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Is democracy a failure? (1861)

167 points by siavosh 10y ago

randomsearch 10y ago
(For clarity: I'm against Trump and voted against Brexit) I'm so tired of this kind of thinking. It seems to come from people who don't have much contact with a good cross-section of society, such that they can maintain the illusion that things are fine, that (for example) Brexit or Trump was a stupid decision. These decisions are actually democracy at work, in a positive sense. A large raft of society in the UK and the USA have been neglected, trod upon, bullied, and exploited for decades. And they have finally had the opportunity to kick back and they have taken that opportunity. It's destructive in one sense, but you have to consider that without precisely this kind of upset, no-one would pause to think about these people for a moment, and things would continue to get worse for them. These people aren't racist (well, no more than those who voted the other way), they're not idiots, they're not some sort of cesspool of poorly educated fools, they are making an informed rational decision to kick back. They're furious. They want to be heard. I think so many of my friends don't get it, because they don't realise that the vote for Brexit turned out that way precisely because it was designed to annoy them. If you don't get Trump, you don't get Brexit, chances are you are exactly the beneficiary of decades of globalisation and free trade, widening inequality, that have crushed the people below you. Try trading places with them and see how you feel then. If you're not grasped this by now, you should definitely make an effort to broaden your social circles. If you watch this video and think "wow, Michael Moore's lost it", then you have a long way to go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lMp_363B2c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lMp_363B2c
saynsedit 10y ago
Who wrote this?
- fjarlq 10y ago
  By the editors of the New York Times, according to the 2013 book, "New York Times: Disunion".
nostrademons 10y ago
Democracy is interesting because it requires you to step outside your own head, understand that there are people who hold different values and different experiences from you, and then mentally engage with them, holding your own doubt and revulsion at bay, until you can come to a consensus that's acceptable to everyone. It's a thoroughly unnatural and uncomfortable experience that can be both fatiguing and time-consuming. No wonder everybody predicts that it will fail - by definition, a democracy requires occasional subjugation to points of view that are alien to your way of life, and which point of view is often unpredictable and changeable. But I'd much rather have it than any system of forced social roles, where there is one person or small cabal of people who make the decisions and everyone else knows their job is simply to obey.
- stevendhansen 10y ago
  "...until you can come to a consensus that's acceptable to everyone." In my (admittedly anecdotal) experience, democracy rarely seeems to come to any consensus that is acceptable to everyone, but rather serves as little more than a moral battering ram that the 51% can use to impose their will on the 49%. Perhaps one day people will realize that democracy, given its cultish appeals (e.g. "but don't you know other systems are worse!?") is simply barbaric. Maybe technology will render nation-states obsolete within my lifetime. I can only hope.
  - FreedomToCreate 10y ago
    Any ideas on how technology would render nation states obsolete?
    - kashkhan 10y ago
      nation states fight over borders to increase tax revenues. wars are governments jockeying to get bigger pieces of the pie. the solution is to make the pie arbitrarily large. http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
    - 794CD01 10y ago
Aldo_MX 10y ago
I believe that democracy in theory is excellent, but in practice is a failure, not because of democracy per-se, but because a gut-feeling vote and a properly-researched vote count the same. I'm in no way suggesting that one vote should be valued more than another one, but that people should be doing their homework and researching properly the benefits and consequences of their decisions... Having a majority of the population voting with the gut can lead us to disastrous results...
- js8 10y ago
  Hm, I am not clear what you're suggesting. You don't want to value votes differently, so what do you want to do about those people who won't do their homework for some reason? You should also note that in most democracies this is already accounted for. The people who feel they didn't do their homework simply do not vote, and leave the decision on others. I lived in a communist country, and we had a system that was controlled by, ostensibly, the experts (the party members). It was a disaster. In practice, democracy works; it doesn't work in theory, because you're wrongly comparing it to some fictional system which makes ideal decisions (whatever that is). It works in the U.S., it works in Switzerland. Those are some of the most developed countries in the world.
  - Aldo_MX 10y ago
    I am not an expert in decision-making processes, and I have not an idea of which process would work better, since I understand the big picture: We want to give every person the ability to express their needs with their vote. I am just a concerned person, since most of the candidates spend too much time discrediting their opponents, rather than discussing about their proposals. The electoral process had became a reality show rather than a mechanism to choose a representative, and it is saddening that people are picking a candidate because of a catchy slogan, rather than because of their proposals...
    - zigzigzag 10y ago
      The US Presidential elections are a curious thing, they're hardly about policies because presidents can't simply enact whatever laws they want. They aren't general elections as other countries have. Voters are basically selecting a figurehead who has some power, but not enough to really reshape the country as they see fit. Given the relative pointlessness of the process is it surprising that it turns into a beauty/uglyness contest?
chrismealy 10y ago
The bond holders seem to like it, so it'll probably stick around.
nick0garvey 10y ago
This was published less than a month before the Civil War started.
- pinwale 10y ago
  add some more context, this NYT editorial was written a couple days before Abraham Lincoln was sworn into office (March 4th, 1861). The states had already voted to secede (or not to) earlier in the year. The Confederates had even provisionally elected a president, Jefferson Davis, on February 18th. The secession crisis started after Abraham Lincoln was elected in November of 1860. The nation really was falling apart, hence the lamentation of the republic being just a collection of states in the editorial.
capkutay 10y ago
I really think the movie Idiocracy nailed the scary potential future of democracy. If elections continue and build on this trend of featuring reality tv show style candidates and media that lives off hyperbole, eventually we'll just start electing the most popular celebrities.
- justinsingh 10y ago
  I don't think it's a trend. Besides Trump, who else would be part of this trend?
  - solipsism 10y ago
    Sarah Palin
  - dredmorbius 10y ago
    Most politicians since the time of Andrew Jackson, in the US.
  - 794CD01 10y ago
    Arnold Schwarzenegger definitely owes his political success to his fame as an actor.
  - muad 10y ago
    Ronald Reagan, Jesse Ventura, Arnold...
    - humanrebar 10y ago
      Al Franken, Sonny Bono, Fred Thompson, Jerry Springer (though in reverse)
- kevinwang 10y ago
  Isn't that like Reagan?
  - cderwin 10y ago
BorisMelnik 10y ago
does anyone know who the author of this is? I couldn't seem to find it on the article?
louithethrid 10y ago
The success of democracy and its creations have stabilized dictatorships- a constant even small surplus in a economy where the human individual matters near nothing, keeps societys with a frozzen over public relatively stable for a long time. Dictatorship is what came most natural to our animal ancestors, so we tend to rationalize it while condemning the "Zumutung der Komplexität". But are they stable? Dictatorships tend to embrace the conservative point of view, which produces usually overpopulation, raging nationalists (the bottled up anger redirected against the guys next door) and religious fanatics. So if this economic surplus, aka innovation is not imported (or even more dangerous constantly produced)theey unravel rather fast, usually by the forces they called upon to stabilize. There is no inbuilt re-juvenation without weapons. So every new App - any new product or production methode, disturbing the equilibrium, can blow up such a social powder keg. The seperate problem usually associated with democracys, is that the fullfillment of all wishes in the wests way of life, is rather self-destructive on society. <Anecdata Begin> I have several couples i know who really looked forward to having grandkids, after raising (quite large) familys. And in the west this just doesent happen any more. Nothing more depressing then seeing those baby-boomers and there bottles all in tears about "What went wrong with there kids?" <Anecdata End> It doesent make the situation better, that democracys have a tendency to import large swaths of people from dictatorships - mostly for economic and sociological reasons.
unclenoriega 10y ago
