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Which history are you reading? Democracy is not a "fairly young experiment". The ancient Athenians had an impressive democratic government from 508BC until it w

by drats 17y ago

Which history are you reading? Democracy is not a "fairly young experiment". The ancient Athenians had an impressive democratic government from 508BC until it was destroyed, from the outside, in 322BC. You cite "multi-hundred years of stable government by kings" like there are no power struggles when a given king dies, and like "stable" is even remotely near what we'd call stable or desirable (freedom?). Which history are you reading in which these wonderful benevolent king-systems (not just singular kings if you want "multi-hundred years") exist? Cite one. There is no counter-corruption in a system with a powerful executive and no democracy for long. Without checks on corruption and a powerful state there is no freedom for very long. I can't believe the suggestion that the west moves to the model of voting in leaders with "near-unlimited power to do practically anything they want" is being taken seriously in a time when questionable wars have been started and torture policies implemented by the already too strong executives.

jacoblyles 17y ago
Your biases are showing pretty strong here. There's no reason we can't ponder alternative forms of government that have and have not been tried and consider their benefits and drawbacks. For what it's worth, I do think democracy is too irrational to run itself very well, and it may cause its own demise. In my estimation it depends on whether or not technology saves us by producing wealth faster than our leaders can squander it on interest group politics. 250 years is a pretty good run for a country, even if it falls short of the monarchies of Europe.
- drats 17y ago
  You mean my bias towards wanting actual evidence of the benefits of this benevolent kingship? I hope you don't think the European monarchies of the past are good examples of anything (although constitutional monarchies fall on my side of the argument as they defer to parliaments and the leaders are not near-dictators in the sense being proposed here). I am not certain about your history if you think interest group politics now is worse than pre-democratic periods. Liberal representative democracies are self-modifying. That is why the United States will persevere well past the records of the petty genetically-based monarchies, quite asides from the fact that even if were it to end tomorrow its achievements politically, technologically and economically outrank anything in human history (I am not a US citizen by the way). I can understand the allure of a powerful leader who understands what needs to be done for some of the entrepreneurs on this forum. But you are peddling is basically the argument used by the supporters of fascism; strong leader, central control (as opposed to letting the market sort things out) and a total naivety toward the nature of corruption (do away with checks and balances because they are just hindering the visionary leader who has our best interests at heart). And as with most naive political reforms it totally fails the "but what happens when the other side has 51%" test.
  - sailormoon 17y ago
    Popular kings? There are plenty. King Abdullah is very popular. The Ming dynasty oversaw an extraordinary explosion in trade and art. The Medici family planted the seeds of the Renaissance. The Meiji Emperor dragged Japan, kicking and screaming, into the modern world. Maybe I shouldn't have said "king", since that has quite a specific meaning. I really meant a leader, or group of leaders, who have a great personal stake in the country and its progress. Supreme leaders care about posterity, whereas parliamentarians always have someone else to blame. Who do you think makes the best long-term decisions? A leader who knows they will still be there in 20 years to accept the consequences, or the politician scrambling to get out a press release so he can be seen to be "doing something" about the latest opinion poll? I do not have anything like the faith in the long-term viability of democracy, at least as we know it, that you have. I do not see how a disinterested, ignorant population has any capability to govern, or even vaguely direct, a country's path better than, say, the Standing Committee in China. Anyway, time will tell.
    - pyre 17y ago
      > Who do you think makes the best long-term decisions? A leader who knows they will still be there in 20 years to accept the consequences So are you willing to argue that Kim Jong-Il is a positive force in the development of North Korea? What about the USSR under Stalin? Are these all better forms of government what what the US has now?
      - sailormoon 17y ago
        Nope. Those are both terrible examples of what can go wrong. I provided some examples of it not going wrong. So the question is, do we throw out the entire notion of concentrating power in one person or small group of people, because they might abuse it? Or is it possible to devise a system that retains the advantages and minimises disadvantages? Because we know the consequences of giving that power to several hundreds of people - deadlock.
sailormoon 17y ago
Of course there are power struggles when a king dies. There are power struggles for preselection in democracy, there are power struggles to head up unelected but supremely powerful institutions. I don't see your point. Stability and freedom would seem to be more a function of wealth than mode of government. There are plenty of people with freedom to do pretty much nothing but die under democratic rule in Africa. Where's the counter-corruption in democracy? Plenty of democratic countries are corrupt to the core. India. Italy. Thailand (I personally bribed a police officer there once). The powerful control the media, and the people vote for who they're told whether the puppetmaster was elected or not. How can you try and distance democracy from the wars and torture? Is this a "no true Scotsman" argument? Those acts are the acts of a democracy in decay. You're acting like if only we did democracy better, it wouldn't happen. I'm saying - what if that's the end result of all democracy? Anyway, don't take it too seriously, I'm just throwing ideas out there, as usual.
- pyre 17y ago
  I get it that you're just throwing ideas out there, but you can't throw around claims of a "no true Scotsman" argument when you yourself are dismissing some of your former claims. First you claimed, "multi-hundred years of stable government by kings," but now you claim, "stability and freedom would seem to be more a function of wealth than mode of government." Don't spend time dissecting other people's words when your own words aren't necessarily in order. Are you claiming that an all-powerful ruler brings stability or are you claiming that stability is completely disjoint from government?
  - sailormoon 17y ago
    Well, I was kind of drawn into defending monarchies in general .. I'm not making sweeping generalisations for either! I get the impression it's others doing that. I merely say that there are examples of stability and (relative to the times) prosperity under either form. Stability is not completely disjoint from government but I would say it is completely disjoint from the form of government. But as you point out, yes, I do believe it has more to do with the prosperity of the population than the way their leaders are elected. Stability and prosperity are a function of quality of government, not form of government. I am trying to point out that the form of government, ie elected or not, does not necessarily decide the quality. I gave examples of rulers who, in my opinion, did not discharge their roles badly, considering the times. Summary: having a King is a multiplier, rather than a valuer. You might multiply corruption and despotism. Or you might multiply progress and decisiveness.

