[Carpe Veritas]

Hi all, first thread in 2 years and it will be a short one. Lets see how rusty I am….

People who want power (for whatever reason) get into the positions of power, because by nature those who don’t want power don’t apply. Thus the crucial difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is not the sort of person who gets into power, but how accountable they are to the people who put them there.

If a dictator or Monarch does a 'bad job' (like Mugabe arguably has) what do you do? There is no way to replace them or change their policies, and no way to ensure said policies benefit anyone in the country except said dictator and followers. If a democratically elected politician does a 'bad job' (and they usually do) we can get rid of them for someone else who may, or may not, be more efficient or representative instead.

Furthermore politicians in a democracy, being ultimately self serving, can protect and promote their positions by pursuing popular policies, and when they pursue unpopular policies their careers crash and burn *cough that sounds like Iraq*. People vote by self interest so thus it is in the politician’s interest to represent and promote what the population thinks is best for them.

So democracy in crude terms represents

A system of checks and balances by which we can pick and replace our own leaders
A system where those leaders are motivated by self interest to seek the public benefit

So we pick our leaders, compel them to our benefit, and replace them when or if they fail at provided. Thus democracy serves our self interest, serves our sense of fairness, and is the best system of governance available in the world for now… Thoughts?

[Negotiator]

Yes, democracy is great. You can vote every four years for another idiot who does exactly the same thing as the idiot before him.

Plus, Berlusconi in Italy shows how little democracy can help if someone controls the media. Unfortunately, in ALL countries the media is controlled by ... rich people. Surprisingly, all or almost all political parties work mainly for the interests of this minority.

42 But Jesus called them to him, and saith unto them, Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and their great ones exercise authority upon them.
43 But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister:
44 And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all.

[hannigaholic]

Furthermore politicians in a democracy, being ultimately self serving, can protect and promote their positions by pursuing popular policies, and when they pursue unpopular policies their careers crash and burn *cough that sounds like Iraq*. People vote by self interest so thus it is in the politician’s interest to represent and promote what the population thinks is best for them.

Speaking as somebody who thinks that democracy is the best system of government, even I can see that this is also its biggest flaw. What voters think is in the interest of the nation, is often not the best course of action to take. I suspect many people vote for reasons related to short-term gain, rather than long-term sustainability. As such, I think democracy should be tempered by restricting the franchise, so that at least some of the idiots and inexperienced are barred from ruining it for the rest of the population.

[Parvus]

As comrade Lenin said: "Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in the ancient Greek republics: freedom for the slave-owners."

The word democracy comes from ancient Greek: It means the ruling of "demos". Demos is the group of people who have the right to drink wine. Which is, adult, slave-owning men. Only they had the right to vote.

But for modern democracy we can say that it starts with the industrial revolution, or the French revolution of 1789 in particular.

In the beginning, those who had the right to vote were not slave owners this time, but owners of private property (again they had to be men). Then, workers' movements forced the ruling classes to let other (working) men to vote too. (again no women this time) Then the workers' movement, together with the women's movement forced the ruling classes this time to let women vote too. And then those people struggled and won to be able to run for elections. This way the working masses had the opportunity to represent themselves in the parliement.

But since the bourgeouise controls the media and stuff, it's very difficult to elect someone who the ruling class doesn't like. And when they are elected, they can be toppled by coups, assassins and stuff. Recent example: Zelaya.

But let's take this as democracy: universal suffrage, no coups, everthing is "democratic" in the bourgeous sense. Still, as stated by some of the previous posters, you vote for somebody and he is in control for 4 or 5 years. You have no real control after voting, you have to wait until the next elections. This is not cool.

But there is another type of democracy which humanity has experienced and it is called the proletarian democracy. First in the Paris Commune, then in the Russian revolution in 1917. Now that one was cool. Because you had the right to call back your representative any time. You didn't have to wait for 4 or 5 years. It was easy because it was democracy from below. Starting from the factory councils (called "soviet"s) you elect people to represent you in the upper soviet. And the uppermost soviet is the government. The factory council is relatively a small group and consists of people you know from work. So it's easy to decide who to elect and easy to topple him when you wish.

Also, no representative earned a wage higher than the average worker's wage. This is to prevent bureucratism. And to keep their interests level with the ordinary worker.

But of course we don't have such improved type of democracy today. So what can we do?

A few days ago I attended a meeting. One of the guys who were giving their speech said this: "There is no such thing as democracy. There is only the struggle for democracy. As long as we struggle for more democracy, the system will go towards looking like the ideal democracy."

That I totally agree with. Nobody will give you your rights. You have to fight for it and take it. Not just once. Living in a parliementary democracy today doesn't mean that it will last forever on its own. It was taken from the ruling class, not given by them and there is no guarantee that they won't try to take it back.

[Grognonours]

What voters think is in the interest of the nation, is often not the best course of action to take

I agree and that is why I support a republic like the USA in structure, even though we have moved closer and closer to being a democracy over time. It seems that too many of our elected representatives make their decisions based on polls. We saw this profusely under the Clinton administration and while he did do some good things, following popular opinion should not be what our representatives do. I know this is a bit off subject so I'll make this short and step off my soapbox now.

[Wolfman]

I agree and that is why I support a republic like the USA in structure, even though we have moved closer and closer to being a democracy over time.

Actually no. A Democracy would be rule by the whole population, which we still don't have, and seem to be moving further away from with every moment.

What we need is to reestablish our merit based system of hiring and promoting non-elected officials, and we need to include a merit based system to who we allow to run for office.

[Nandi]

Voting in a multi-party democracy is mostly along ideological lines and not on concrete policies, making the idea of democracy very acceptable to me. Scandals and name-smearing attempts do too matter substantially to some but that distorting effect would be impossible to controll given the press freedom in a democratic state. Any form of direct democracy on certain policies doesn't work properly given the large amount of ignorant people in any given society.

[Carpe Veritas]

Speaking as somebody who thinks that democracy is the best system of government, even I can see that this is also its biggest flaw. What voters think is in the interest of the nation, is often not the best course of action to take. I suspect many people vote for reasons related to short-term gain, rather than long-term sustainability. As such, I think democracy should be tempered by restricting the franchise, so that at least some of the idiots and inexperienced are barred from ruining it for the rest of the population.

While I in principle I agree, the practice of implementing this would by nature have to be authoritarian and anti democratic. For if we did limit the vote someone would have to have the power to stop people having a say in their country. The ideal solution is a better forced political education for everyone - every school child must learn politics to my mind or they'll never have the informed say in most of the most important things in their lives.

And quite aside from that the political elite (us) are not neccesarily going to be the best people to run things - have you noted the large number of politically aware extremists from both sides of the spectrum political forums attract...?

What voters think is in the interest of the nation, is often not the best course of action to take

Very true but its still a considerably better option than one person deciding whats best for everyone, and what they can and cant say and do.

[Nattering Nabob]

I keep hearing in this thread that the rich control the media and therefore actually control democracy...

Who controls the media in non-democratic systems?

The powerful elites control the media in a non-democratic system...so you have the power concentrated in the hands of the few along with the media controlled by the same few...

Besides, the media can tell you that everything is fine but if you don't have enough to eat or you are being shot at you will tell the media to kiss your ass as you vote...

If you tell an autocratic ruler to kiss your ass you have no recourse to the ballot and can only rely on the pitchfork...

[redcarpet]

if we did limit the vote someone would have to have the power to stop people having a say in their country

We're only talking about one election. Electing legislators basically. If there's an executive president, US style, then we could keep the franchise universal. Because an executive president can never do much without approval of the legislature branch, even in the US.

By himself the US president can only do 2 things without approval of the US Congress; appoint the National Security Advisor & send CIA &/or small military forces around the world. Beyond that that the legislature must either fund or pass a law to authorise. So it's the legislate that is the key, as long as the executive branch isn't too powerful.

So, we're basically talking about the US model with a limited franchise(say 60% of adults) and Citizen Initiated Referendums based on 300,000 signatures for example.

Both the chambers should have a 4-term limit(two years is too quick and 6 too long) and in elections 100% of seats available.

With the Senate I have an alternative idea. It's been mentioned ideology still has a play in electoral politics. For the Senate I think it should be 40 seats for a permanent Left bloc and 40 for the Right bloc. 10 for Uncommitted. The trick being that members of the Left and Right bloc are not allowed to vote contrary to their agreed manifesto throughout the term, only the Uncommited. So the Left and Right bloc is basically to serve the purpose of ideological certainty, ideas, insight, etc. The Uncommitted is for those who either do or don't have an ideological commitment but are allowed to vote however they want without an agreed manifesto. Anyone who votes against the manifesto in the Senate as a left or Right block member is expelled, and say banned from the Senate for two terms.

The Manifestos have to be basically 1-2 sentence, specific, # & % based. So a Right-bloc commitment such as "No Right block member may vote yes to increasing the top rate of income tax above 40%" or "No Right bloc member may vote to increase the Inheritance Tax in this term". Yes, as specific as that.

Whereas the lower chamber is your usual chamber made up of party member politicians, etc.

Sound interesting peeps?

[DubiousDan]

Me:
To begin with, plain unqualified democracy is a horrible form of government. Democracy has become a propaganda term which means something other than democracy. Anyone who wants to let 50% of the population plus one decide how things are done hasn’t really spent a lot of thought on the matter or is incapable of doing that.
Most countries are republics which claim to be democratic. None really are. Some are reasonably close. The United States is not one of those. The United States is a one party two label system which doesn’t come close to representing the people governed.
If you want to take a look at a reasonable attempt at a democratic republic, take a look at Switzerland. Its solution to the problem of the executive branch is the best that I have seen. It’s even better than the parliamentary systems.
It does have some things that should be a problem, and would be a problem in other countries, but seems to work with the Swiss. Such as the direct referendum and a constitution.
The final master stroke of the Swiss political system is the militia of course. People who are informed enough to notice have wondered at Switzerland’s excellent labor relations record.
The wave of firearms regulations that swept the Western World in the front half of the 20th Century had nothing to do with crime. They were intended as a check on labor. Fortunately that didn’t work in Switzerland because the militia required everyone to be armed. Since the militia consisted of all able bodied men, that meant that it was not wise to call out the militia to resolve labor problems as was common in the United States.
I would suggest that anyone interested in a practical solution to the problem of a democratic republic take a good look at the Swiss System. It works, but if the present wave of immigration continues, I don’t know for how much longer.

While I don’t consider plain unqualified democracy to be a workable system, as Jefferson said, “If the people won’t govern themselves, who will?”
That doesn’t mean that they adopt direct democracy. However, the people have to create a system by which the people can govern themselves. The idea adopted in the United States was representative democracy within the framework of a constitution and a system of checks and balances. It worked until Andrew Jackson demonstrated what happened when the President ignores the supreme court. Ever since, Americans have been pretending that the constitution has authority. When it serves the purposes of the oligarchy, it does, when it doesn’t, it doesn’t.
By now it should be clear to anyone who can think that the US system no longer works.
That doesn’t mean that there isn’t a method by which a people can govern themselves, it just means the U. S. doesn’t have it. Switzerland comes pretty close.

Myself, I’m inclined towards cellular representative democracy with cells of ten members or less. It’s never been tried, so I can’t say that it will work. I would sure like to see it tried, but it’s unlikely. We really don’t have a lot of time left for experimentation.

[Carpe Veritas]

I'm reminded of the Terry Pratchett quote:
"I like the idea of democracy. You have to have someone everyone distrusts," "That way, everyone's happy."

At Dubious Dan, how do you implement Democracy when tens of thousands of Political decisions are made each day on the behalf of hundreds of millions of people. I acknowledge that 2 Party politics like the U.S. and G.B. has is counter productive and is down to flawed systems that marginalise 3rd parties and the high financial costs involved in mass media. But ultimately contacting the people costs money, lots of money. This is why poor people dont get to be senators (though people who were poor but now rich are allowed).

Ultimately though this links in with my first post - those who seek power (inc money) get to the top everytime. The only benefit of Democracy is the checks and balances it gives us on those that get there.