The part that struck me the most: > We have been so accustomed to hear from infancy eulogies of the wisdom which shaped our Constitution, praises of its perfection, hymns to its symmetry and strength, that to doubt its fullness of all excellence has come to sound like sacrilege. Some things never change.
- jayajay 10y ago
  This, which is also ironic considering what happened in the late 1700's. No Government should ever program itself to be resilient to change. Such a thing is a virus, not a Government. "Ok kids, we're going to play a game called 'I get a unique power but you can never take it away no matter what!' starting now!"
  - marcosdumay 10y ago
    > Such a thing is a virus A badly adapted one. Every virus that gives us real trouble does that because it changes.
afsina 10y ago
According "Democracy, god that failed" from Hans Herman Hoppe, it is failed miserably. He sees it even inferior to aristocratic monarchies with good reasons.
known 10y ago
In democracy it's your vote that counts; In feudalism it's your count that votes. http://www.quotationspage.com/subjects/democracy/ http://www.quotationspage.com/subjects/democracy/
roenxi 10y ago
We haven't yet found a decision making process that works better than democracy, and a lot of people have tried. At some point, someone has to evaluate how good or bad the decisions being made by the political apparatus are. Either that person is the average voter, or it is a minority group. If it is a minority group, they are in a position of extreme moral hazard to funnel societies resources to their benefit and lock out change. It is worth reflecting that, although a lot of people complain that people are 'voting for a slogan' or similar, there is evidence (mainly the outrageous success of democracies vs. non-democracies) that the average voter does actually have some idea what is going on. It is also a subtle and interesting fact that if a large group of people are voting essentially randomly, then they will cancel out. In this way, a person voting with no thought for policy will probably cancel out another person voting with little thought. A 52-48 type margin can mean that 96% of the population had no idea, and the 4% that knew what was going on voted unanimously in favour. The point being that a vote can be sliced up theoretically so that ignorant voters have less influence than might be expected - and again, the practice of democracies suggests this tends to happen more often than intuition suggests. Democracies throw out some cruel decisions, but that usually means the interests of the voters are being served rather than democracy failing.
- Sniffnoy 10y ago
  > At some point, someone has to evaluate how good or bad the decisions being made by the political apparatus are. Either that person is the average voter, or it is a minority group. You're quietly assuming a lot there. Let's stop after the first sentence -- "At some point, someone has to evaluate how good or bad the decisions being made by the political apparatus are." Ah! So you're proposing monarchy? But no, you're not, because you then introduce the fictional "average voter", thereby fitting democracy into the "someone" framework. I think this is a bad way of looking at it. Democracy isn't a "someone". Democracy is an aggregation mechanism. You contrast having everyone vote with only having a subset vote; but you don't question the assumption that the only aggregation mechanism is the standard sort of voting. If you ask me, there's one aggregation mechanism that looks like it could actually improve upon democracy, and that's futarchy. Of course, it's untried. But the point is that there are more degrees of freedom here than you seem to realize.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
riffic 10y ago
It never fails logging into a Hacker News thread near election season but to find commenters yearning for literacy tests.
y80 10y ago
Democracy isn't a failure. Capitalism is. Now before you dismiss me, I'm not defending socialist states, they are far far worse than liberal democracies, however liberal democracies are run by money. Politicians are bought and sold, and we see an undemocratic group of very powerful individuals influencing legislation and pushing around politicians and manipulating public opinion. How can we claim to live in a democracy if the people we trust with developing legislation must filter everything they develop through the approval filter of an undemocratic, and unfairly powerful minority? Fortunately we have options that aren't the failed states of the 20th century, we need a democratic economy and a democratic workforce. Those are the only solutions to this problem, and if you spend enough time looking at the problems and their causes, it becomes readily apparent why this is so. Democracy is not a failure, if you believe democracy is a failure, you're saying that your ability to control your own life is a failure. The problem is the structure on which modern democracy has been built.
- gragas 10y ago
  >Democracy is not a failure, if you believe democracy is a failure, you're saying that your ability to control your own life is a failure. Interesting, I would interpret democracy as the ability for others to control my life; the ability for the majority to gang up on a smaller group and impose laws which benefit the majority in lieu of the minority.
  - y80 10y ago
    >I would interpret democracy as the ability for others to control my life Interesting, I'd disagree though. Say you live in a fascist society or a feudalist society, you get absolutely no say. Democracy allows us to make decisions that influence our own life, however we must obviously respect the fact that we live in a society with other people, and they must be respected. Beyond living in a vacuum, we have no real way to ensure absolute individual freedom, however a completely democratic society is one way of reconciling the thirst for individual freedom with the necessity of cooperation with others. >The ability for the majority to gang up on a smaller group and impose laws which benefit the majority in lieu of the minority. This is absolutely a valid concern, which is why I believe in a rigid groundset of rules on which all laws and rules must comply (consitutions/bill of rights) which respect the rights and liberties of individuals to ensure they have maximum freedom with respect to other individuals in society. This isn't a groundbreaking idea, but I do believe we need to re-evaluate these approaches in a modern context, as most countries were established in a time before progressivism was dominant.
WheelsAtLarge 10y ago
It's not a failure but democracy is about to be tested like no time before. With the ability for everyone to have a voice via social media single minded groups are easier than ever to create. As we have seen many of these groups are unwilling to compromise their ideas which makes it likely for chaos to erupt over any hot issues. We saw an example with the Arab spring and Occupy Wall Street. They erupted but yet have had no real results. Primarily because there was no real leadership behind it to move it forward. In many ways you can say that the revolution made matters worse. When everyone is upset and there are many points of view there is no common way to move forward but there are many hot heads that are willing to shoot first and ask questions later. Imagine a million hot heads without a common goal but the willingness to fight and we can see chaos with out results. People get upset at the "do nothing congress" because they can't get X done but people aren't willing to admit that the reason is that voters have sent individuals with very diverse ideas to try to get things done. Voters are the ones that are pushing them to not compromise any idea or be punished by being voted out. I can see a future where one person that can use social media very well can push people to vote in ways that we consider distasteful now. What will happen then? Groups will erupt with opposing view and many will be ready to fight. We've heard allegations that the voting system is rigged but that's very unlikely. We have laws and watch dogs that prevent that in any significant way. We don't have the same for social media but we know that it's possible to manipulate it, even by foreign powers, and that's not illegal worse yet it's hard to impossible to prevent. It's hard to even contemplate how that effects a democratic system. The founding father created a representative government because they knew that rule by majority can be as distasteful as government by a monarchy or emperor. They thought a functioning government needs representatives that can sort out what's needed. With everyone having a voice that's going to get extremely difficult. Social media is about to let the US test out its governmental system, lets hope it can pass the trouble ahead. Can the US stay together as a nation?
Houshalter 10y ago
