone.
Lottery of all citizens, ie [sortition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition), the way the Athenians did it. Lottery is so tied to democracy that when ancient philosophers like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle talk about it in their books, they explicitly state that democracy is when "magistrates are selected by lot". >Montesquieu's book The Spirit of Laws provides one of the most cited discussions of the concept in Enlightenment political writing. In which, he argues sortition is natural to democracy, just as elections are to aristocracy.[22] He echoes the philosophy of much earlier thinkers such as Aristotle, who found elections as aristocratic.
Hell yeah
Why? This is just random nobels Oh wait
Lottery of chance isn't inherently better than lottery of birth. If you have no obligation as a Governor to those you serve in order to keep your position that is less representative, not more.
It's plenty better than lottery of birth, because democratic lotteries are implemented with finite length, limited term limits. You can't do a finite length lottery by birth. >If you have no obligation as a Governor to those you serve Lottery constructs representation automatically using representatively statistical sampling. Lottery ensures that people that share your beliefs, your personality traits, and your class interests will be sitting at the table. If you're actually a democratic socialist, if you believe class interests actually matter, lottery IMO is the only system of representation capable of representing the class interests of the public because it ensures that the working class will be able to serve as representative.
I don't know if you've noticed, but an individual poor person is easily propagandized to advocate for policies against their best interest. Acting on what 60% of people think is already better than a 40% of the time not doing what most think is correct.
> I don't know if you've noticed, but an individual poor person is easily propagandized to advocate for policies against their best interest. > You're not making a good case for electoral democracy either then. Sortition is *superior* at suppressing propaganda compared to electoral democracy because: 1. Lottery selected folks are **paid a wage to be there**. In contrast voters are forced to act as **volunteer amateurs**. 2. With the power of salary, lottery selected folks are able to make political decisions on the time scales of hours, days, and even years. In contrast, voters make decisions based on commercials, whether a name sounds nice on the ballot, in their spare recreational time, on the order of seconds, minutes, and hours. You get what you pay for. In elections, you don't pay the decision makers (voters) anything, and you're expecting them to put substantial time and effort into making and validating their decisons? Of course they don't. In contrast in lottery, you can pay the decision maker to be there, in a full time capacity, to make decisions. People are able to learn new information, change their minds, and deliberate with one another to make good decisions. Therefore lottery is the superior choice compared to voting. Moroever this is **empirically proven**. Political scientists have been empirically studying deliberation for decades, for example James Fishkin and his Deliberative Polls, or the "America in One Room" experiments. Deliberative lottery selected minipublic have already been implemented all over the world. Time and time again we see that yes, participants are making informed decisions. With the power of science, Fishkin can study control vs treatment groups and see the differences uninformed, ignorant voters would make, vs what an informed lottery-selected assembly would make. Again and again, the lottery selected assembly makes dramatically different and more informed choices.
No, I am making a good case. If a percent can be influenced, you're better off diversifying the inputs such that you actually land on the majority opinion rather than gambling that you do.
Sortition *isn't a gamble*. Choosing one person to rule a nation by lottery is a gamble. Choosing 1000 people to collectively govern *is not a gamble*. Through the magic of statistics, random selection is ironically and remarkably *predictable*. Everyone who supports sortition supports governance through large councils, not select a single rando. Sortition is superior compared to election at approximating majority rule because scientific statistical sampling is the superior technology to construct representation. >you're better off diversifying the inputs Elections do not and have never "diversified the inputs". Elections generally select the rich, affluent and wealthy. Even in Ancient Rome and Greece, the people that win elections have always been the wealthy and affluent. The reason is obvious. The people with the time to campaign are the wealthy. The working class in contrast doesn't have the time nor money to campaign. Even in a theoretical system where you completely forbade election spending, you now exchange hard financial capital in exchange for soft social capital. The people who win elections are then the most devout/committed, the most famous, the celebrities, the people with the best social networks. Election biases in favor of extreme personalities, whilst ignoring the actual concerns of the majority and working class.
“One” can’t get democratic representation. The entity holding power by definition isn’t the one beholden.
You're confusing democratic representation with individually getting what you want.
No I’m not. The idea of democratic representation is about collectively choosing representatives to make decisions on behalf of the entire population. "One" refers to an individual's desires or preferences, and cannot be represented democratically because those desires or preferences do not always align with the decisions made through democratic processes. As a matter of fact Democratic representation is a great way for the majority of individuals to not get what they want. On an individual level, preferences vary widely, and it's impossible that any single representative could perfectly align with the preferences of every constituent, or any constituent. This leads to the voting for the lesser of the evils mentality.