[DubiousDan]

Carpe Veritas:

At Dubious Dan, how do you implement Democracy when tens of thousands of Political decisions are made each day on the behalf of hundreds of millions of people. I acknowledge that 2 Party politics like the U.S. and G.B. has is counter productive and is down to flawed systems that marginalise 3rd parties and the high financial costs involved in mass media. But ultimately contacting the people costs money, lots of money. This is why poor people dont get to be senators (though people who were poor but now rich are allowed).

Me:
Implement Cellular Representative Democracy.

This is gross simplification. The subject requires books.
In CRD, people organize in cells of ten at the base level. They agree to meet at regular intervals. Each cell elects a Dek and an alternate. The Dek gets two votes and sets the agenda. At any time a member can call for a vote. If it is seconded, a vote will be taken. If six members agree, the members will go to open discussion where the Dek will be merely an equal. If a vote is taken were seven members agree, a new Dek will be chosen. At regular intervals, say a year, the vote will be by a simple majority to select the Dek.
The Deks go up to form cells of ten, they in tern elect a Hek and an alternate. The Heks go up to form cells of ten and elect a Kilo and an alternate. And so on.
When one of the links is voted out, his replacement requires a revote at each level that he reaches.

That’s the general idea.
Advantages over other systems of democracy. You only vote for someone you know. Resistance to influence. To many members at the base and near the base to bribe. You do away with bureaucracies . Every thing is handled up and down the chain. Every one gets to participate. However, the top will be the cream of the cream. It will not be the result of mass voting, but of individual groups each more capable than the previous selecting a member from their own group.
Wealth means little, the media means little, everyone is voted on by his peers.
Power flows up the pyramid of power, then flows down. The downward flow is similar to the military and the Inca Civilization. It is really the only efficient way to manage large numbers. However, in the past, there has been no upward flow of power. That meant that either an external agency selected the top, or that a tyrant took command.
These are only a few of the advantages.
As for disadvantages. The greatest one is simply that it has never been tried before. That’s a real big one. Try to think a little before naming another disadvantage.

[Carpe Veritas]

Me:
Implement Cellular Representative Democracy.

This is gross simplification. The subject requires books.
In CRD, people organize in cells of ten at the base level. They agree to meet at regular intervals. Each cell elects a Dek and an alternate. The Dek gets two votes and sets the agenda. At any time a member can call for a vote. If it is seconded, a vote will be taken. If six members agree, the members will go to open discussion where the Dek will be merely an equal. If a vote is taken were seven members agree, a new Dek will be chosen. At regular intervals, say a year, the vote will be by a simple majority to select the Dek.
The Deks go up to form cells of ten, they in tern elect a Hek and an alternate. The Heks go up to form cells of ten and elect a Kilo and an alternate. And so on.
When one of the links is voted out, his replacement requires a revote at each level that he reaches.

That’s the general idea.
Advantages over other systems of democracy. You only vote for someone you know. Resistance to influence. To many members at the base and near the base to bribe. You do away with bureaucracies . Every thing is handled up and down the chain. Every one gets to participate. However, the top will be the cream of the cream. It will not be the result of mass voting, but of individual groups each more capable than the previous selecting a member from their own group.
Wealth means little, the media means little, everyone is voted on by his peers.
Power flows up the pyramid of power, then flows down. The downward flow is similar to the military and the Inca Civilization. It is really the only efficient way to manage large numbers. However, in the past, there has been no upward flow of power. That meant that either an external agency selected the top, or that a tyrant took command.
These are only a few of the advantages.
As for disadvantages. The greatest one is simply that it has never been tried before. That’s a real big one. Try to think a little before naming another disadvantage.

Ok a nice theory and I'm all for representatvie democracy but but a couple of disadvantages around it being Unimplementable.
a.) Even if this was a popular idea the level of structure and buerecracy it would require is intense - picture a U.S. elction day x 100 every day of the year. The costs of accurate recording and coordination would be astronomical.
b.) Secondly people wouldnt do it. Great Britain got around a 2/3 turn out for the most recent general election and thats an annual event (vastly lower turnout for local election), do you really think they'll care enough to do something weekly?

[JohnRawls]

Old video but a lot of Bullshit in it .

First of all it makes the mistake of saying . Republic in Rome = GOOD , TOTALLY and when it got limited = BAD TOTALLY .