Yes. Consider that attractive candidates get two and a half times as many votes as unattractive ones. Consider that most voters have very little or no knowledge of most policy and issues. Most voters can't name their representatives even. Most just blindly vote for one party or issue. It's still better than nondemocratic systems I guess. But that's a terribly low bar to pass. That's not something to be proud of. Everyone always says that it's the best system of government that has been tried. Well maybe we aren't trying hard enough! There are other systems, and here are a few that are my personal favorites. My ideal system of government has no politicians. It forms a parliament or congress just like normal, but the representatives are sampled randomly from the population. Ideally they would be filtered for IQ or education, but this is optional. And then they would debate and vote on issues, without having party loyalty, and without having to pander to the general population. It's sort of like direct democracy, but the random sampling lets it scale to much larger populations. I also really like the model of the supreme court. I have to say that every supreme court decision I've looked into, they seem remarkably rational and competent. They aren't perfect of course, but it seems so much better than congress. Statistics show that even biased judges tend to become much less biased by the time they retire. I'm not sure how they accomplish this. My guess is the lifetime appointments, and the structure of the court being to debate issues extensively, and for the judges to at least try to weigh them objectively. I would love to try a system of government modelled after something like the Supreme court. There is futarchy, proposed by Robin Hanson. The idea is to use prediction markets to make predictions about the future, like whether policies will actually work. Then voters can vote on values ('I approve of Brexit, conditional on it being predicted to increase median wages.') But they bet on beliefs. Another idea I like is the "Ideological Turing Test". In this case representatives can vote on policy just like normal. But they have to pass a test that proves they fully understand the other side's point of view. By writing arguments for the other side of the argument, and blinded reviewers not being able to tell if it's authentic or not. This would be complicated to implement without people gaming the system, but I think it's worth a try. There is also alternative voting systems. These are just small modifications of regular democracy. They modify the voting system so you can vote for third parties without being punished for splitting the vote.
- zigzigzag 10y ago
happy-go-lucky 10y ago
Is there a system of government that enjoys the most success? Just curious.
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  The bureaucratic dynasties under the Mandate of Heaven ruled for ~3,000 years in China, ~2100 BCE until 1912. Individual dynasties lasted for 100s of years, the longest, the Zhou, for 790 years from 1046 BC to 256 BC. The English royal system has persisted with relatively little discontinuity from 1066 AD to present, some 950 years. Unless you've other criteria for "success", in which case you might care to consider what those might be.
  - happy-go-lucky 10y ago
    That's helpful. I'm curious to know of a system (like democracy) that is/was enjoyed by its people and if so, it's a success IMO. I incline to the view that democracy is the best form of government, although I cannot corroborate my own statement because my knowledge of politics is poor.
    - dredmorbius 10y ago
      I have a similar inclination, though I strongly suspect a cultural and familiarity bias. I've been trying to go through the literature of political philosophy and dynamics, which is ... complicated. As with economics, a key point to remember is that virtually everyone writing on the topic (and most especially those who've been promoted to cultural consciousness) are promoting a model that benefits ... someone. I've found William Ophuls to be an interesting point of entry. His topic is politics within a context of ecological limits, but he has classic training (he's strongly influenced by Plato), direct experience (positions in the US foreign service), and an excellent grasp on modern (mostly 20th & 21st century) thought on ecology, limits, and the interactions of these with polity. His bibliographies are excellent, and worth publishing on their own right. I'd recommend his 1977 Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity and his more recent Plato's Revenge. The former focuses more on the ecological case, the latter more on the questions (with very few answers suggested -- he's really exploring the problem space) of how you'd construct a polity, given environmental, psychological, and social limits. I'm also starting to form some new thoughts on the role of religion as something of a social glue in vast empires over which communications might take weeks, months, or years, but in which a plausibly predictable level of trust would be found. Religion-as-trust-glue strikes me as a fundamental aspect. Curiously, instantaneous communications (and the monitoring and management that entails) allows for a near-total breakdown in such trust.
jayajay 10y ago
"51% of people want spin-up, 49% of people want spin-down, therefore we are going to be a spin-up only society". That right there is the problem with Democracy. Democracy finds controversy, but it does absolutely nothing about it. Since the majority side is always favored, there's no incentive to actually get past the disagreements; there's no incentive to grow. It's just about mindlessly acquiring votes. Democracy provides useful data: which topics society agrees on, which topics they disagree on. For the ~51/49 (controversial) cases, instead of enlightening ourselves, we just blindly take the majority choice. This is not the way a scientific society should be approaching government.
- rubberstamp 10y ago
  couldn't up vote enough. Also almost all decisions are voted into without proper deliberations. If you don't like to deliberate, you are incompetent to be elected in the first place. Governments have been turning into for profit entities. And checks and balances being systematically side stepped.
rdtsc 10y ago
Yes it is a failure, but everything else is even more of a failure. So we settled for a lesser failure. Also "democracy as a failure" is a common trope that is used by those who perceive the election isn't going according to how they planned. "They are not voting the way I like, therefore democracy has failed" or if the election or polls go the expected way then "democracy and clear minds prevailed again!". One interesting thing I found about the current election is the role the media plays. To control people in a dictatorship is easier, you just make criticism and dissent punishable, nationalize all the media and it is all simple and easy. In a Democracy controlling is a bit harder, but is still done over the media using sophisticated and not-so-sophisticated methods. Related to that my favorite quote so far comes from CNN's Chris Cuomo talking about the emails: "it’s illegal to possess these stolen documents. It’s different for the media. So everything you learn about this, you’re learning from us." It is as if, there was a tiny crack in the matrix and the underlying code was exposed for a moment.
- stenl 10y ago
  About controlling people in a democracy, there's a great documentary, "Manufacturing consent" featuring Noam Chomsky. See [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent:_Noam_Chomsky_and_the_Media](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent:_Noam_Chomsky_and_the_Media) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent:_Noam_... Seems to be available full-length on YouTube: [http://youtu.be/YHa6NflkW3Y](http://youtu.be/YHa6NflkW3Y) http://youtu.be/YHa6NflkW3Y](http://youtu.be/YHa6NflkW3Y)
  - rdtsc 10y ago
    Good reference. I have the book as well! The other book I like is "Age of Propaganda: The Everyday Use and Abuse of Persuasion" by Elliot Aronson and Anthony Pratkanis
matt_wulfeck 10y ago
The author speaks about the "provincial" partisans that exist between states, cities, and areas of the Union as if it's the byproduct of a failing Democracy. He or she points specifically to the different ways laws are written and enforced, as one example. This is, to me, perhaps one the strongest strengths of our Republic. Different ideas and values can be thrive in different areas at the same time, and we can test and experiment with what's true and right.
- ianai 10y ago
  The house has me concerned though. It seems too easy for a minority to overrule basic governmental functions.
- deleted 10y ago
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hal9000xp 10y ago
Centralized democracy is indeed a complete failure. I really hate an idea that minorities must live as majority wants. The assumption that majority is always smart and able to make wise decisions is completely wrong. Unlike others, I actually think that some form of democracy exist even in authoritarian countries. I lived 22 years in Uzbekistan, then 9 years in Russia. I can say for sure that almost every dictator appeals to masses. Mediocre people (masses) is always their primary audience. For example, in Russia, tzar Putin perfectly represents mentality of majority of people in Russia. People actually love the style he speaks and acts. Dictator won't last long if he looses support from majority. I wrote about this here: https://www.quora.com/Why-do-people-living-in-totalitarian-states-love-their-dictators-1/answer/Eldar-Gaynetdinov https://www.quora.com/Why-do-people-living-in-totalitarian-s... (I was surprised this answer got a lot of upvotes) Also, I noted that even when masses don't like their current government's ideology, they jump to another mediocre idea. For example, the mob in Uzbekistan is attracted to radical islam as opposition to current secular dictatorship. So if current secular regime in Uzbekistan will fall, then masses choose to go back to 15th century as an alternative. The mob in Uzbekistan certainly won't choose liberal market economy with highly developed technology sector attracting international capital. The backward silly ideas of islamic clerics are much, much, much closer to the mob. Another example, next after Putin'ism in the priority queue of ideologies in Russia are: communism, and right next after communism is national-socialism. So there are a lot of people who oppose Putin because he is not true communist or do not fully support national-socialism. Again, there is no "liberal market economy with highly developed technology sector attracting international capital" in their queue of ideas. I can't even imagine the masses go to the streets demanding relaxing regulations for businesses, reducing government spending, attracting international capital. I guess in US republican party is relatively popular because of religion. Remove strong support of religion in the GOP and after that their popularity will probably drop 10 times. In Europe, masses a bit smarter than in Uzbekistan and Russia but still they are demanding nanny state, taking money from high earners. I spent a lot of time and effort to escape poor government policies supported by masses. I born and lived in Uzbekistan, then moved to Russia, then to Sweden, then to the Netherlands. So I'm not afraid to say to entire society - "fk off, you are all wrong, I'm leaving!". I already did it 3 times! For example, I left Sweden because of ridiculously high taxes and really big nanny state. I see decentralized democracy as a solution. For example, I would support an idea of small federal government and pretty independent states. So that voters can vote for laws only in their states (with rare but inevitable exceptions). It would be competition between states and eventually people with certain ideas would concentrate in particular states. Some states would be more socialist, some more capitalist. Head of federal government should not be a single person but rather a group of persons from each party. I think Switzerland is closest example to this. In such country, you can easily move between states with different laws, taxes, ideologies. It's far easier than moving between countries if you are disagree with prevailing political sentiment (what I'm doing right now).
vasili111 10y ago
Democracy and Capitalism are not a failure because they don't have better alternatives.
paulsutter 10y ago
Maybe we should ask, - is representative democracy a failure (in contrast with direct democracy[1]) - is a two-party system a failure (in contrast with a multiparty system[2]) [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-party_system https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-party_system
sjclemmy 10y ago
"Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…" Winston Churchill
hairy_man674 10y ago
"Under the relentless thrust of accelerating over-population and increasing over-organization, and by means of ever more effective methods of mind-manipulation, the democracies will change their nature; the quaint old forms—elections, parliaments, Supreme Courts and all the rest—will remain. The underlying substance will be a new kind of non-violent totalitarianism. All the traditional names, all the hallowed slogans will remain exactly what they were in the good old days. Democracy and freedom will be the theme of every broadcast and editorial—but Democracy and freedom in a strictly Pickwickian sense. Meanwhile the ruling oligarchy and its highly trained elite of soldiers, policemen, thought-manufacturers and mind-manipulators will quietly run the show as they see fit." Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited (1958)
- urza 10y ago
  I am faving this comment. Huxley was a true visionary. However I dont agree with the "...new kind of non-violent totalitarianism..." Our democracies are non-violent only if you obey. Otherwise they use violence and force to lock you up. Most people in prisons are there for victimless crimes like drugs. That is not a non-violent system in my opinion.
  - SFJulie 10y ago
    euh... Don't confuse Republics and democracies. Letting the people vote is a not an equivalent statement to let the people rules. Condorcet has shown how voting systems can be unfair, and a quick look to every elected assembly from the G20 is showing a clear non representation of the demography of the people in the assemblies. We do not live under democratic systems, neither was USA in 1861. These are Republics. And Plato was firmly convinced that democracies were bad. After all he was sponsored by the wealthy ones that hated the people to have power.
    - urza 10y ago
      Fair point, you are of course right. However I used the word in the way how it is used nowadays by public. I am from Europe and people here will tell you we have "democracies".
deleted 10y ago
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ezequiel-garzon 10y ago
It's interesting to see that back then (I now checked that even before the Civil War period) the term United States of North America was used. To the history aficionados, was USNA more commonplace than USA? If so, when did USA become prevalent?
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  USA since at 1776, no contest: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=United+States+of+North+America%2CUnited+States+of+America&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1750&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t4%3B%2CUnited%20States%20of%20North%20America%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3BUnited%20States%20of%20North%20America%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BUNITED%20STATES%20OF%20NORTH%20AMERICA%3B%2Cc0%3B.t4%3B%2CUnited%20States%20of%20America%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3BUnited%20States%20of%20America%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BUNITED%20STATES%20OF%20AMERICA%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=United+States+...
  - ezequiel-garzon 10y ago
    Thanks, that's what I always thought, having found it always puzzling as "an American from Argentina" :) That's why I always surprised this usage in a NYT piece, and before: https://books.google.es/books?id=pVdDAQAAIAAJ https://books.google.es/books?id=pVdDAQAAIAAJ .
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- douche 10y ago
  This may have been due to the brief existence of the Federal Republic of Central America[1] in the antebellum period, which was often called the United States of Central America[2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Republic_of_Central_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Republic_of_Central_Am... [2] If you play the Paradox Interactive video games Victoria or Victoria II, it is named the United States of Central America there as well.
andrewclunn 10y ago
So article asks if the fundamental idea of democracy and republics are flawed, and concludes that we must impose a singular republic, without addressing those initial concerns. Good to know that the mentality of the North Eastern liberal hasn't changed since the civil war.
thght 10y ago
At least not in creating the illusion of choice for the individual.
metaos 10y ago
Constitutional Republic != Democracy
muad 10y ago
The problem isn't democracy, it is the republic. We have the technology to make congress obsolete.
ozy 10y ago
There are two perspectives on democracy. You can compare it to some ideal world that has never been, and easily see it falls short, by a lot. Or you can look back on history, and look at countries who have done things differently, and realize it is by far the best system we have had. If you want to live a full lifetime in peace and security and health. Be born in a democratic and capitalist country somewhere in the past 70 years, and you maximize that chance. Any other time and place and the chance of a good life drops quickly. To other commenters in this thread, describing democracy or capitalism with words like "disastrous" or "complete failure" or "elite rule", please some perspective.
- kobeya 10y ago
  When encountering a shortcoming of the world, there are two responses: You can compare it to what has happened before and console yourself that of observed past histories, this situation ain't so bad. Or you can imagine what has never been, and try to create a society better than has ever existed before. There was once a time when democracy of modern form had never been tried, outside of some rugged mountain towns in the Alps, and yet those in the face of tyranny had the gall to try something new. Isn't that an example we should emulate?
  - ozy 10y ago
    We do not have democracies because people had the "gall to try something new". We slowly grew into it because people demanded better and used opportunities to move us closer. And this is what we should continue doing. In no way did my comment indicate we should just be quiet and think it is not so bad. But at the same time, this is the best we ever had. Calling it a failure is like calling an olympic gold medallist the worst athlete in history. Even if this is the 1920 olympics and the times set there will be a laugh when compared to the 2020 olympics. Someone with so little perspective will not be able to change the world for the better. "Imagine what has never been" does not do much unless it is well grounded in reality. (edit: "Someone" here was not directed at @kobeya, but to those refer to democracy/capitalism as failure)
    - 10y ago
zkhalique 10y ago
Democracy isn't a failure, you just need a better voting system. If people could rank their preferences then people like Bernie and Bloomberg would actually run without fear that they might "take away votes from Hillary" and therefore help Trump. In fact, the two-party syste would give way to something better. Only the party elites would NOT want this... but after this election, even they probably do. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting

167 points by siavosh 10y ago

(For clarity: I'm against Trump and voted against Brexit) I'm so tired of this kind of thinking. It seems to come from people who don't have much contact with a good cross-section of society, such that they can maintain the illusion that things are fine, that (for example) Brexit or Trump was a stupid decision. These decisions are actually democracy at work, in a positive sense. A large raft of society in the UK and the USA have been neglected, trod upon, bullied, and exploited for decades. And they have finally had the opportunity to kick back and they have taken that opportunity. It's destructive in one sense, but you have to consider that without precisely this kind of upset, no-one would pause to think about these people for a moment, and things would continue to get worse for them. These people aren't racist (well, no more than those who voted the other way), they're not idiots, they're not some sort of cesspool of poorly educated fools, they are making an informed rational decision to kick back. They're furious. They want to be heard. I think so many of my friends don't get it, because they don't realise that the vote for Brexit turned out that way precisely because it was designed to annoy them. If you don't get Trump, you don't get Brexit, chances are you are exactly the beneficiary of decades of globalisation and free trade, widening inequality, that have crushed the people below you. Try trading places with them and see how you feel then. If you're not grasped this by now, you should definitely make an effort to broaden your social circles. If you watch this video and think "wow, Michael Moore's lost it", then you have a long way to go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lMp_363B2c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lMp_363B2c

saynsedit 10y ago

Who wrote this?

fjarlq 10y ago
By the editors of the New York Times, according to the 2013 book, "New York Times: Disunion".

nostrademons 10y ago

Democracy is interesting because it requires you to step outside your own head, understand that there are people who hold different values and different experiences from you, and then mentally engage with them, holding your own doubt and revulsion at bay, until you can come to a consensus that's acceptable to everyone. It's a thoroughly unnatural and uncomfortable experience that can be both fatiguing and time-consuming. No wonder everybody predicts that it will fail - by definition, a democracy requires occasional subjugation to points of view that are alien to your way of life, and which point of view is often unpredictable and changeable. But I'd much rather have it than any system of forced social roles, where there is one person or small cabal of people who make the decisions and everyone else knows their job is simply to obey.

stevendhansen 10y ago
"...until you can come to a consensus that's acceptable to everyone." In my (admittedly anecdotal) experience, democracy rarely seeems to come to any consensus that is acceptable to everyone, but rather serves as little more than a moral battering ram that the 51% can use to impose their will on the 49%. Perhaps one day people will realize that democracy, given its cultish appeals (e.g. "but don't you know other systems are worse!?") is simply barbaric. Maybe technology will render nation-states obsolete within my lifetime. I can only hope.
- FreedomToCreate 10y ago
  Any ideas on how technology would render nation states obsolete?
  - kashkhan 10y ago
    nation states fight over borders to increase tax revenues. wars are governments jockeying to get bigger pieces of the pie. the solution is to make the pie arbitrarily large. http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
  - 794CD01 10y ago

Aldo_MX 10y ago

I believe that democracy in theory is excellent, but in practice is a failure, not because of democracy per-se, but because a gut-feeling vote and a properly-researched vote count the same. I'm in no way suggesting that one vote should be valued more than another one, but that people should be doing their homework and researching properly the benefits and consequences of their decisions... Having a majority of the population voting with the gut can lead us to disastrous results...

js8 10y ago
Hm, I am not clear what you're suggesting. You don't want to value votes differently, so what do you want to do about those people who won't do their homework for some reason? You should also note that in most democracies this is already accounted for. The people who feel they didn't do their homework simply do not vote, and leave the decision on others. I lived in a communist country, and we had a system that was controlled by, ostensibly, the experts (the party members). It was a disaster. In practice, democracy works; it doesn't work in theory, because you're wrongly comparing it to some fictional system which makes ideal decisions (whatever that is). It works in the U.S., it works in Switzerland. Those are some of the most developed countries in the world.
- Aldo_MX 10y ago
  I am not an expert in decision-making processes, and I have not an idea of which process would work better, since I understand the big picture: We want to give every person the ability to express their needs with their vote. I am just a concerned person, since most of the candidates spend too much time discrediting their opponents, rather than discussing about their proposals. The electoral process had became a reality show rather than a mechanism to choose a representative, and it is saddening that people are picking a candidate because of a catchy slogan, rather than because of their proposals...
  - zigzigzag 10y ago
    The US Presidential elections are a curious thing, they're hardly about policies because presidents can't simply enact whatever laws they want. They aren't general elections as other countries have. Voters are basically selecting a figurehead who has some power, but not enough to really reshape the country as they see fit. Given the relative pointlessness of the process is it surprising that it turns into a beauty/uglyness contest?

chrismealy 10y ago

The bond holders seem to like it, so it'll probably stick around.

nick0garvey 10y ago

This was published less than a month before the Civil War started.

pinwale 10y ago
add some more context, this NYT editorial was written a couple days before Abraham Lincoln was sworn into office (March 4th, 1861). The states had already voted to secede (or not to) earlier in the year. The Confederates had even provisionally elected a president, Jefferson Davis, on February 18th. The secession crisis started after Abraham Lincoln was elected in November of 1860. The nation really was falling apart, hence the lamentation of the republic being just a collection of states in the editorial.

capkutay 10y ago

I really think the movie Idiocracy nailed the scary potential future of democracy. If elections continue and build on this trend of featuring reality tv show style candidates and media that lives off hyperbole, eventually we'll just start electing the most popular celebrities.

justinsingh 10y ago
I don't think it's a trend. Besides Trump, who else would be part of this trend?
- solipsism 10y ago
  Sarah Palin
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  Most politicians since the time of Andrew Jackson, in the US.
- 794CD01 10y ago
  Arnold Schwarzenegger definitely owes his political success to his fame as an actor.
- muad 10y ago
  Ronald Reagan, Jesse Ventura, Arnold...
  - humanrebar 10y ago
    Al Franken, Sonny Bono, Fred Thompson, Jerry Springer (though in reverse)
kevinwang 10y ago
Isn't that like Reagan?
- cderwin 10y ago

BorisMelnik 10y ago

does anyone know who the author of this is? I couldn't seem to find it on the article?

louithethrid 10y ago

The success of democracy and its creations have stabilized dictatorships- a constant even small surplus in a economy where the human individual matters near nothing, keeps societys with a frozzen over public relatively stable for a long time. Dictatorship is what came most natural to our animal ancestors, so we tend to rationalize it while condemning the "Zumutung der Komplexität". But are they stable? Dictatorships tend to embrace the conservative point of view, which produces usually overpopulation, raging nationalists (the bottled up anger redirected against the guys next door) and religious fanatics. So if this economic surplus, aka innovation is not imported (or even more dangerous constantly produced)theey unravel rather fast, usually by the forces they called upon to stabilize. There is no inbuilt re-juvenation without weapons. So every new App - any new product or production methode, disturbing the equilibrium, can blow up such a social powder keg. The seperate problem usually associated with democracys, is that the fullfillment of all wishes in the wests way of life, is rather self-destructive on society. <Anecdata Begin> I have several couples i know who really looked forward to having grandkids, after raising (quite large) familys. And in the west this just doesent happen any more. Nothing more depressing then seeing those baby-boomers and there bottles all in tears about "What went wrong with there kids?" <Anecdata End> It doesent make the situation better, that democracys have a tendency to import large swaths of people from dictatorships - mostly for economic and sociological reasons.

