4 ms·

Shame he didn't go all the way and realise it was about giving the illusion of choice, via the use of a false dialectic.

atoav 5y ago
What do you know about Popper and the environment he had been in when he wrote this idea? Let's not forget: Popper wrote this in 1945 directly after the Nazis lost the war – he, like many post-war German thinkers spent a lot of energy on pondering how a new democracy must be designed in order to never allow this quick takeover of democracy never again. I am currently living in Germany and I grew up in Austria where Popper lived. There is a lot to argue about in these nations, but we have actual choice in our votes (compared to democracies whose models pre-date Popper's thoughts, like UK or the US). I am not very worried about the stability of modern democracies that looked at what happened in the Weimar republic, understood that such a thing could also happen to their democracies and reformed their systems in order to become resilient against such threats. The US (and the UK for that matter) are not such resilient democracies, and this worries me, just like it would have worried Popper.
- jfengel 5y ago
  Can you elaborate on what Germany has done to make its democracy more resilient? I am also concerned about the state of democracy in the US, but it doesn't strike me as being similar to what happened to Weimar. Rather, I see it as a very long, slow process of combining some basic inequities in the political system with deliberate stoking of grudges among the people those inequities benefit. It took decades to get where we are. I don't believe anything can be done about it -- it's too late, and those inequities have now hardened into permanent, overwhelming thumbs on the scale. But I'd be curious to know what lessons have been learned elsewhere.
  - atoav 5y ago
    Instead of trying to explain it myself, I give you a hint where to start reading. In German there is the idea of "wehrhafte Demokratie" which translates to "defensive democracy". The Wikipedia article on that topic might give you some idea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_democracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_democracy I think the problem in the US is that none of the actors that could implement any needed systemic change has the incentives to do so...
    - mannykannot 5y ago
      I notice that the article you link to says "The United States, for example, is considered a country that uses defensive democratic tactics frequently." There seems to be an unavoidable paradox here, in that anti-democratic measures can be presented as being in accordance with defensive democracy: take the issue of election fraud, for example...
      - atoav 5y ago
        Could you elaborate? Maybe I cannot follow because I am not feom the US..
        mannykannot 5y ago
        From the post I was replying to, and the post of yours that preceded it in this thread, I take it that you consider democracy in the USA and UK to be less resilient than in Germany and Austria, and you attribute this to the latter pairs' defensive democracy. The Wikipedia article you linked to, however, claims that the US uses defensive democratic tactics frequently. I'm not saying this implies the US has a resilient democracy - I'm not sure about the link between defensive democracy and resilience, and I am not sure this claim about the US can be justified in the first place - but if this claim were true, it would appear to contradict what I take to be your thesis, as outlined in my first paragraph here. I my second paragraph, I am making the claim that there is a paradox in how the the defense of democracy can, and quite often has been, used to justify acts that do no such thing. In the US, since the 2020 elections, various states have amended voting laws, allegedly to defend democracy against electoral fraud, even though there is no evidence for any threat justifying these particular defensive measures, despite a great deal of effort being expanded in trying to find any.
    - jfengel 5y ago
      Thank you. That's very interesting. I'm put in mind of community organizations, which have the same risks. I've seen several organizations do abrupt turns where one group gains power and then cements it by rule changes. Organizations are different in that you can't just opt out of a country, but it's interesting to see the ways organizations might look to this to protect themselves. I believe one of the most important things Germany has is its assertion that "Human dignity shall be inviolable". The US does not have that. As written it's too vague to apply directly, but it does imply an ethos of protecting people that isn't usually found in the US Constitution. We resist protections, especially when they interfere with somebody's economic freedom or their freedom to persecute others when not expressly forbidden.
- lambertsimnel 5y ago
  > The US (and the UK for that matter) are not such resilient democracies, and this worries me, just like it would have worried Popper. I agree, but one way in which Germany's democracy differs from America's (and Britain's) is its use of proportional representation (whereas both the US and the UK make extensive use of the decidedly non-proportional First Past the Post). I consider this among the strengths of German democracy, but Popper didn't: > proportional representation confers, even if only indirectly, a constitutional status on political parties which they would otherwise not attain. For I can no longer choose a person whom I trust to represent me: I can choose only a party. https://www.economist.com/democracy-in-america/2016/01/31/from-the-archives-the-open-society-and-its-enemies-revisited https://www.economist.com/democracy-in-america/2016/01/31/fr... However, Popper use the term "proportional representation" to apply only to closed list proportional representation. I wonder whether even Popper's assessment of that form of proportional representation is still plausible, in light of the increasingly obvious weakness of democracies that use "majoritarian" voting systems compared to democracies using proportional representation (closed list or not). I don't suppose Germany's relatively healthy democracy is solely due to its use of proportional representation, but it does share many other constitutional virtues (such as federalism, republicanism, bicameralism and a codified constitution) with the United States, so those can't account for differences between the two countries.

