Reasons to not support democracy and/or liberal democracy:

1. Corruption - politicians receive large sums of money from businesses and other special interests (e.g. unions) in exchange for implementing specific policies. Politicians depend on such contributions for campaign funding.

2. Lack of accountability - because any given politician or party has such limited power for such limited periods of time it is difficult to evaluate their impact. Power often oscillates from one party to the next such that outcomes can easily be attributed to the party currently in power or, similarly easily, to the party previously in power. Power is divided between various branches and levels of government and among numerous politicians such that responsibility and accountability are dispersed and confused.

3. Incoherence - the division of power, both between different levels of government and within each level of government, can lead to an assemblage of policies that are inconsistent in terms of there objectives and implementation.
Example: Division of power requires compromise between those who support the complete ban of a substance and those who favor no restrictions. The compromise reached is to criminalize the production of the substance but not its use, thereby allowing unfettered demand to combine with exclusion of legal production to produce a huge market for organized crime.

4. Gridlock/delay - disagreement within government and so-called “checks and balances” delay the implementation of much needed policy changes. Consultation of "the people" takes time.

5. Fuzziness of the concept - the very meaning of democracy is unclear. Whether a given system of government is more democratic than another is frequently disputed among proponents of democracy.

6. Corporate (etc) media influence - much media is delivered by corporations with their own interests that could influence their reporting. Media depends on advertising for much of its funding and could be compelled to report in ways favorable to current and prospective advertisers. Such reporting heavily influences the voting public.

7. Lack of effective/powerful international/supranational government and impracticality of its formation within a democratic framework - practically precludes comprehensive, substantial, global cooperation and coordination to solve problems.
Example: Two states share a border. One of the states implements a strict ban while the other does not. Consequently, the state with the ban has much greater difficulty enforcing its ban.

8. Instability - governments and policies often change frequently resulting in wastage of resources from starting and undoing programs and lack of sustained long-term policies/projects. Incentives become less effective due to uncertainty.

9. Political myopia - campaigning focuses on short-term goals, accomplishments, and results. Politics becomes overly focused on shot-run outcomes.

10. Superficiality/triviality - voters are unwilling and/or unable to dedicate much time or effort to investigate or analyze political issues. Consequently, politics becomes focused on rhetoric, emotions, trivialities and is overly simplistic. Policies and candidates are selected within the context of the aforementioned state of political discourse.

11. Division/partisanship – democracy fosters division along party lines – people are expected to adopt particular ideological identities (opposition vs government etc) - unity is precluded (granted, Russia may be an exception).

12. Democracy allows good governments to be voted out of office.

13. “Human rights” – often promoted as essential components to democracy. Many of these “human rights” interfere with the implementation of good policy.

Some of the above criticisms do not apply to particular versions of democracy (non-liberal ones in particular).

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An absolutely extraordinary post. Well done.

Pretty solid.

I'd add the fact true democracy gives the common idiot too much say.

Many very good points are made in this thread, but there are a few incredibly, hilariously ironic ones. Therefore I can't possibly join the authoritarian circle jerk in this thread.

They are as follows:



That's rich. What guarantee do we have that a government accountable to exactly no one will not be corrupt?



Who is an undemocratic government accountable to? They cannot be removed.



Except in a few extreme cases, any policy that is aimed at improving the well-being of the people (and anyone who doesn't have a reasonable chance of becoming a dictator in their lifetimes should agree the state should act for the good of the people) should/would not step on their human rights.

nice, but many other can be added

Fabulous post, but for authoritarianism to be any better, the ruler must be good, not corrupt or a moron himself.

The greatest flaw of democracy is that it holds the democratic process above all other moralities.

Should the "democratic process" be valued at all?


Naturally, a dictatorship with a bad ideology/leadership will be bad, just as a democracy with a bad ideology/leadership will be bad. Even a literally moronic dictator with good ideology and good advisers/assistants could probably rule relatively well compared to the current mess. The importance of ideology is often underestimated.


Guarantee? Why would a dictator support/allow corruption? An unprincipled dictator might siphon money from the public treasury for his own use or for family or friends. For a large country such as the USA such siphoning would probably be pretty minor relative to GDP. (how much did Stalin or Hitler spend on themselves?)


Undemocratic governments can and have changed, both gradually, peacefully, and suddenly, violently. (PRC, Vietnam, etc.) They most certainly can and have been removed as well.(USSR, RoC, RoK) An undemocratic government is accountable to the people and its own officialdom. If an undemocratic government performs badly its popularity is likely to decline and many both within and without the government would likely be motivated to change the government or its policies. At the very least, blame/praise can be more accurately assigned to specific idividuals and/or parties.


How do you define human rights? I agree that the state should act for the good of the people, but I don't see what that has to do with supporting human rights.


Could you share with us?

Yeah, but it usually only happens after they commit some kind of atrocity. In a republic type system, it's a lot harder to destroy your dissenters through physical force and still stay in office.

I would agree with your other points, though.

Or vice versa. The Nazis were elected into office and Hitler received full powers by democratic means.

Some more points, now that I'm a little more clear-headed.



This is not a problem of lack of accountability, this is a problem of excessive accountability. The minute something goes bad whoever's in power gets the boot before being able to even try to fix it.



You seem to be referring not to democracy in general, but to the American republican system (and to some extent, parliamentary democracies) and their bureaucracy.



Not within parliamentary democracies with full discretionary power. The only check and balance of the people is the power to vote, which means they only have the power to remove a government whose policies have caused them grief.