unclenoriega 10y ago

The part that struck me the most: > We have been so accustomed to hear from infancy eulogies of the wisdom which shaped our Constitution, praises of its perfection, hymns to its symmetry and strength, that to doubt its fullness of all excellence has come to sound like sacrilege. Some things never change.

jayajay 10y ago
This, which is also ironic considering what happened in the late 1700's. No Government should ever program itself to be resilient to change. Such a thing is a virus, not a Government. "Ok kids, we're going to play a game called 'I get a unique power but you can never take it away no matter what!' starting now!"
- marcosdumay 10y ago
  > Such a thing is a virus A badly adapted one. Every virus that gives us real trouble does that because it changes.

afsina 10y ago

According "Democracy, god that failed" from Hans Herman Hoppe, it is failed miserably. He sees it even inferior to aristocratic monarchies with good reasons.

known 10y ago

In democracy it's your vote that counts; In feudalism it's your count that votes. http://www.quotationspage.com/subjects/democracy/ http://www.quotationspage.com/subjects/democracy/

roenxi 10y ago

We haven't yet found a decision making process that works better than democracy, and a lot of people have tried. At some point, someone has to evaluate how good or bad the decisions being made by the political apparatus are. Either that person is the average voter, or it is a minority group. If it is a minority group, they are in a position of extreme moral hazard to funnel societies resources to their benefit and lock out change. It is worth reflecting that, although a lot of people complain that people are 'voting for a slogan' or similar, there is evidence (mainly the outrageous success of democracies vs. non-democracies) that the average voter does actually have some idea what is going on. It is also a subtle and interesting fact that if a large group of people are voting essentially randomly, then they will cancel out. In this way, a person voting with no thought for policy will probably cancel out another person voting with little thought. A 52-48 type margin can mean that 96% of the population had no idea, and the 4% that knew what was going on voted unanimously in favour. The point being that a vote can be sliced up theoretically so that ignorant voters have less influence than might be expected - and again, the practice of democracies suggests this tends to happen more often than intuition suggests. Democracies throw out some cruel decisions, but that usually means the interests of the voters are being served rather than democracy failing.

Sniffnoy 10y ago
> At some point, someone has to evaluate how good or bad the decisions being made by the political apparatus are. Either that person is the average voter, or it is a minority group. You're quietly assuming a lot there. Let's stop after the first sentence -- "At some point, someone has to evaluate how good or bad the decisions being made by the political apparatus are." Ah! So you're proposing monarchy? But no, you're not, because you then introduce the fictional "average voter", thereby fitting democracy into the "someone" framework. I think this is a bad way of looking at it. Democracy isn't a "someone". Democracy is an aggregation mechanism. You contrast having everyone vote with only having a subset vote; but you don't question the assumption that the only aggregation mechanism is the standard sort of voting. If you ask me, there's one aggregation mechanism that looks like it could actually improve upon democracy, and that's futarchy. Of course, it's untried. But the point is that there are more degrees of freedom here than you seem to realize.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

riffic 10y ago

It never fails logging into a Hacker News thread near election season but to find commenters yearning for literacy tests.

y80 10y ago

Democracy isn't a failure. Capitalism is. Now before you dismiss me, I'm not defending socialist states, they are far far worse than liberal democracies, however liberal democracies are run by money. Politicians are bought and sold, and we see an undemocratic group of very powerful individuals influencing legislation and pushing around politicians and manipulating public opinion. How can we claim to live in a democracy if the people we trust with developing legislation must filter everything they develop through the approval filter of an undemocratic, and unfairly powerful minority? Fortunately we have options that aren't the failed states of the 20th century, we need a democratic economy and a democratic workforce. Those are the only solutions to this problem, and if you spend enough time looking at the problems and their causes, it becomes readily apparent why this is so. Democracy is not a failure, if you believe democracy is a failure, you're saying that your ability to control your own life is a failure. The problem is the structure on which modern democracy has been built.

gragas 10y ago
>Democracy is not a failure, if you believe democracy is a failure, you're saying that your ability to control your own life is a failure. Interesting, I would interpret democracy as the ability for others to control my life; the ability for the majority to gang up on a smaller group and impose laws which benefit the majority in lieu of the minority.
- y80 10y ago
  >I would interpret democracy as the ability for others to control my life Interesting, I'd disagree though. Say you live in a fascist society or a feudalist society, you get absolutely no say. Democracy allows us to make decisions that influence our own life, however we must obviously respect the fact that we live in a society with other people, and they must be respected. Beyond living in a vacuum, we have no real way to ensure absolute individual freedom, however a completely democratic society is one way of reconciling the thirst for individual freedom with the necessity of cooperation with others. >The ability for the majority to gang up on a smaller group and impose laws which benefit the majority in lieu of the minority. This is absolutely a valid concern, which is why I believe in a rigid groundset of rules on which all laws and rules must comply (consitutions/bill of rights) which respect the rights and liberties of individuals to ensure they have maximum freedom with respect to other individuals in society. This isn't a groundbreaking idea, but I do believe we need to re-evaluate these approaches in a modern context, as most countries were established in a time before progressivism was dominant.

WheelsAtLarge 10y ago

It's not a failure but democracy is about to be tested like no time before. With the ability for everyone to have a voice via social media single minded groups are easier than ever to create. As we have seen many of these groups are unwilling to compromise their ideas which makes it likely for chaos to erupt over any hot issues. We saw an example with the Arab spring and Occupy Wall Street. They erupted but yet have had no real results. Primarily because there was no real leadership behind it to move it forward. In many ways you can say that the revolution made matters worse. When everyone is upset and there are many points of view there is no common way to move forward but there are many hot heads that are willing to shoot first and ask questions later. Imagine a million hot heads without a common goal but the willingness to fight and we can see chaos with out results. People get upset at the "do nothing congress" because they can't get X done but people aren't willing to admit that the reason is that voters have sent individuals with very diverse ideas to try to get things done. Voters are the ones that are pushing them to not compromise any idea or be punished by being voted out. I can see a future where one person that can use social media very well can push people to vote in ways that we consider distasteful now. What will happen then? Groups will erupt with opposing view and many will be ready to fight. We've heard allegations that the voting system is rigged but that's very unlikely. We have laws and watch dogs that prevent that in any significant way. We don't have the same for social media but we know that it's possible to manipulate it, even by foreign powers, and that's not illegal worse yet it's hard to impossible to prevent. It's hard to even contemplate how that effects a democratic system. The founding father created a representative government because they knew that rule by majority can be as distasteful as government by a monarchy or emperor. They thought a functioning government needs representatives that can sort out what's needed. With everyone having a voice that's going to get extremely difficult. Social media is about to let the US test out its governmental system, lets hope it can pass the trouble ahead. Can the US stay together as a nation?

