Republics

[Martin Hash]

If a society is going to use democracy for governing, only representative democracy, a republic, will work to get anything close to objective leadership. Democracy at its best is a crude tool wielded by the uninformed & hapless. Luckily, statistically, more often than not someone who is informed and competent gets elected, and this representative makes much better decisions than their constituency. However, the selection process can be systematically, and relatively easily, gamed.

[Fife]

https://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Econom ... 765808684/

[Martin Hash]

This fucking forum has nothing but Royalists.

[Fife]

[DrYouth]

Have we mentioned the Queen yet?

[Speaker to Animals]

Republic just means the government is a public (see pub root of the word) matter in which those in power do not gain power through inheritance. I think you mean representative democracy.

I disagree with even that. Representative democracies are designed for oligarchy and corruption. As long as some other asshole is casting my vote, there's nothing stopping people from bribing him to vote against my interests -- and that's exactly what ALL my representative do. I doubt a single one of you ever had a representative that actually represented you. I very much doubt there has ever been such a representative in the entire history of representative democracies.

Direct democracies are more honest, though prone to influence by demagogues. But that's more a problem with giving out enfranchisement to every asshole on the street. There will always be political factions vying for power and pushing policy in a certain direction. There will always be political factions who will gain power by increasing enfranchisement to new people, often people who have no business making any form of political decisions whatsoever. But if you strictly limited enfranchisement, that problem goes away.

The reason why large polities (i.e. empires like the republics of Rome and the United States) opted for representative democracies was not because it's inherently better than a direct democracy (it's definitely not), but because direct democracy was impossible to carry out over a large geographical area in which people would otherwise have to travel very long distances to cast votes, and relevant information was not widely dispersed. But with communication networks like the Internet and mass transportation networks, direct democracy isn't really a problem any longer.

The problem with direct democracy lies in giving votes to people who shouldn't be voting.

The problem with representative democracy is that it only results in oligarchy and corruption (by design, really).

Military rule (aristocracy) is inevitable because of this flaw.

[Speaker to Animals]

Basically, a representative democracy is ideal for wealthy people who didin't earn their wealth through honor (but more likely commerce). It allows them to become a kind of shadow aristocracy through bribing the representatives and therefore controlling the government. It's almost feminine in a way, since they wouldn't otherwise have any of this power because they have no ability to actually hold onto it without paying somebody.

Direct democracy is ideal for the common riff raff who neither will fight nor have any money to bribe anybody. They just vote for more shit taken from those who have it to give to themselves.

Three things:

(1) Both systems only work when the people who actually have enfranchisement are the ones who pay the costs for their votes: i.e. when you vote for war, those people have to go fight their war or otherwise pay a substantial cost to that effect.

(2) Representative democracies are irrelevant now since the reason for their creation is no longer a factor (distance, time, lack of communication networks and fast transportation). Direct democracies are better, but still unstable because there will always exist an interest for at least one political faction to continue expanding enfranchisement until you get rule by the mob (which, as we see today, is also a fatal flaw of representative democracies).

(3) Military rule is the default government of human civilization. We tend to want something more enlightened over time, so we extend enfranchisement to all the warriors (in the American context, we are talking about the men who composed the militias). But over time, we simultaneously reduce the requirements to pay any costs for the outcome of votes and increase enfranchisement to people who by design will NEVER serve or pay those costs (in our case, that appears to be women and now legions of illegal immigrants). Both forms of democracy become unstable due to this, which results in the military retaking control. If the military retakes control only after the inevitable collapse that democracy creates, then you will get something like mannerism/feudalism. If the military retakes control before the collapse and averts it, you get what we saw in the 20th century with places like Chile and Spain.

I don't see any way to avoid this. A lot of people need to be willing to admit they never had any business voting, and good luck with that.

[Speaker to Animals]

I have thought about a principle that could guide a true democracy, but am unsure of what word matches it. Essentially, one should have to pay the cost of their votes. If you want universal health care, then you should pay for it. Not the "one percent". You. Even if you cannot possibly pay for the entire cost of something if we were to distribute the cost evenly, you should have to pay a substantial cost of some kind. If you want welfare and you are not disabled, then you should work for it. If you want government subsidized education, then you should have to perform a good deal of community service to offset the costs to society.

Nobody should get something for nothing. This is not the TANSTAAFL principle, though it's related. I am saying that democracies can only be stable when people have no incentive to vote to steal from others; when people can't get anything for free. Even when people are broke, there is something they can do in return or sacrifice.

If we vote for war, then you have to risk getting called up to serve in it. if we vote for some new spending program, then you should have to pay for it either through your own money or your own labor.

[Fife]

Speaking of skin in the game, I'm looking forward to the new NNT book next month. From what I've seen in advance, I think it will be relevant to this discussion.

https://www.amazon.com/Skin-Game-Hidden ... 075HYVP7C/

[Speaker to Animals]

https://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Econom ... 765808684/

I'm going to have to counter-signal your libertarianism a little bit here:

https://www.amazon.com/Liberty-God-That ... 1621380068