Why exactly is this a problem in se? It's actually a point against any attacks of democracy as a general concept, because you may be attacking one form of democracy and attributing its flaws to all. And I suspect that is exactly what you're doing.



This isn't entirely accurate. If a government is perceived to be doing its job well, it will not be voted out of office unless the laws of the land (rather than the people) require it. In fact, it will take a government botching its responsibilities significantly to remove it. FDR was not removed until the day he died despite the fact his policies needlessly prolonged the Depression. If a bad leader like Roosevelt can remain in power, why would a good leader be voted out of office? If Clinton had run a third term, he would've won in a landslide. Same with Reagan. If anything representative democracy can be attacked for its failure to remove bad leaders like Roosevelt before they can do much harm. A problem that is only magnified by removing democracy.



This is actually a good thing. It's a measure of defense against bad policies, such as taxing the living shit out wealth formation, resulting in the eventual destruction of the economy. If the economy goes bankrupt, or the government starts killing people, or in some other less drastic way makes people suffer, people can flee. How will they have that option if such policies are implemented worldwide?

Supporting a government without at least some limits to authority requires a faith in institutional authority that I do not have.



I actually believe the importance of ideology is tremendously overestimated, hence the entire reason partisanship exists in the first place. Most ideologies have had some successful examples and some catastrophic failures. Most right-wing populist ideologies have had a fairly decent degree of success, and even social democracy has success stories. The only true failed ideologies so far have been Marxism, mercantilism and anarchism, though some degree of neo-mercantilism is used by many rich Asian nations to their people's advantage.

Sound, pragmatic leadership and good fiscal management are ultimately what carries the day.



Yes, but out of the failed undemocratic governments that have existed so far, how many have changed before committing atrocities such as Mao's great leap "forward"?



Read 1984 and get back to me.

One great problem i see with democracy that most of you have touched on in one form or another is that it allows for unrestrained mob rule. The other side of that is that almost everyone greatly values having a say in their own life as miniscule as it may be.

Everyone who has an interest in this thread should read "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization"

Are you attempting to associate the tendency to commit an atrocity with non-democracy? What is an atrocity?


What do you mean by "destroy your dissenters through physical force"?


Indeed, the nazis were very popular both before and after coming to power. In the reichstag election of march 1933 the nazis recieved 43.9% of the vote and the next largest party received only 18.3%. After coming to power they became immensely popular.


First off, imo there have never been anything other than bad governments in the entire history of mankind. Things can't really "go bad" if they're bad already, they can only get even more bad. Many economic and societal changes and events happen despite the current government's policy changes rather than because of them. Many socioeconomic problems are the result of policies shared by all major parties. How is it accountability to be booted out of government for things which you did not cause (at least not any more than the opposition did)? Voters are fickle, oftentimes they will just vote for the opposition so that they can have "change" and "hope" - the grass is always greener on the other side. Representative democracies have mostly involved the repeated exchange of power between the same two mediocre coalitions/parties. Where's the accountability?


What other democracies are there currently (or even proposed)?


Parliamentary democracies (eg Canada) involve a drawn out process for the creation and implementation of law.(laws are debated in parliament before they are voted on, and in Canada, are also subject to approval from the senate).


How can you support something If you don't even know what it is?


Which existing democracies aren't plagued by those 13 problems?


Peoples perceptions do not constitute reality.


agreed


That is the conventional wisdom, but I require more justification than mere "conventional wisdom".


I do not support the implementation of bad policies.
And no, its not a good thing to have a fractured humanity.


How much of an impact has that had in the real world so far?


There are always limits to authority whether official or not, as I have already explained previously. The point is to only support good non-democratic governments. Faith is not required, only reasonable expectation.


any examples?


I strongly disagree


Are you attempting to associate the tendency to commit an atrocity with non-democracy? What is an atrocity?


I was required to read that book in high school (I actually only read portions of it and got the rest from summaries on the internet but I still got good marks). The book is completely absurd. So, can you answer my question now?

No, I'm trying to say that it usually takes something big to stir up the masses enough for a coup. An atrocity is pretty big.

And I don't think I need to define what an atrocity is, but I'd say that it's any act that is not committed during war or that is committed on civilians during war that kills a significant number of people. A few non-democratic governments seem to have a problem steering away from that


See: Stalin, Hitler, Sadam Hussein, I'm sure I could find more examples. These are the most famous, though.

Pol Pot
Idi Amin
Mao
Robert Mugabe
Dear Leader

Exactly. It's no big secret that non-democratic governments are a tad bit too forceful.

Ideally a dictatorship could be nice, but the problem is that anyone that grew up wanting to be a dictator probably shouldn't be a dictator.

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Good ideology should prevent moron rule in the first place of course. Welcome to the forum, Tup.

I think a lot of people are repelled by non-democracy's mostly poor 20th century record. They fail to realize that previous non-democratic failures can be attributed to clearly poor ideology and the fact that most non-democracies formed in small, poor, and uneducated countries. The only exceptions being the nazis and, to a lesser extent, fascists, for which poor ideology is nearly exclusively to blame for their performances. It's no coincidence that they performed better than most other non-democracies (notwithstanding the holocaust etc). It should also be noted that perhaps abysmally shitty political movements tend toward non-democracy rather than that non-democracies tend toward abysmal shittiness.

I find it astounding how proponents of democracy manage to reconcile their preference for a particular ideology/party/leader with the idea that, if democratically elected, some other ideology/party/leader should govern instead.

Relative to the context in which he governed, Stalin's achievements are usually understated and his negative aspects exaggerated (sometimes even to the point of outright fraud). He wasn't nearly as bad as most people think.

Why?

indeed