Houshalter 10y ago

Yes. Consider that attractive candidates get two and a half times as many votes as unattractive ones. Consider that most voters have very little or no knowledge of most policy and issues. Most voters can't name their representatives even. Most just blindly vote for one party or issue. It's still better than nondemocratic systems I guess. But that's a terribly low bar to pass. That's not something to be proud of. Everyone always says that it's the best system of government that has been tried. Well maybe we aren't trying hard enough! There are other systems, and here are a few that are my personal favorites. My ideal system of government has no politicians. It forms a parliament or congress just like normal, but the representatives are sampled randomly from the population. Ideally they would be filtered for IQ or education, but this is optional. And then they would debate and vote on issues, without having party loyalty, and without having to pander to the general population. It's sort of like direct democracy, but the random sampling lets it scale to much larger populations. I also really like the model of the supreme court. I have to say that every supreme court decision I've looked into, they seem remarkably rational and competent. They aren't perfect of course, but it seems so much better than congress. Statistics show that even biased judges tend to become much less biased by the time they retire. I'm not sure how they accomplish this. My guess is the lifetime appointments, and the structure of the court being to debate issues extensively, and for the judges to at least try to weigh them objectively. I would love to try a system of government modelled after something like the Supreme court. There is futarchy, proposed by Robin Hanson. The idea is to use prediction markets to make predictions about the future, like whether policies will actually work. Then voters can vote on values ('I approve of Brexit, conditional on it being predicted to increase median wages.') But they bet on beliefs. Another idea I like is the "Ideological Turing Test". In this case representatives can vote on policy just like normal. But they have to pass a test that proves they fully understand the other side's point of view. By writing arguments for the other side of the argument, and blinded reviewers not being able to tell if it's authentic or not. This would be complicated to implement without people gaming the system, but I think it's worth a try. There is also alternative voting systems. These are just small modifications of regular democracy. They modify the voting system so you can vote for third parties without being punished for splitting the vote.

zigzigzag 10y ago

happy-go-lucky 10y ago

Is there a system of government that enjoys the most success? Just curious.

dredmorbius 10y ago
The bureaucratic dynasties under the Mandate of Heaven ruled for ~3,000 years in China, ~2100 BCE until 1912. Individual dynasties lasted for 100s of years, the longest, the Zhou, for 790 years from 1046 BC to 256 BC. The English royal system has persisted with relatively little discontinuity from 1066 AD to present, some 950 years. Unless you've other criteria for "success", in which case you might care to consider what those might be.
- happy-go-lucky 10y ago
  That's helpful. I'm curious to know of a system (like democracy) that is/was enjoyed by its people and if so, it's a success IMO. I incline to the view that democracy is the best form of government, although I cannot corroborate my own statement because my knowledge of politics is poor.
  - dredmorbius 10y ago
    I have a similar inclination, though I strongly suspect a cultural and familiarity bias. I've been trying to go through the literature of political philosophy and dynamics, which is ... complicated. As with economics, a key point to remember is that virtually everyone writing on the topic (and most especially those who've been promoted to cultural consciousness) are promoting a model that benefits ... someone. I've found William Ophuls to be an interesting point of entry. His topic is politics within a context of ecological limits, but he has classic training (he's strongly influenced by Plato), direct experience (positions in the US foreign service), and an excellent grasp on modern (mostly 20th & 21st century) thought on ecology, limits, and the interactions of these with polity. His bibliographies are excellent, and worth publishing on their own right. I'd recommend his 1977 Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity and his more recent Plato's Revenge. The former focuses more on the ecological case, the latter more on the questions (with very few answers suggested -- he's really exploring the problem space) of how you'd construct a polity, given environmental, psychological, and social limits. I'm also starting to form some new thoughts on the role of religion as something of a social glue in vast empires over which communications might take weeks, months, or years, but in which a plausibly predictable level of trust would be found. Religion-as-trust-glue strikes me as a fundamental aspect. Curiously, instantaneous communications (and the monitoring and management that entails) allows for a near-total breakdown in such trust.

jayajay 10y ago

"51% of people want spin-up, 49% of people want spin-down, therefore we are going to be a spin-up only society". That right there is the problem with Democracy. Democracy finds controversy, but it does absolutely nothing about it. Since the majority side is always favored, there's no incentive to actually get past the disagreements; there's no incentive to grow. It's just about mindlessly acquiring votes. Democracy provides useful data: which topics society agrees on, which topics they disagree on. For the ~51/49 (controversial) cases, instead of enlightening ourselves, we just blindly take the majority choice. This is not the way a scientific society should be approaching government.

rubberstamp 10y ago
couldn't up vote enough. Also almost all decisions are voted into without proper deliberations. If you don't like to deliberate, you are incompetent to be elected in the first place. Governments have been turning into for profit entities. And checks and balances being systematically side stepped.

rdtsc 10y ago

Yes it is a failure, but everything else is even more of a failure. So we settled for a lesser failure. Also "democracy as a failure" is a common trope that is used by those who perceive the election isn't going according to how they planned. "They are not voting the way I like, therefore democracy has failed" or if the election or polls go the expected way then "democracy and clear minds prevailed again!". One interesting thing I found about the current election is the role the media plays. To control people in a dictatorship is easier, you just make criticism and dissent punishable, nationalize all the media and it is all simple and easy. In a Democracy controlling is a bit harder, but is still done over the media using sophisticated and not-so-sophisticated methods. Related to that my favorite quote so far comes from CNN's Chris Cuomo talking about the emails: "it’s illegal to possess these stolen documents. It’s different for the media. So everything you learn about this, you’re learning from us." It is as if, there was a tiny crack in the matrix and the underlying code was exposed for a moment.

stenl 10y ago
About controlling people in a democracy, there's a great documentary, "Manufacturing consent" featuring Noam Chomsky. See [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent:_Noam_Chomsky_and_the_Media](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent:_Noam_Chomsky_and_the_Media) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent:_Noam_... Seems to be available full-length on YouTube: [http://youtu.be/YHa6NflkW3Y](http://youtu.be/YHa6NflkW3Y) http://youtu.be/YHa6NflkW3Y](http://youtu.be/YHa6NflkW3Y)
- rdtsc 10y ago
  Good reference. I have the book as well! The other book I like is "Age of Propaganda: The Everyday Use and Abuse of Persuasion" by Elliot Aronson and Anthony Pratkanis

matt_wulfeck 10y ago

The author speaks about the "provincial" partisans that exist between states, cities, and areas of the Union as if it's the byproduct of a failing Democracy. He or she points specifically to the different ways laws are written and enforced, as one example. This is, to me, perhaps one the strongest strengths of our Republic. Different ideas and values can be thrive in different areas at the same time, and we can test and experiment with what's true and right.

ianai 10y ago
The house has me concerned though. It seems too easy for a minority to overrule basic governmental functions.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