atoav 5y ago

What do you know about Popper and the environment he had been in when he wrote this idea? Let's not forget: Popper wrote this in 1945 directly after the Nazis lost the war – he, like many post-war German thinkers spent a lot of energy on pondering how a new democracy must be designed in order to never allow this quick takeover of democracy never again. I am currently living in Germany and I grew up in Austria where Popper lived. There is a lot to argue about in these nations, but we have actual choice in our votes (compared to democracies whose models pre-date Popper's thoughts, like UK or the US). I am not very worried about the stability of modern democracies that looked at what happened in the Weimar republic, understood that such a thing could also happen to their democracies and reformed their systems in order to become resilient against such threats. The US (and the UK for that matter) are not such resilient democracies, and this worries me, just like it would have worried Popper.

jfengel 5y ago
Can you elaborate on what Germany has done to make its democracy more resilient? I am also concerned about the state of democracy in the US, but it doesn't strike me as being similar to what happened to Weimar. Rather, I see it as a very long, slow process of combining some basic inequities in the political system with deliberate stoking of grudges among the people those inequities benefit. It took decades to get where we are. I don't believe anything can be done about it -- it's too late, and those inequities have now hardened into permanent, overwhelming thumbs on the scale. But I'd be curious to know what lessons have been learned elsewhere.
- atoav 5y ago
  Instead of trying to explain it myself, I give you a hint where to start reading. In German there is the idea of "wehrhafte Demokratie" which translates to "defensive democracy". The Wikipedia article on that topic might give you some idea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_democracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_democracy I think the problem in the US is that none of the actors that could implement any needed systemic change has the incentives to do so...
  - mannykannot 5y ago
    I notice that the article you link to says "The United States, for example, is considered a country that uses defensive democratic tactics frequently." There seems to be an unavoidable paradox here, in that anti-democratic measures can be presented as being in accordance with defensive democracy: take the issue of election fraud, for example...
    - atoav 5y ago
      Could you elaborate? Maybe I cannot follow because I am not feom the US..
      - mannykannot 5y ago
        From the post I was replying to, and the post of yours that preceded it in this thread, I take it that you consider democracy in the USA and UK to be less resilient than in Germany and Austria, and you attribute this to the latter pairs' defensive democracy. The Wikipedia article you linked to, however, claims that the US uses defensive democratic tactics frequently. I'm not saying this implies the US has a resilient democracy - I'm not sure about the link between defensive democracy and resilience, and I am not sure this claim about the US can be justified in the first place - but if this claim were true, it would appear to contradict what I take to be your thesis, as outlined in my first paragraph here. I my second paragraph, I am making the claim that there is a paradox in how the the defense of democracy can, and quite often has been, used to justify acts that do no such thing. In the US, since the 2020 elections, various states have amended voting laws, allegedly to defend democracy against electoral fraud, even though there is no evidence for any threat justifying these particular defensive measures, despite a great deal of effort being expanded in trying to find any.
  - jfengel 5y ago
    Thank you. That's very interesting. I'm put in mind of community organizations, which have the same risks. I've seen several organizations do abrupt turns where one group gains power and then cements it by rule changes. Organizations are different in that you can't just opt out of a country, but it's interesting to see the ways organizations might look to this to protect themselves. I believe one of the most important things Germany has is its assertion that "Human dignity shall be inviolable". The US does not have that. As written it's too vague to apply directly, but it does imply an ethos of protecting people that isn't usually found in the US Constitution. We resist protections, especially when they interfere with somebody's economic freedom or their freedom to persecute others when not expressly forbidden.
lambertsimnel 5y ago
> The US (and the UK for that matter) are not such resilient democracies, and this worries me, just like it would have worried Popper. I agree, but one way in which Germany's democracy differs from America's (and Britain's) is its use of proportional representation (whereas both the US and the UK make extensive use of the decidedly non-proportional First Past the Post). I consider this among the strengths of German democracy, but Popper didn't: > proportional representation confers, even if only indirectly, a constitutional status on political parties which they would otherwise not attain. For I can no longer choose a person whom I trust to represent me: I can choose only a party. https://www.economist.com/democracy-in-america/2016/01/31/from-the-archives-the-open-society-and-its-enemies-revisited https://www.economist.com/democracy-in-america/2016/01/31/fr... However, Popper use the term "proportional representation" to apply only to closed list proportional representation. I wonder whether even Popper's assessment of that form of proportional representation is still plausible, in light of the increasingly obvious weakness of democracies that use "majoritarian" voting systems compared to democracies using proportional representation (closed list or not). I don't suppose Germany's relatively healthy democracy is solely due to its use of proportional representation, but it does share many other constitutional virtues (such as federalism, republicanism, bicameralism and a codified constitution) with the United States, so those can't account for differences between the two countries.