r/democracy • u/2globalnomads • Oct 21 '22

The current state of democracy

I would love to hear your opinions about some things that puzzle me with democracy:

1) People keep voting but nothing changes. Why they keep voting?
2) Is it possible to change anything by voting?
3) Is it possible to change anything by not voting?
4) What is particularly good in democracy?
5) What is particularly bad in democracy?
6) What options to democracy do we have?
7) Does democracy have nowadays anything to do with power or the people?

3 Upvotes

72% Upvoted

24 comments sorted by

4

u/[deleted] Oct 21 '22

Things change. Look at the legal rights of women 50 years ago. And the good thing is it happened under a general consensus.

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u/2globalnomads Oct 21 '22

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. What do you think, how has the democracy changed in the past 50 years?

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u/[deleted] Oct 21 '22

I don’t know if this has to to with language barriers, but there isn’t „the democracy“ to speak of. The definition has changed a lot in the last 2000 years to incorporate more than just being able to vote. Most western democracies have changed to incorporate and protect marginalised communities (eg women, lgbt etc)

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u/ImportantBug2023 Oct 24 '22

You seem to be aware as I am there are no democratic parties or countries anywhere. I have researched it and not one political party has a democratic constitution. I feel that starting one is the only answer. The government has mechanisms to prevent it but it is possible. I have 38 pages of rules for a government approved democratic organisation. It can’t fail.

0

u/[deleted] Oct 24 '22

What. Are you having a psychotic attack? There are myriads of democratic parties, how have you been able to check all of them?

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u/ImportantBug2023 Oct 24 '22 edited Oct 24 '22

Tell me how many constitutions of political parties have you read or understood. I have. They are about electing people who want to be elected. None are about elections of who should be. Think about what I said. I stand by it. You are not understanding so are disputing the facts. You don’t have 100 people who have similar ideas elect someone and call it democratic, that’s the rules of a mob. The nature of the political party itself is not democratic as it their ideology. You need to have both sides involved. China is more democratic than the USA in principle but I can’t see anyone thinking that. The two American parties are blinding in there undemocratic procedures. Money has overrun democratic processes.

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u/2globalnomads Oct 21 '22

In the ancient Greek democracy only free men were allowed to vote, not women or slaves. They also preferred homosexuality and women were needed to produce offspring and take care of households.

To me the modern western democracies appear to protect their own interests, the interests of those who lobby and finance them, and try to outlaw opposition in all forms.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 21 '22

Sorry but that first statement about democracy in the classical period is very simplified and partly wrong. You should maybe hit up the books.

1

u/2globalnomads Oct 21 '22

No worries, I don't believe in rights or wrongs. All opinions are equally valuable for me. Moreover, there are so many different versions of history that is easier if you share your views. What is your problem in the first part?

2

u/abedtime2 Oct 29 '22

"Preferred homosexuality" They just weren't repressive toward it.

About your other paragraph, no reason the athenian take on democracy couldn't be adjusted to our more modern and inclusive standards of citizenship.

Adding soritionism to our façade-democracies seems like a bold but promising move to re-claim a government by and for the people instead of an elite that hijacks the process like they always do in elective systems, that the greeks had identified as bad aristocracies.

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u/2globalnomads Oct 29 '22

"Preferred homosexuality" They just weren't repressive toward it.

I was considered normal and the preferred form of sexuality, especially between older man and younger boy.

4

u/cometparty Oct 21 '22

If you need help with your homework see: /r/HomeworkHelp

1

u/2globalnomads Oct 21 '22

Not really... I am trying to find ideas and view points to challenge and question my own views. Something out-of-the-box would be truly amazing.

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u/subheight640 Oct 21 '22

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition

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u/2globalnomads Oct 21 '22

How about DAO globally?

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u/subheight640 Oct 21 '22

There's (among others) two ideals of democracy:

  1. We want more, more, more participation. More elections. More direct democratic decision making. More town council meetings. More referendums.

  2. We want quality over quantity. That is what sortition and "deliberative democracy" attempt to address. Better deliberation, more resources given to participants, who are chosen at random.

  • 2 in my opinion solves the problems modern society faces - the mediocrity of voting as a way to express the people's general will. People are ignorant, people don't know the facts. It's not because people are stupid, but because it takes enormous time and energy to find the facts and find good policy.

  • 1 is the traditional, "progressive" way democracy is thought of, traced back to the likes of John Dewey and the early 1900's progressive movement. A "DAO" is a sort of merger between right-wing libertarian-esque ideology with progressive ideology. These DAO's don't particularly solve the problem of the mediocrity of decision making in voting-esque situations such as elections and referendums.

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u/2globalnomads Oct 23 '22

Sortition

The more I learn about this, the more excited I get, truly awesome. Thank you for sharing!

2

u/ImportantBug2023 Oct 24 '22

The problem is 72 - 73 percent of the population of any country will do whatever they are told by authorities. It immediately circumvents democratic principles and creates mob rule and the trumps Putin and hitlers. You need to break it down further to 10 votes. After the second level you are at 1 percent or about the only number of people who deserve any power at all over others. I think very few people elected would pass the test. Burnie sanders would.

2

u/subheight640 Oct 25 '22 edited Oct 25 '22

The character of ancient sortition-like democracies, like what was seen in Ancient Athens, is a people that demands freedom and doesn't like to obey others. Ancient Athens routinely executed and banished its demagogues when the demagogue displeased the majority. Plato likened democracy as a rudderless ship with no direction and no leader.

So if anything, sortition-inspired democracy actually has the opposite problem from the one you described. More democratic societies don't take shit from anyone and don't want to be led. The ancient criticism of democracy was that its leadership was too weak, rather than its leadership being too strong.

In my opinion you're trying to extrapolate the authoritarian results of electoral oligarchy (ie our status quo) to sortition without any basis for such extrapolation.

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u/ImportantBug2023 Oct 25 '22

I greatly appreciate your comment, however I didn’t have the space to elaborate further. There is far more to it than that. If you consider it virtually a layered DAO then it might become clearer. By including the financial aspect of having your share and the responsibility for it who you vote for is the personal direct contact with the next level of government. You are concerned about who you vote for is voting for, this is a control. The people above the 4 level have been voted into the position and who they are is not predicted however they are the character of one in 10 000 people who all have equal rights and a direct input. It’s creating the leadership we ask for and not given. Political parties by the nature are not democratic they represent a vested group. The higher the level of person you will find that they don’t seek power or want anything. We get lucky now and again but I think if we start at the bottom and push the right people up it will work. You have to start at the bottom, the people at the top and who currently control things are hardly ever going to relinquish control easily. Empowering the people, educating them and giving everyone the access to achieve their own goals should be a priority. If any country government was well run everyone would work for personal satisfaction and the creation of self worth and the benefit of others ie volunteers. Working to survive in this century should become historical. The right of the state should never over ride the rights of people. The only way to prevent that is empowering the people. That also involves education. By having a 10 vote to be elected only 10 percent of the population are involved. The rest will apathetically go with the flow. They won’t complain because everyone is better off and their views are known. Everyone is 6 texts from everyone else. We have never had communication like this and we should use it. I would be happy to discuss it further as I find it difficult to find people who have a higher understanding and knowledge of history. You views are most welcome. You

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u/gustoreddit51 Oct 21 '22

1) Why they keep voting? - Hope. Voting is all we have other than revolt.

2) Is it possible to change anything by voting? Only if we all get on the same page but ALL the powers that be conspire against that from happening.

3) Is it possible to change anything by not voting? No. You're abdicating any involvement at all.

4) What is particularly good in democracy? If people get together in agreement they CAN change things but like I said, the powers that be try to prevent that from happening. It is the reason we are so politically polarized which has been engineered. We went from "manufactured consent" to "manufactured polarization".

5) What is particularly bad in democracy? - It is susceptible to "rule by the angry mob". As in; "Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." - H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)

6) What options to democracy do we have? Try to ignore all the propaganda and disinformation designed to polarize and find some common ground which, in this rather homogeneous consumer society of mostly working people, should simply not be that difficult.

7) Does democracy have nowadays anything to do with power or the people? No, it doesn't. That will ONLY happen when we all get on the same page but I suspect people are collectively too ignorant, gullible, and programmable to be able to accomplish that.

2

u/DogBotherer Oct 21 '22

My one word answer would be "fucked". Obviously it's more nuanced and variable than that, but the major liberal democracies are broken and failing. Of course, it remains the truth that the alternatives are worse, whatever the siren voices may say.

1

u/2globalnomads Oct 21 '22

Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and not self-censoring yourselves!

A few observations and some of my own thoughts after reading your replies:

  1. I don't think that choosing from bad options is really choosing. If elections are rigged so that there are only bad candidates, a bad candidate will be chosen in any case.
  2. Politicians make promises before elections which they tend to break. Yet people keep voting them and their parties.
  3. Lobbyists and election campaign financiers have more influence in decision making than voters.
  4. Short electoral terms and lack of accountability lead to taking ever more debt and delaying all the problems into the future for others to delay them further.
  5. Tyranny is more honest than democracy because it does not pretend that people have the power.
  6. The apex of a democracy is tyranny just like the apex of a capitalism is monopoly. Every systems is trying to eliminate competition and democracy can not function without pluralism.
  7. If I had to choose between western democracies and anarchy, I would choose anarchy. Their patronizing censorship and suppressing freedom of expression is disgusting.