Now lets examine the facts . Roman republic was growing because of the large influx the the slave labour force . Durring that time the most devastating and largest campaigns were held so the influx of slaves was large , thus the productivity rouse. It wasn't because of the republican rule it was because rome had slaves and a lot of em to work for them. DUrring that time population of City of Rome rose to more than 1 000 000 people . The largest city of that time in the whole world . That number will not be achieved any time soon by any other city .

But as the conquest expanded the territory , rome needed more forces to defend/ keep those lands in check , so less forces could be used for conquest . Meaning rome reached its limit. It didn't have the neccesary recources to continue conquering which brought more slaves thus more productivity to the system. So how are they going to compensate ?

As time went on without slaves their society would collapse . Because slaves did most of the work . Freepeople worked mainly in the fields or served in the army , while the rich , yes the rich , worked in administrative roles . So calling roman republic a REPUBLIC is false in itself. It was a rule of oligarchic democracy.

When the time came , some people realised , they needed the power to do something with the system , as it couldn't maintain itself anymore . Thus powerful leaders arose , granting freedom to the slaves BUT in the end the slaves needed to pay taxes to keep the country going . Now everybody payed taxes not just the rich and freeman but ex slaves who were emancipated .

Now rome DIDN'T HAVE A CONSTITUTION AT ANY GIVEN TIME . Mostly all the time their system of law was complex , which consisted either of senate decrees + local magistrate decision , then Emperor decrees + Less powerful magistrate solution . And only under justinianus they got Codex iuris Civilis , which you could call a constitution but it regulated many more things than just right .

And last but not least . Rome didn't have welfare programs .If by welfare programs you mean the oligrach buying the votes of the mob , than it was even more popular under republic , since the emperor didn't actually need those votes . He was the powerful tyrant , whos decisions were laws on all the roman land.

And what is this crap about property rights being protected under republic ? You kidding me ? Anyone who knows ANYTHING about roman law , knows that under the republic the property laws were the most RESTRICTING in all of the history of the Roman empire .

That is what i wanted to say . Now we come to DDM crap chart again .


The Right and Left are not defined ? Clear definition of the right and left ?

Yes it is hard to define them . But Nazis ARE historicly on the right and Communism are historicly on the left . You can't do anything about it .

As to what my definition of the right and left is . THe rightists are more business friendly people(lower taxes , large government subsidies , strong corporations) while the communist are more people friendly (welfare , redistribution etc .) Both of those sides of the spectrum can be achieved by both Democratic forms of government and also by Totalitarian forms .

As for Totalitarianism not existing and anarchy not existing is also total crap. In totalitarian states all 3 branches of the government belong to 1 person or a Despot , who has the final decision in everything . In an oligarchy , they don't have to belong to 1 person , but to many powerful families/oligarchs which has a say in their field . You do understand the difference i hope ?

As for anarchy being fast destroying itself . I ask yie , what is Somalia and Afganistan then nowadays ?

It is fasinating how some people have an obsession with the Roman Empire while knowing ALMOST NOTHING about it .

[Kman]

Now lets examine the facts . Roman republic was growing because of the large influx the the slave labour force.

No it wasnt, people on low income wages today are just as much slaves as the slaves living in the roman empire back then (economically speaking atleast), they have to work alot in order to feed themselves. The simple act of enslaving people does not ensure growth, free enterprise does.

The reason why the Roman empire grew so much during that time is because they had a superior form of government (a republic) and a small government that did not tax people to kingdom come (or created inflation which has almost the exact same effects as increasing taxes), this ensured that private enterprise was a very profitable enterprise leading to innovation and growth everywhere in Roman society.

I suggest you read this article http://mises.org/story/3663 (Inflation and the Fall of the Roman Empire)

It explains how the Roman emperors devalued the currency so much that private enterprise became a waste of time.

[DanDaMan]

Kman is correct.

Yes it is hard to define them . But Nazis ARE historicly on the right and Communism are historicly on the left . You can't do anything about it .

You are incorrect. Nazis were leftists because they were oppressive totalitarians just like Stalin and communism. Just because the Left can't accept that truth does not change the truth.

