Democracy

DoireNod

I was going to post this in the Politics forum, but I feel it's probably more suited to the Philosophy forum for the time being.

Basically, my query is, do you think that democracy is necessarily the best form of government?

If so, why? If not, why?

nyarlothothep

It depends what you mean by democracy, if you take freedom to determine your own future, say what you like, where it isn't defamation or libel determined through common law etc, I guess so. No one likes to have their freedom trampled on by a group of people or a person who appoints themselves as leader(s), when they have no objective proof which would validate that position, to the extent that the actions undertaken through that position would have objective as opposed to subjective effects on third parties.

I am strongly opposed to the concept of benign dictatorship, its another version of the ends justifying the means. Therefore its better to take the good with the bad and learn through our mistakes as a society as the benefits will be greater, in accordance with the physical principle that the more you put into any system, the more you will get out of it. There is a huge democratic deficit though throughout history. Do we live in a real democracy yet? I wouldn't think so.

DoireNod

I mean Democracy as it exists today and indeed Democracy in theory.

Does everyone merit a say in things, regardless of their qualification to do so?

In the case of Democracy as it exists today, it is held to be the model system and most developed countries try to force this system elsewhere, where a different system of government is in place. Is there an inherent goodness in Democracy that makes it such that it must be spread around the world?

Cannibal Ox

The problem with democracy is that nobody really agrees what democracy is. There isn't "a" democracy. But, at the same time, if you asked people what a democracy is, they might tell you that the most fundamental aspect of a democracy is every citizens right to an equal vote, and that vote, at it's most basic level, is supposed to allow the citizen to be free to choose who has the power to run the country.

The way I hear most modern thinkers refer to modern democracy is as a liberal democracy. Most liberal democracies are closely tied to capitalism. They encourage individual freedom, in some cases to it's extreme (think, republicans in the US) and in others less (think any of the scandinavian social democracies). Freedom from government, freedom to voice their opinions, freedom to live as they see fit as long as they aren't harming anyone else. This, when it's taken to it's extremes, I think, has a negative impact on the society of democracies. People are (told to be?) driven by their own self interest. Instead of fostering a society where people are dependant and co-operative of and with each other, we foster a society where people are independant of each other, and alienated from the society they live in.

A lot of that is a result of the control that capitalism exerts over a liberal democracy. Capitalism doesn't flourish in a state that isn't based on individualism and self interest. Citizens need to be consumers for a capitalist economy to work, and to be consumers they need to be free to express their own individualism and to be self interested. If you don't care about expressing your own individual identity through clothes, cars, hobbies, books, music or art, than you're not going to consume these things, and if you're not consuming things, than a capitalist economy isn't going to function correctly.

The link between capitalism and liberal democracies has meant that the power that a few capitalists exert over the state is extraordinarily more powerful than citizens. Someone like Machiavelli, who was a staunch republican despite the Prince, would be having kittens over the control that these vested economic interests have in modern democracies. It's not a good thing when so few people can have so much influence over so many people's lives, particularly when they're unelected. I agree with that, it's one of the major flaws of modern democracies that one persons vote may be equal to anothers, but one persons economic and social capital is mostly certainly more important than hundreds, or thousands, or millions, of others. Which kinda goes against the basic idea of democracy.

On the spread of democracy, it's been argued that liberal democracies never go to war with each other, and there's some strong data to prove that point. Kant, for one, argued something similar, though he was arguing for republics as opposed to what we have now. That's one of the fundamental reasons behind the Neo-Cons agenda for spreading democracy around the world. If all countries were liberal democracies it should, theoretically, achieve world peace, because liberal democracies don't go to war with each. So, in the neo-con agenda, by planting liberal democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with Israel, it would foster a culture of liberal democracy that would spread throughout the middle east and encourage peace in the region.

The problem with modern liberal democracies in my view is that they emphasize the individual over the society to much, and that has a negative impact on the relations between people within a state. It's tied to closely to the economy, to the detriminate of the society, and the power of big business is so anti-democratic that the most fundamental idea of democracy, power of the people, isn't achieved.

I tried to keep that as short as possible :pac: There's a lot you can critique about modern democracy, at home, and abroad but the great thing about democracy is that it is possible for change to occur, and it is possible for the people to change the state through their vote.

jady88

DoireNod wrote: »

I was going to post this in the Politics forum, but I feel it's probably more suited to the Philosophy forum for the time being.

Basically, my query is, do you think that democracy is necessarily the best form of government?

If so, why? If not, why?

Fundamentally yes, I believe in democracy because it is the best way of including the most people in the process of running the country and the fairest way of shaping laws etc, however I believe that the government interferes far to much with individuals and attempts to control peoples lives, it uses the moral majority as a basis and in the future hopefully our government will be more free and have less to do with regulating how people conduct themselves.