3 ms·

Direct democracy was a bad idea.

coldtea 8y ago
For whom? A representative democracy could raise (or low) taxes 20x as easily. A non-democratic state, even more easily.
- tialaramex 8y ago
  For basically everyone? Direct democracy pretends that you just have this whole bunch of unrelated decisions, and so it lets you vote "Yes, everybody should get $10" and "No, nobody should pay for that extra $10" and then be _outraged_ that the result is economically incoherent even though that's _your_ incoherent policy at work. It's a footgun. Methods of government vary in how many wise people you need for good decisions. For example an autocracy can work well with just one wise person, so long as they're the autocrat. Under Direct Democracy, more than half of all people need to _agree_ on a decision so you're going to need fully half your people to be wise or the outcomes will be awful. Good luck with that.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    >It's a footgun. Methods of government vary in how many wise people you need for good decisions. For example an autocracy can work well with just one wise person, so long as they're the autocrat I guess you can see how this is more of a foot canon...
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > Direct democracy pretends that you just have this whole bunch of unrelated decisions, and so it lets you vote "Yes, everybody should get $10" and "No, nobody should pay for that extra $10" and then be _outraged_ that the result is economically incoherent even though that's _your_ incoherent policy at work. Representative democracy does that too, as is evident from watching. Congress. And non-democratic systems tend to end up with the ruling class deciding “We should get $x, And everybody else should be taxed to pay for it”, which while more fiscally coherent, isn't actually better from the perspective of anyone outside the ruling class. > For example an autocracy can work well with just one wise person, so long as they're the autocrat. And as long as they are not only wise, but unusually deficient in drive to serve their own self-interest. Unfortunately, it turns out that it's fairly hard to find people with the latter quality a d assure they become the autocrat; democracies, rather than relying on electors avoiding serving their self interest, rely on them actively striving to, which turns out is much more common.

For whom? A representative democracy could raise (or low) taxes 20x as easily. A non-democratic state, even more easily.

tialaramex 8y ago
For basically everyone? Direct democracy pretends that you just have this whole bunch of unrelated decisions, and so it lets you vote "Yes, everybody should get $10" and "No, nobody should pay for that extra $10" and then be _outraged_ that the result is economically incoherent even though that's _your_ incoherent policy at work. It's a footgun. Methods of government vary in how many wise people you need for good decisions. For example an autocracy can work well with just one wise person, so long as they're the autocrat. Under Direct Democracy, more than half of all people need to _agree_ on a decision so you're going to need fully half your people to be wise or the outcomes will be awful. Good luck with that.
- coldtea 8y ago
  >It's a footgun. Methods of government vary in how many wise people you need for good decisions. For example an autocracy can work well with just one wise person, so long as they're the autocrat I guess you can see how this is more of a foot canon...
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > Direct democracy pretends that you just have this whole bunch of unrelated decisions, and so it lets you vote "Yes, everybody should get $10" and "No, nobody should pay for that extra $10" and then be _outraged_ that the result is economically incoherent even though that's _your_ incoherent policy at work. Representative democracy does that too, as is evident from watching. Congress. And non-democratic systems tend to end up with the ruling class deciding “We should get $x, And everybody else should be taxed to pay for it”, which while more fiscally coherent, isn't actually better from the perspective of anyone outside the ruling class. > For example an autocracy can work well with just one wise person, so long as they're the autocrat. And as long as they are not only wise, but unusually deficient in drive to serve their own self-interest. Unfortunately, it turns out that it's fairly hard to find people with the latter quality a d assure they become the autocrat; democracies, rather than relying on electors avoiding serving their self interest, rely on them actively striving to, which turns out is much more common.