Quote:

So we pick our leaders, compel them to our benefit, and replace them when or if they fail at provided. Thus democracy serves our self interest, serves our sense of fairness, and is the best system of governance available in the world for now… Thoughts?
It's not the best system.
This video explains it's failings...

[DubiousDan]

Carpe Veritas :

Ok a nice theory and I'm all for representatvie democracy but but a couple of disadvantages around it being Unimplementable.
a.) Even if this was a popular idea the level of structure and buerecracy it would require is intense - picture a U.S. elction day x 100 every day of the year. The costs of accurate recording and coordination would be astronomical.
b.) Secondly people wouldnt do it. Great Britain got around a 2/3 turn out for the most recent general election and thats an annual event (vastly lower turnout for local election), do you really think they'll care enough to do something weekly?

Me:
I asked you to think a little before giving disadvantages. You are thinking in terms of our present system.
There are no nation wide elections. It’s like picking a jury foreman. Each cell does it on its own as part of a regular meeting. Record keeping will be at a minimum, if at all. This is a people thing. Everything is done on a personal level. The cost would be lower by orders of magnitude. No media blitzes, no election apparatus. Forget everything you know about government, this is completely different. This is not a disadvantage, this is an advantage of CRD.

Your second objection is valid, though not for the reasons you give. Remember, there is no turnout for election. This is participatory democracy. It’s like in the Swiss Cantons where everyone turns out wearing their swords.
You don’t just turn the government over to the crooks, then cry because they do crooked things. The people would have to go to a meeting at least once a month. It’s doable, the best unions used to have compulsory meetings where you showed up or you got fined. However, it won’t work for lazy slobs, it takes conscientious citizens for this to work.
At the present times, many people don’t turn out for elections because they get to choose between two sets of people who don’t represent them.
As far as I am concerned, the United States doesn’t have a two party system, it has a one party, two label system. Except for extremist at the edges of the parties, the parties are essentially the same. Bush left, Obama came in, and what changed? Just the name calling from the sidelines.

In CRD, if you don’t show up without a good excuse, and after awhile no excuse would be good enough, you’re out of the system. This system gives everyone a real voice, but it also requires that every one show up.
However it’s not like a town hall meeting where a few people dominate the meeting. This would be like a jury. Everyone would participate. Everyone gets his say. And everyone gets feed back from the system because your Dek goes up to the next level. And for the same reason, everyone has input into the system.
You have to throw out everything you are used to, to understand this. It’s like a jury system where you have the same jury for years. That’s the advantage. You know the people you vote for in the context of the political system. You don’t vote for a media image.

This system is very easy to implement. You don’t start out as a ruling party. You start out as a political party organized in PAGS. Political Action Groups. That’s the cells. Unlike the Democratic or Republican party, everyone participates and money is almost useless. The media is impotent. You could start out in a community, and take over the community. No force, no revolution, you just become the dominant political party. If the members vote consistently with the leadership, then they will vote intelligently and effectively.
This system gives benefits to the members that other political parties don’t. Since each group is tied to every other group, problems of members could be ran up and down the links. Say someone needs a job. It could be brought up at the Hek level, and even the Kilo level, then back down and back up. That means that a thousand people would be involved. The same with local problems in a neighborhood. After awhile, the PAGs could cover millions, a personal problem could be ran up and down the system. Just a few words at each meeting. It doesn’t have to be at every PAG, just the relevant ones.
Of course the goal is to take over, and then eliminate the old system. However, it’s done by voting. You vote out the old system, and vote in the new system. It won’t really work like that. It should be legal, it should be right, but people don’t turn over power just because it’s the right thing to do.

This is completely new, so getting a handle on it won’t be easy. So go ahead and throw darts. I will try to clear up the target a bit.

[Ombrageux]

Liberal democracy is the better of governments thus far experienced. It is not the only one possible however, nor the best possible. And do not mistake me, I treasure my "bourgeois" liberties, but it is hardly deserving of the pretensions of our leaders, nor is it incompatible with imperialism and militarism (eg. international despotism and terrorism).

[El Gilroy]

Yeah, democracy sure is the system of governance to end all others.

...too bad nobody ever came up with a working version of it. It's all still very much in alpha state, and suffering from countless BSODs and memory leaks. Also: Incompatible with capitalism