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Yes, so he's redefined democracy to refer to some sort of Chomskyian utopia which doesn't exist anywhere. Switzerland has referendums on everything, so yes the

Yes, so he's redefined democracy to refer to some sort of Chomskyian utopia which doesn't exist anywhere. Switzerland has referendums on everything, so yes they have raised taxes sometimes, but they also have very local government and their canton's have spent years engaged in vicious tax competition that at times got so intense some of the local governments started losing money...

f00_ 9y ago
I think you're getting hung up on "tax day should be happy because we're showing solidarity with our fellow citizens". If you have any resources to link to me about Switzerland's politics/economic history please cough it up. I'm interested. Democracy isn't a clearly defined concept, there are competing theories. Namely the madisonian and the jeffersonian, more recently the battle between deweyite and the Walter Lippmann variety. I mean aristotle was basically right, he saw the solution was a social democracy and a welfare state
js8 9y ago
No, he didn't redefine meaning of "democracy". It's literally the original meaning of the word - governance* by people or citizens. (*Better word than "government".) Although today we understand citizenship in a broader sense than ancient Greeks. And you can easily measure it, you just ask honest questions what people want, and compare it to what the government gives them. Having referendums doesn't completely imply democracy, although it is quite close in free societies like Switzerland. I think this is sometimes confusing, because people who are really pro-democratic (in the above sense), like Chomsky or me, hold two moral stances at once, and those stances can be contradictory. Kinda like "doublethink" but well-intentioned. The first stance is the prodemocratic stance, that the society should decide things in democratic manner. The second stance is a personal moral view. So for example, I can be personally for more taxation (2nd stance), but I have to accept the will of the democratic majority, which is for less taxation (1st stance). The reason why these are not really in contradiction is because they operate on different levels. What people (and that includes, I think, you) find confusing about this, is the fact that sometimes we have to defend democratic will of the majority even if it contradicts our own personal moral stance (in other words, we can hope to convince others to eventually accept our position in majority, but we cannot force our minority opinion on them). For people, who think their moral stance trumps everybody else's, this is irrational nonsense. So in this interpretation, presumably Chomsky has his own opinion about taxes, but it may differ from the democratic view of the majority of voters, which may well result in tax competition and such.

f00_ 9y ago

I think you're getting hung up on "tax day should be happy because we're showing solidarity with our fellow citizens". If you have any resources to link to me about Switzerland's politics/economic history please cough it up. I'm interested. Democracy isn't a clearly defined concept, there are competing theories. Namely the madisonian and the jeffersonian, more recently the battle between deweyite and the Walter Lippmann variety. I mean aristotle was basically right, he saw the solution was a social democracy and a welfare state

js8 9y ago

No, he didn't redefine meaning of "democracy". It's literally the original meaning of the word - governance* by people or citizens. (*Better word than "government".) Although today we understand citizenship in a broader sense than ancient Greeks. And you can easily measure it, you just ask honest questions what people want, and compare it to what the government gives them. Having referendums doesn't completely imply democracy, although it is quite close in free societies like Switzerland. I think this is sometimes confusing, because people who are really pro-democratic (in the above sense), like Chomsky or me, hold two moral stances at once, and those stances can be contradictory. Kinda like "doublethink" but well-intentioned. The first stance is the prodemocratic stance, that the society should decide things in democratic manner. The second stance is a personal moral view. So for example, I can be personally for more taxation (2nd stance), but I have to accept the will of the democratic majority, which is for less taxation (1st stance). The reason why these are not really in contradiction is because they operate on different levels. What people (and that includes, I think, you) find confusing about this, is the fact that sometimes we have to defend democratic will of the majority even if it contradicts our own personal moral stance (in other words, we can hope to convince others to eventually accept our position in majority, but we cannot force our minority opinion on them). For people, who think their moral stance trumps everybody else's, this is irrational nonsense. So in this interpretation, presumably Chomsky has his own opinion about taxes, but it may differ from the democratic view of the majority of voters, which may well result in tax competition and such.