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>BTW, there are no true democracies in the world today as far as I know. Thank goodness. So what's the difference between a representative republic and a democ

• DanielBMarkham 18y ago
  Yes. The last true democracy was Athens, I believe. At least well-known true democracy. In a representative republic, we elect people who then make decisions for us. Much better system for a lot of reasons. One reason is that crowds have a tendency to be very emotional and fickle.
  • gaius 18y ago
    The truth that no-one in mainstream politics will acknowledge is that democracy is fundamentally incompatible with a universal franchise. People can vote things for themselves out of proportion to their own contribution or risk. It's valid to wonder, say, if people who aren't net contributors to the public purse should have a say in how it's spent.
    • DanielBMarkham 18y ago
      I wonder if a lot of this is simply a lack of good knowledge on what the differences are and how each system is flawed to one degree or another. As in this thread, most people don't know the difference between a democracy and a representative republic, or why a bicameral legislature has certain values over a unicameral one. As you point out, even in a representative republic, it becomes easily possible for representatives to compete to form voting blocks in an effort to get more resources than other voting blocks. It doesn't take very long for the system to begin eating itself. "funadmentally incompatible" seems a little extreme to me, but I'll agree there are worrying tendencies.