by drats 17y ago

jacoblyles 17y ago

Your biases are showing pretty strong here. There's no reason we can't ponder alternative forms of government that have and have not been tried and consider their benefits and drawbacks. For what it's worth, I do think democracy is too irrational to run itself very well, and it may cause its own demise. In my estimation it depends on whether or not technology saves us by producing wealth faster than our leaders can squander it on interest group politics. 250 years is a pretty good run for a country, even if it falls short of the monarchies of Europe.

drats 17y ago
You mean my bias towards wanting actual evidence of the benefits of this benevolent kingship? I hope you don't think the European monarchies of the past are good examples of anything (although constitutional monarchies fall on my side of the argument as they defer to parliaments and the leaders are not near-dictators in the sense being proposed here). I am not certain about your history if you think interest group politics now is worse than pre-democratic periods. Liberal representative democracies are self-modifying. That is why the United States will persevere well past the records of the petty genetically-based monarchies, quite asides from the fact that even if were it to end tomorrow its achievements politically, technologically and economically outrank anything in human history (I am not a US citizen by the way). I can understand the allure of a powerful leader who understands what needs to be done for some of the entrepreneurs on this forum. But you are peddling is basically the argument used by the supporters of fascism; strong leader, central control (as opposed to letting the market sort things out) and a total naivety toward the nature of corruption (do away with checks and balances because they are just hindering the visionary leader who has our best interests at heart). And as with most naive political reforms it totally fails the "but what happens when the other side has 51%" test.
- sailormoon 17y ago
  Popular kings? There are plenty. King Abdullah is very popular. The Ming dynasty oversaw an extraordinary explosion in trade and art. The Medici family planted the seeds of the Renaissance. The Meiji Emperor dragged Japan, kicking and screaming, into the modern world. Maybe I shouldn't have said "king", since that has quite a specific meaning. I really meant a leader, or group of leaders, who have a great personal stake in the country and its progress. Supreme leaders care about posterity, whereas parliamentarians always have someone else to blame. Who do you think makes the best long-term decisions? A leader who knows they will still be there in 20 years to accept the consequences, or the politician scrambling to get out a press release so he can be seen to be "doing something" about the latest opinion poll? I do not have anything like the faith in the long-term viability of democracy, at least as we know it, that you have. I do not see how a disinterested, ignorant population has any capability to govern, or even vaguely direct, a country's path better than, say, the Standing Committee in China. Anyway, time will tell.
  - pyre 17y ago
    > Who do you think makes the best long-term decisions? A leader who knows they will still be there in 20 years to accept the consequences So are you willing to argue that Kim Jong-Il is a positive force in the development of North Korea? What about the USSR under Stalin? Are these all better forms of government what what the US has now?
    - sailormoon 17y ago
      Nope. Those are both terrible examples of what can go wrong. I provided some examples of it not going wrong. So the question is, do we throw out the entire notion of concentrating power in one person or small group of people, because they might abuse it? Or is it possible to devise a system that retains the advantages and minimises disadvantages? Because we know the consequences of giving that power to several hundreds of people - deadlock.

sailormoon 17y ago

Of course there are power struggles when a king dies. There are power struggles for preselection in democracy, there are power struggles to head up unelected but supremely powerful institutions. I don't see your point. Stability and freedom would seem to be more a function of wealth than mode of government. There are plenty of people with freedom to do pretty much nothing but die under democratic rule in Africa. Where's the counter-corruption in democracy? Plenty of democratic countries are corrupt to the core. India. Italy. Thailand (I personally bribed a police officer there once). The powerful control the media, and the people vote for who they're told whether the puppetmaster was elected or not. How can you try and distance democracy from the wars and torture? Is this a "no true Scotsman" argument? Those acts are the acts of a democracy in decay. You're acting like if only we did democracy better, it wouldn't happen. I'm saying - what if that's the end result of all democracy? Anyway, don't take it too seriously, I'm just throwing ideas out there, as usual.

pyre 17y ago
I get it that you're just throwing ideas out there, but you can't throw around claims of a "no true Scotsman" argument when you yourself are dismissing some of your former claims. First you claimed, "multi-hundred years of stable government by kings," but now you claim, "stability and freedom would seem to be more a function of wealth than mode of government." Don't spend time dissecting other people's words when your own words aren't necessarily in order. Are you claiming that an all-powerful ruler brings stability or are you claiming that stability is completely disjoint from government?
- sailormoon 17y ago
  Well, I was kind of drawn into defending monarchies in general .. I'm not making sweeping generalisations for either! I get the impression it's others doing that. I merely say that there are examples of stability and (relative to the times) prosperity under either form. Stability is not completely disjoint from government but I would say it is completely disjoint from the form of government. But as you point out, yes, I do believe it has more to do with the prosperity of the population than the way their leaders are elected. Stability and prosperity are a function of quality of government, not form of government. I am trying to point out that the form of government, ie elected or not, does not necessarily decide the quality. I gave examples of rulers who, in my opinion, did not discharge their roles badly, considering the times. Summary: having a King is a multiplier, rather than a valuer. You might multiply corruption and despotism. Or you might multiply progress and decisiveness.