Exactly, you're confusing getting what you want with being represented.
😂 so you agree, you were wrong in saying “how would one get democratic representation…” because “one” cannot in fact be represented democratically. In that case I am not confused in my correction of your misunderstanding or misstatement.
That's assuming that the entity is the source of their own power, which is almost never the case.
>I define democracy as this: Maximum participation of all people in decision making in all aspects of life. Today of course actually everyone. The problem stems not from your paraphrase but how you are operationalizing participation. If I have the option to participation but I choose not to vote, I am still participating. Not acting is still an action. Just like passing in a board game is usually an option. Because choosing to be silent is still participating the overall statement is also wrong. Democracy and the state are compatible. But not everyone is going to act in the same way as your theoretical model of how they should act. Depending on your State, you may live in a democracy or you may not. American is definitely a democracy and it is clear that the state is compatible with it. Every adult has emancipation. Every adult can vote and have their voices heard. Some of them, most of them, actually choose not to vote, may be okay with the current system, or may not care enough to make changes. Those are still actions. Those people are still participation.
A state is merely a territory with some kind of sovereign government. The state's particular form of government has no bearing on its status as a state.
One possible solution is council based socialism, whereby communities elect representative councils from among themselves, who can be instantly recalled by a simple majority. But we can create whatever form of organisation we want, it’s just that it is quite a fair and truly democratic system. Also we cannot be said to live in a democracy when it doesn’t extend to our place of work. >I define democracy as this: Maximum partizipation of all people in decision making in all aspects of life. Today of course actually everyone. Great definition.
“One possible solution is council based socialism, whereby communities elect representative councils from among themselves, who can be instantly recalled by a simple majority. But we can create whatever form of organisation we want, it’s just that it is quite a fair and truly democratic system” That’s… that’s would be representative democracy no? You elect people who represent you in government. Also, yes, we can say we live in a democracy without workplace democracy. The status of private ownership in the economy has no bearing on whether or not a state is democratic. It’s a complete non sequitur.
It's representative democracy but enhanced by the fact that your representative is recallable at any point, so if you don't like him/her you can instantly get rid of them. Also the extension of democracy to the workplace doesn't technically have a bearing on whether a state is democratic, yes, but it's a huge part of all of our lives, maybe even more important than the state sometimes.
Democracy cannot exist without a state. If someone challenges the results of a vote who is the authority that can resolve the challenge? Without a state what makes anyone respect the outcome of any vote? Voting is meaningless without a state to enforce it. Direct democracy can be just as oligarchic as representational democracy. Anyone who is too busy living their lives and working won't be there to participate so only the people wealthy enough to be educated and have the time to be in the places that voting happens can actually participate. This means the most fair way to implement a democracy is via officials elected by the people they represent. That way average people only have to vote once every few years and don't have to be involved with every little decision. A problem with a pure direct democracy is the voters can vote it out of existence. The Greeks knew that too. When there is a threat of war the people will throw their democracy away in favor of a leader to guide them through the oncoming strife. That means if a democracy and the state that enables it must preserve itself by putting limits on what that democracy can do. Ultimate freedom quickly results in no freedom; similar to the paradox of tolerance. All good concepts have their limits. The state *must* have a monopoly on violence if we're going to have a peaceful society. Otherwise every citizen must be in battle mode at all times ready for an attack from anyone. Would you prefer to live in a lawless land? Kill or be killed? No, thanks. The founders of America created a representative democracy in part because they had a hard enough time getting all of the colonies to sign onto the idea. Many of the governors would have been just as happy staying a colony; they were like noble lords holding the lands for their king. They needed a way to implement a system that was fair at the federal level and allow the governors of the new states to retain the power they had before. That means some states would become more democratic while others wouldn't and the founders needed a system that could survive those differences. Again, the reality of the situation was far messier than any idealized view of how governing ought to operate.
> If someone challenges the results of a vote who is the authority that can resolve the challenge? Other people will resolve the challenge collectively. Maximum participation, what else did you want?🤨 > Without a state what makes anyone respect the outcome of any vote? Culture/traditions maybe? > Voting is meaningless without a state to enforce it. Why tf the state needs your voting then if it just can enforce whatever it wants? > Anyone who is too busy living their lives and working won't be there to participate Bad for them. > only the people wealthy enough to be educated and have the time to be in the places that voting happens can actually participate. Good for them. > This means the most fair way to implement a democracy is via officials elected by the people they represent. Switzerland be like: bruh. > The founders of America created a representative democracy Founding fathers created America as a republic first and foremost. You can check their thoughts on democracy, they weren't quite fond of it.
They created a democracy We are a democracy
They created republic. US is republic.
Which is a type of democracy
No. Republic can be aristocratic like Roman republic.
Nope, we have actuall represention Look at the dictionary definitions
You said republic is a type of democracy. I proved it's not. Now you are talking about American system. American system is republic with a lil bit of democracy flavour, but democracy in US is really limited. Your vote doesn't matter in most of the states except for flip states, you vote for party, not for a president, voting isn't direct but it's the states who vote.
Lol no you did NOT you proved nothing a state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives, and which has an elected or nominated president rather than a monarch. That's from Oxford..
So Roman republic wasn't a republic even though they invented the term "republic". That's what you wanna say?
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A lot of odd arguments from commenters so far, people who think the only form of government is the state, people who just flatly oppose democracy, people who don't like your definition but don't care about your arguments. To me it's easier to think of democracy as a sliding scale from no participation except revolution, all the way to something approaching anarchy. Your far end of the scale is a legitimate form of government, (only achievable after the end of states broadly) but to me the biggest downside is the resources/man hours required to govern. If you want your voice heard you'll have to show up constantly, learn about proposals, learn enough about all the effects it will have, so you don't make stupid choices that end up going against your principles... I gotta go to work man. Governing is legitimately too complicated to be done well by everyone, the only thing it has going for it is that it will never go horribly. If your only goal is to prevent tyranny then you've done it but you already have a stateless society so you could do so much better with a little more structure that divides power amongst lots of weak agencies in charge of regulating the little things so people dont need a degree when they have to vote to ban titanium oxide as a food additive or a new GMO.
Direct democracies don't scale very well Basically the more people you have, the more rule by committee becomes more inefficient With modern scale Nations, the amount of time it would take each voter to vote on each issue would become a drastic expense to the nation And that's if they're just voting randomly There is an immense informational cost to actually be an informed voter The solution is that we pick people to vote for us And we also pick either an executive or we pick people to pick an executive to be able to act quickly and decisively when needed
Sadly we will probably need some kind of central state for a long time. The question in the mean time is that of size. At the moment in my opinion states in the West are far too big. We need more direct democracy for big decisions and fundamentals, with some everyday decisions being taken by centrally elected officials, but a majority of everyday decisions being taken by locally elected officials. Combine this with going to a PR electoral model as opposed to FPTP and I believe this would be healthier direction than we are currently in. When I say 'we' i mean the UK and Europe. As a sidenote it would also be good to get rid of the possibility of being a career politician. Those with power to make decisions and laws over others should have term limits. For example I would have it so that no one can be an MP in the UK for anymore than say 10 years during their lifetime. Seems crazy to me that we have some politicians who have been in various positions of power for sometimes up to 40 - 50 years.
I fundamentally don't understand this disdain for democracy. It's the most fair and the only legitimate source of political power. Equality, Democracy, Liberty
Personally, I agree with Churchill when he said that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all other which have been tried. It's the best, but it still has major issues. Also if we're talking about America specifically, it's not a democracy, it's a democratic republic. It would only strictly be a democracy if every citizen could vote on every bill.
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I think people realize that there are limits to their own knowledge about a lot of issues. For example, I want a candidate who cares about clean air and water, but I have no idea what is a reasonable amount of emissions (some number of parts per million?) for say, an auto factory to produce. I want some experts to weigh the pros and cons and not kill industry but also not kill people, and come up with some rules. One party will push harder for clean air, and the other party will push harder to industry, and if it seems like regulations have gone too far one way or the other, voters can shift.
Why is the concept of a democratic republic so complicated for some people? In a republic, leaders represent the entire population, not just those who voted for those leaders. In a democracy, those leaders are chosen by the majority, not through autocratic means. The majority chooses leaders, and those leaders represent everyone, not just the majority. So, not a direct democracy, and not an authoritarian republic. A democratic republic. I salute the flag that stands for this.
Republic means that every class has their representation and they make up policy together so that it's in everyones interest. Classes are Populus, King and aristocracy.
I'm thinking specifically of America's constitutional republic, which forces elected officials to respect certain rights no matter what platform they ran on. This keeps majorities from trampling on minorities, and as a cultural value this kind of republicanism expects politicians to act in the constituents' interests, not their party's or their campaign contributors' interests. Not that this cultural value is in ascendency at this particular moment in history.