hal9000xp 10y ago

Centralized democracy is indeed a complete failure. I really hate an idea that minorities must live as majority wants. The assumption that majority is always smart and able to make wise decisions is completely wrong. Unlike others, I actually think that some form of democracy exist even in authoritarian countries. I lived 22 years in Uzbekistan, then 9 years in Russia. I can say for sure that almost every dictator appeals to masses. Mediocre people (masses) is always their primary audience. For example, in Russia, tzar Putin perfectly represents mentality of majority of people in Russia. People actually love the style he speaks and acts. Dictator won't last long if he looses support from majority. I wrote about this here: https://www.quora.com/Why-do-people-living-in-totalitarian-states-love-their-dictators-1/answer/Eldar-Gaynetdinov https://www.quora.com/Why-do-people-living-in-totalitarian-s... (I was surprised this answer got a lot of upvotes) Also, I noted that even when masses don't like their current government's ideology, they jump to another mediocre idea. For example, the mob in Uzbekistan is attracted to radical islam as opposition to current secular dictatorship. So if current secular regime in Uzbekistan will fall, then masses choose to go back to 15th century as an alternative. The mob in Uzbekistan certainly won't choose liberal market economy with highly developed technology sector attracting international capital. The backward silly ideas of islamic clerics are much, much, much closer to the mob. Another example, next after Putin'ism in the priority queue of ideologies in Russia are: communism, and right next after communism is national-socialism. So there are a lot of people who oppose Putin because he is not true communist or do not fully support national-socialism. Again, there is no "liberal market economy with highly developed technology sector attracting international capital" in their queue of ideas. I can't even imagine the masses go to the streets demanding relaxing regulations for businesses, reducing government spending, attracting international capital. I guess in US republican party is relatively popular because of religion. Remove strong support of religion in the GOP and after that their popularity will probably drop 10 times. In Europe, masses a bit smarter than in Uzbekistan and Russia but still they are demanding nanny state, taking money from high earners. I spent a lot of time and effort to escape poor government policies supported by masses. I born and lived in Uzbekistan, then moved to Russia, then to Sweden, then to the Netherlands. So I'm not afraid to say to entire society - "fk off, you are all wrong, I'm leaving!". I already did it 3 times! For example, I left Sweden because of ridiculously high taxes and really big nanny state. I see decentralized democracy as a solution. For example, I would support an idea of small federal government and pretty independent states. So that voters can vote for laws only in their states (with rare but inevitable exceptions). It would be competition between states and eventually people with certain ideas would concentrate in particular states. Some states would be more socialist, some more capitalist. Head of federal government should not be a single person but rather a group of persons from each party. I think Switzerland is closest example to this. In such country, you can easily move between states with different laws, taxes, ideologies. It's far easier than moving between countries if you are disagree with prevailing political sentiment (what I'm doing right now).

vasili111 10y ago

Democracy and Capitalism are not a failure because they don't have better alternatives.

paulsutter 10y ago

Maybe we should ask, - is representative democracy a failure (in contrast with direct democracy[1]) - is a two-party system a failure (in contrast with a multiparty system[2]) [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-party_system https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-party_system

sjclemmy 10y ago

"Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…" Winston Churchill

hairy_man674 10y ago

"Under the relentless thrust of accelerating over-population and increasing over-organization, and by means of ever more effective methods of mind-manipulation, the democracies will change their nature; the quaint old forms—elections, parliaments, Supreme Courts and all the rest—will remain. The underlying substance will be a new kind of non-violent totalitarianism. All the traditional names, all the hallowed slogans will remain exactly what they were in the good old days. Democracy and freedom will be the theme of every broadcast and editorial—but Democracy and freedom in a strictly Pickwickian sense. Meanwhile the ruling oligarchy and its highly trained elite of soldiers, policemen, thought-manufacturers and mind-manipulators will quietly run the show as they see fit." Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited (1958)

urza 10y ago
I am faving this comment. Huxley was a true visionary. However I dont agree with the "...new kind of non-violent totalitarianism..." Our democracies are non-violent only if you obey. Otherwise they use violence and force to lock you up. Most people in prisons are there for victimless crimes like drugs. That is not a non-violent system in my opinion.
- SFJulie 10y ago
  euh... Don't confuse Republics and democracies. Letting the people vote is a not an equivalent statement to let the people rules. Condorcet has shown how voting systems can be unfair, and a quick look to every elected assembly from the G20 is showing a clear non representation of the demography of the people in the assemblies. We do not live under democratic systems, neither was USA in 1861. These are Republics. And Plato was firmly convinced that democracies were bad. After all he was sponsored by the wealthy ones that hated the people to have power.
  - urza 10y ago
    Fair point, you are of course right. However I used the word in the way how it is used nowadays by public. I am from Europe and people here will tell you we have "democracies".

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ezequiel-garzon 10y ago

It's interesting to see that back then (I now checked that even before the Civil War period) the term United States of North America was used. To the history aficionados, was USNA more commonplace than USA? If so, when did USA become prevalent?

dredmorbius 10y ago
USA since at 1776, no contest: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=United+States+of+North+America%2CUnited+States+of+America&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1750&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t4%3B%2CUnited%20States%20of%20North%20America%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3BUnited%20States%20of%20North%20America%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BUNITED%20STATES%20OF%20NORTH%20AMERICA%3B%2Cc0%3B.t4%3B%2CUnited%20States%20of%20America%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3BUnited%20States%20of%20America%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BUNITED%20STATES%20OF%20AMERICA%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=United+States+...
- ezequiel-garzon 10y ago
  Thanks, that's what I always thought, having found it always puzzling as "an American from Argentina" :) That's why I always surprised this usage in a NYT piece, and before: https://books.google.es/books?id=pVdDAQAAIAAJ https://books.google.es/books?id=pVdDAQAAIAAJ .
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douche 10y ago
This may have been due to the brief existence of the Federal Republic of Central America[1] in the antebellum period, which was often called the United States of Central America[2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Republic_of_Central_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Republic_of_Central_Am... [2] If you play the Paradox Interactive video games Victoria or Victoria II, it is named the United States of Central America there as well.

andrewclunn 10y ago

So article asks if the fundamental idea of democracy and republics are flawed, and concludes that we must impose a singular republic, without addressing those initial concerns. Good to know that the mentality of the North Eastern liberal hasn't changed since the civil war.

thght 10y ago

At least not in creating the illusion of choice for the individual.

metaos 10y ago

Constitutional Republic != Democracy

muad 10y ago

The problem isn't democracy, it is the republic. We have the technology to make congress obsolete.

ozy 10y ago

There are two perspectives on democracy. You can compare it to some ideal world that has never been, and easily see it falls short, by a lot. Or you can look back on history, and look at countries who have done things differently, and realize it is by far the best system we have had. If you want to live a full lifetime in peace and security and health. Be born in a democratic and capitalist country somewhere in the past 70 years, and you maximize that chance. Any other time and place and the chance of a good life drops quickly. To other commenters in this thread, describing democracy or capitalism with words like "disastrous" or "complete failure" or "elite rule", please some perspective.

kobeya 10y ago
When encountering a shortcoming of the world, there are two responses: You can compare it to what has happened before and console yourself that of observed past histories, this situation ain't so bad. Or you can imagine what has never been, and try to create a society better than has ever existed before. There was once a time when democracy of modern form had never been tried, outside of some rugged mountain towns in the Alps, and yet those in the face of tyranny had the gall to try something new. Isn't that an example we should emulate?
- ozy 10y ago
  We do not have democracies because people had the "gall to try something new". We slowly grew into it because people demanded better and used opportunities to move us closer. And this is what we should continue doing. In no way did my comment indicate we should just be quiet and think it is not so bad. But at the same time, this is the best we ever had. Calling it a failure is like calling an olympic gold medallist the worst athlete in history. Even if this is the 1920 olympics and the times set there will be a laugh when compared to the 2020 olympics. Someone with so little perspective will not be able to change the world for the better. "Imagine what has never been" does not do much unless it is well grounded in reality. (edit: "Someone" here was not directed at @kobeya, but to those refer to democracy/capitalism as failure)
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zkhalique 10y ago

Democracy isn't a failure, you just need a better voting system. If people could rank their preferences then people like Bernie and Bloomberg would actually run without fear that they might "take away votes from Hillary" and therefore help Trump. In fact, the two-party syste would give way to something better. Only the party elites would NOT want this... but after this election, even they probably do. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting