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Is the west tired of Democracy?

paddythere

I don't think i'm the only person who feels like many people in the west are happily cheering on the erosion of their democracy out of some tribal loyalty to some leader or party. What is driving this? I suspect there's many many reason's for this shift in western politics. I think the internet/social media has a lot to do with (conformation bias etc.) I also think there is a degree of the modern working class and middle class not having as good a grasp on history as their predecessor's and therefore are not as aware of how much their ancestor's fought to secure their right to vote and other rights.

Does anybody have any thoughts on this? What other factor's are at play here? Am I completely talking complete Bollocks?

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Thelonious Monk

The current system is about exploiting the earth and her resources no matter what the cost. The way we're going it can only lead to war and famine. Democracy means that all that matters to politicians is growing the economy and providing jobs, as that's mostly what people will vote for. So we're kinda screwed.

McHardcore

The number of people in this thread claiming that poverty is increasing is astounding.

1280px-World-population-in-extreme-poverty-absolute.svg.png

biko

McHardcore wrote: »

To the people who are happy to moan about Democracy:

Can you propose a better alternative?

They aren't moaning about democracy - they are moaning about capitalism.
It's not the same thing.

One is a system of governing and the other a system of economics.

Could be be on purpose? If they bring down capitalism then they also bring down democracy. And ta-da you have communism.

Eduard Khil

Idea of democracy is idiotic when a council is elected to make decisions yet they do not include a wider variety of representation what we have is a bastardised Oligarchy as one particular party or in the as never seen before alignment of rival but similarly motivated parties are currently in charge.

Most other Western dynamics are a two party system of polar opposites who serve their term bolstering their own party agenda or manifesto which rarely changes from its original concept.

[Deleted User]

McHardcore wrote: »

The number of people in this thread claiming that poverty is increasing is astounding.

You're not comparing like with like:

"Poverty varies greatly across the population. Overall, poverty fell by about a fifth between 1994/95 and 2004/05. In the following decade progress stalled and poverty started to rise again. In 1994/95, just under a quarter of the population lived in poverty. This fell to one in five in 2004. By 2018/19 it had risen to 22%. However, trends in poverty differ between groups.

Pensioner poverty rates have fallen substantially over the last 20 years but have begun to steadily increase again since 2012/13. For working-age adults with children, the poverty rate has been edging up since 2004/05 after gently declining in the previous 10 years. Poverty rates for children have also risen from 27% in 2010/11 to 30% in 2018/19. Poverty for working-age adults without children rose steadily from 1998/99 before falling slightly from 2011/12 onwards, although a rise in 2018/19 has seen this poverty rate back at 2012/13 levels. Between 2017/18 and 2018/19, poverty rates rose for all groups except for pensioners."

[Deleted User]

biko wrote: »

They aren't moaning about democracy - they are moaning about capitalism.
It's not the same thing.

One is a system of governing and the other a system of economics.

Could be be on purpose? If they bring down capitalism then they also bring down democracy. And ta-da you have communism.

Anything in my post about capitalism?

Capitalism exists in many other countries which do not have a Democratic system of governance. Its not one or the other.

But I do agree that many people are confusing the two.

biko

I suppose people are referring to Western democracy - not Chinese, North Korean, Turkish?

The closest thing the Western world had to actual democracy is in Switzerland.

amadangomor

completedit wrote: »

Millions maybe billions lifted out of poverty. Most peaceful era in our history and quality of life that would have been unthinkable 100 years ago
I don't think we are truly able to grasp how bleak existence was for the majority of our ancestors.

Yes but we have passed the peak in a lot of the West. For example working class British/American people could get a well paying job in a car factory/steel works etc in the past and live very well.

Their children's options are a lot less - maybe a warehouse job paying just above minimum wage. These areas don't have the tradition of outward migration like we do so people just stay put and live a limited life in impoverished areas.

[Deleted User]

What is the alternative though that is the big question?

completedit

amadangomor wrote: »

Yes but we have passed the peak in a lot of the West. For example working class British/American people could get a well paying job in a car factory/steel works etc in the past and live very well.

Their children's options are a lot less - maybe a warehouse job paying just above minimum wage. These areas don't have the tradition of outward migration like we do so people just stay put and live a limited life in impoverished areas.

Not doubting that but one thing I always thought about those jobs, particularly the coal mining jobs, do you think there was a bit of romanticism ex-post associated with them? The work was neither good, nor bad per se but the meaning attributed to them was. Take for example, the auto manufacturers of the US, the job itself if you were to break it down, wasn't that great but it had associations with the American dream, the bedrock of the economy etc.

McHardcore

Deleted User wrote: »

You're not comparing like with like:

"Poverty varies greatly across the population. Overall, poverty fell by about a fifth between 1994/95 and 2004/05. In the following decade progress stalled and poverty started to rise again. In 1994/95, just under a quarter of the population lived in poverty. This fell to one in five in 2004. By 2018/19 it had risen to 22%. However, trends in poverty differ between groups.

Are you attempting to find some sub-group in some specific country and use that as evidence that poverty as a whole is increasing?

Richard Hillman

As said before Cookie Cutter politicians. It started around the time of Clinton and Blair. They were media friendly, had a bit of charisma, always said the politically correct things, but essentially there was little substance, they were easily led and took their eye off stuff what actually matters to people. The 2000s was dominated by Wars-Terrorism. Again, we went through a decade of ignoring things that actually matter to people.

So then we got to the last decade after nearly 2 decades of neglect. A new generation of Blair-Clinton's came along with even less substance. Obama, Trudeau, Varadkar. 100% media driven, totally obsessed with PC Culture, Globalism, PR, Nanny statism, promoting big business and the one the snuck in the back door over the years of neglect, "Diversity".

So then came along Trump, Nigel Farage, Boris, Victor Orban and Vladimir Putin got Russia back from being a former power to Russia waving its dick around the place again. Younger people are aghast by them because all they ever knew Clinton/Blair/Obama types but leaders were always like the Trump, Orban and Putin. That's the way the world has always been bar a blip in history. We've had strongman leaders since the year zip.

The modern cookie cutter politician has completely forgotten that all politics is local. Its not about what the media think that matters, its about what people sit down during their dinner and what they talk about. Those are the things that really matter.

biko

I feel that Idiocracy could very well happen.

[Deleted User]

McHardcore wrote: »

Are you attempting to find some sub-group in some specific country and use that as evidence that poverty as a whole is increasing?

The original comment was about poverty in the UK. You presented a graph about extreme poverty worldwide. Hence the quoted piece I provided was about the UK.

The point wasn't that poverty as a whole was increasing. You shifted the goalposts.

timmyntc

biko wrote: »

I feel that Idiocracy could very well happen.

No, what will happen is that as less smart people reproduce and stupid people have more & more children, you'll end up with a few smart people all breeding exclusively with other smart people and become the new ruling class - all politicians will come from this class of people, and the thick masses will always vote them in because they've become too stupid to see through the lies.

McHardcore

mariaalice wrote: »

What is the alternative though that is the big question?

Yes, exactly. People love to complain about democracy and will offer no better alternative. God knows we tried a few alternatives in the last century and look at how they ended up.

Im not saying that Democracy is not without its flaws. Democracy should be iteratively improved. Early democracies, like the American system, was great when it was first developed. However, its deficiencies can be seen over the years. For example, the two party system, the growing tendency among politicians to gain victory above all else, i.e. to treat politics as war, gerrymandering and closed primaries, etc. Later democracies like that in the U.K. improved on this but still suffers from smaller issues like their first past the post voting system, for example.
We are lucky in a way in Ireland in that we have a later version of democracy where improvements were made on the earlier systems.

So we should be welcome to making iterative changes to it to improve it. I would not be so quick to discount democracy entirely.

[Deleted User]

Richest five people on the planet own as much wealth as the bottom 3.5 billion people.

Capitalism is a roaring success.

[Deleted User]

completedit wrote: »

Millions maybe billions lifted out of poverty. Most peaceful era in our history and quality of life that would have been unthinkable 100 years ago
I don't think we are truly able to grasp how bleak existence was for the majority of our ancestors.

A very Eurocentric take.

Padre_Pio

amadangomor wrote: »

Yes but we have passed the peak in a lot of the West. For example working class British/American people could get a well paying job in a car factory/steel works etc in the past and live very well.

Their children's options are a lot less - maybe a warehouse job paying just above minimum wage. These areas don't have the tradition of outward migration like we do so people just stay put and live a limited life in impoverished areas.

that's a very simplistic view that's been rubbished here many times.
"oh sure in the 70's a single income family could buy a house, a car and raise 5 children".

Not true in an equivalent sense. Anyone today could do the same if they stuck to the living standards of the past.
Today, people in general want more, and the opportunity is there for most. Why are the children limited to warehouse jobs, considering there's still a booming STEM sector in every Western country?

Deleted User wrote: »

A very Eurocentric take.

Maybe, but you could say the achievements in the West were built on the backs of people in the East. Our conditions got better, theirs didn't. Now their conditions are on the up and ours not so much.

Cordell

mariaalice wrote: »

What is the alternative though that is the big question?

Communism of course.
Implemented properly it will definitely succeed, no matter it failed every single time, THIS time it will work.

Dyr

Deleted User wrote: »

A very Eurocentric take.

What view were you looking for on an Irish forum?

Its more that elements of the Western elite are tired of meritocracy and democracy

McHardcore

Deleted User wrote: »

The original comment was about poverty in the UK.

Not true. The original comment on poverty was by completedit which never mentioned the UK:

completedit wrote: »

Millions maybe billions lifted out of poverty. Most peaceful era in our history and quality of life that would have been unthinkable 100 years ago
I don't think we are truly able to grasp how bleak existence was for the majority of our ancestors.

Dyr

Padre_Pio wrote: »

that's a very simplistic view that's been rubbished here many times.
"oh sure in the 70's a single income family could buy a house, a car and raise 5 children".

.

Oddly enough, the sea change in the 70s was we finally doubled the workforce with women entering it en masse, ya won't see the whingers mentioning that though

[Deleted User]

Bambi wrote: »

What view were you looking for on an Irish forum?

Its more that elements of the Western elite are tired of meritocracy and democracy

Who are the western elite?

[Deleted User]

McHardcore wrote: »

Not true. The original comment on poverty was by completedit which never mentioned the UK:

McHardcore wrote:

The number of people in this thread claiming that poverty is increasing is astounding

Apart from the completedit comment, the next two posters were about the UK. So... the number of people claiming that poverty... yup.

McHardcore

Deleted User wrote: »

The original comment was about poverty in the UK.

No, that comment by completedit wasn't about the UK. Try that again:

Deleted User wrote: »

Apart from the completedit comment, the next two posters were about the UK.

ChikiChiki

I see sheep wrote: »

It doesn't work.

For you. You can make it work if you want to.

I find the people that claim capitalism has failed and socialism is the true path forward tend to be lazy unimaginative sods looking for an avenue to blame for failings in their own lives.

AMKC

What else is there besides Domocracy? Socilism or Communism no thanks. They would just be worse.
As for North America, well it's just a basket case. Any country that elects a reality president as there President is a basket case if you ask me.
Hopefully he will be gone soon but what he leaves behind might take longer to go.

[Deleted User]

McHardcore wrote: »

]comment by completedit wasn't about the UK. Try that again:

Not what I said... did you even read what I wrote before replying?

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Not so much democracy, more the implipentation of it in some countries. You just have to look at the US election to see that the system has massively failed over there. Ditto the UK.

Some countries manage to get it working - New Zealand for example, but they still have problems.

Ultimately, it's not the system that's failed, it's the poulace.