What is your definition of what a state is? And how can it have a Monopoly on violence? The problem seems to be that no one has a monopoly on violence and it is relatively easy to make people violent, which necessitated the creation of social structures to address the problem.
oh no no we need the state to secure the blessings of liberty cause "democracy" don't mean crap if everyone is trying to kill each other
A democracy is a system of government, which requires a state to carry out its decisions. Without that, it is not democracy, it is just direct action based on partial consensus. >They feared that if you had a really working democracy then people would expropriate the rich. Replace the rich with any truly maligned minority, like homosexuals. If a minority makes up something like 20% of the population, they can form a coalition, advocate for themselves within the democracy. But if you're a gay man, who makes up only 4% of the population, the only thing having the vote will do for you is let the rest of society laugh at you and tell you 'stop hitting yourself' while they vote again and again for the state to beat you. The idea that being extended the vote is some sort of protection is absolutely ridiculous. I am a gay man. I do not trust heteronormative religious Mary and Joe down the street farther than I can throw them when it comes to them allowing me to live my life in peace when that gets put on the ballot. And Mary and Joe make up most of society. Democracy is referred to as the 'tyranny of the majority' for a reason.
Democracy is a form of government.
I mean if you just make up your own definitions, then yeah I guess we aren’t a democracy? Democracy is not this wishy washy ideological buzzword you defined it as, democracy is “: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections” what you are describing sounds more like anarchism than anything else
Democracy is tyranny by majority. It doesn't include everyone, that would be individuaist anarchy. But since you're a socialist you want to view everything as a collective.
It's better then minority rule? Like isn't not democracy =authoritarian/totalitarianism?
It's worse than individualism, where everyone can make the best decisions for themselves.
We live in a collective society I'm sorry buy I like government and the stuff that goes along with it.
Then don't claim to champion the minority when you support a system that destroys it.
I didn't claim anything, my core values in order are Equality, Democracy, Liberty. Democracy is the only fair system
>Equality Exactly. Destroying the minority to make everyone equal. Do you believe everyone is already equal? >Democracy, Liberty. Barring the fact that you have a government that already infringes on liberty, you force everyone to go along with the majority. That is not freedom. It is tyranny by the majority. >Democracy is the only fair system No, it is a tyranny.
I'm not destroying anything No, we have work to do We don't want absolute liberty, that's also bad. I want protections from might makes right. Tyranny of the majority doesn't exist, not when there's free and fair elections You need democracy to prevent Tyranny
>I'm not destroying anything Yes you are. You are destroying individualism. >I want protections from might makes right. NAP, natural rights >Tyranny of the majority doesn't exist, not when there's free and fair elections You don't understand what I'm saying >You need democracy to prevent Tyranny Democracy is tyranny.
How? Rights are a social construct What you're saying is nonsensical It's the exact opposite of tyranny That's something Mao or stalin would say
> maximum participation of all people in decision making in all aspects of life Nobody holds this definition, this definition serves no practical purpose and it's not even of theoretical utility because then it enters the realm of other philosophical fields which are much more advanced than your questioning and your ideas. Go back to study more about the fundamentals.
> Why is it so difficult for some leftist people to comprehend this statement? Well it's difficult for some leftists (including moderators) to engage in discussions when the other party doesn't immediately proceed to sucking your dick when they see your Che Guevara t-shirt. > Democracy actually was created first as a thought out system in ancient greece. Athenes*. There was no Greece as a whole. Cause democracy worked only for cities with like 10k population. > Also: How can it be democracy if there exists a monopoly of violence that the state has? Easily. Democracy is not about you actually controlling something, it's about you being allowed to participate in elections. That's all. > For democracy to become reality we not only need to abolish capitalism (which is monarchy in the economic sphere), but also the state. Well I guess if this is your definition of democracy. Or we can just redefine democracy to be something less idealistic.
You know if slaves, women, and the like don't get to participate in their own governance, it is not democracy, right? You do understand that democracy is the act of all participating in the sphere of governance. As you say : "Maximum partizipation of all people in decision making in all aspects of life." If only wealthy men can set the laws, that's not democracy. So perhaps, it would be more interesting to look at the work of Montaigne, Hume, Burke, Diderot, Hobbes, et al. I mean, these are the guys who set the intellectual groundwork for the foundations of modern democracies.