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Is democracy the only acceptable endgame? I worry we're mixing up ends and means. Democracy is a means, and "good government" is the end. In the last few dec

by hakfoo 3y ago

Is democracy the only acceptable endgame? I worry we're mixing up ends and means. Democracy is a means, and "good government" is the end. In the last few decades, the overall Chinese population has seen dramatic upticks on all sorts of quality-of-life measurements. It doesn't look like an obvious kleptocracy. The surveys we have, regardless of how much it can be claimed they're cooked, indicate the public is broadly happy with the government. Maybe a single-party system works for them, at least at this point in time. I'd argue if you have multiple diverse functioning government types, that's worth preserving. Ecosystem diversity is valuable, just from a perspective of "when we get the next big crisis, maybe one has better tools available to solve it." There's nothing wrong with dangling Western style democracy as an option to the Chinese-- "if and when you want to try it, here's a body of experience and we can consult", but treating it as an end-all-be-all for an audience that broadly isn't begging for it is asking for friction. This, of course, assumes a level of good faith which I suspect is delusional. The real narrative was always less about democracy and human rights and more about property rights. Saudi Arabia has a terrible human rights record, but the West feels safe enough that they're not going to nationalize their investments, so it all gets swept under the rug, alongside bits of Jamal Khashoggi's corpse.

Lio 3y ago
> Is democracy the only acceptable endgame? In my opinion, yes. Any other system of government means that you're being governed without consent and without a means to remove those in power without violence. In short, any regime without a democratic mandate is an illegitimate dictatorship. No mater how enlightened it claims to be.
- hakfoo 3y ago
  A problem is that democracy is hard to build and maintain. Even countries that are showcases for it have a hard time with keeping it stable in some situations. It requires either a lot of good faith by participants (most participants actually striving for the public good, and voters being able to disagree with an opponent, but still respectfully accept defeat) or systemic guardrails to effectively enforce good-faith style behaviour. Even with those guidelines in place, some countries are going to have a hard time with the nuts and bolts (How do you safely deliver ballots and count votes with an active insurgency? How do you campaign when only 10% of voters can read? How do you avoid a major ethnic/religious schism just being re-processed through the electoral system?) It's an aspirational goal, to be sure, but we can also respect that other systems are working reasonably well for some audiences, and in some cases might work better than a "more legitimate" democracy.
  - Lio 3y ago
    I’m afraid I don’t respect that at all. The “state” does not know best. The reason that dictators withhold the vote is the same reason they refuse to allow a free press. They are scared of criticism. If they really knew what was best for everyone it would be obvious and people would vote for them. …but it ain’t obvious, so the hang on to power by repressing anyone that points that up is up and down is down. 4211
    - hakfoo 3y ago
      > If they really knew what was best for everyone it would be obvious and people would vote for them. I'm not sure most-- or even any-- people really know what's best for everyone. It gets even more complex when it turns into what's best for one group versus another, or what's best for today comes at a cost to be paid in 5-10-20 years. It's easy to catapult yourself into office by promising people ice cream instead of broccoli. The leader you want has to be persuasive enough to convince voters they want broccoli. An autocrat can just mandate broccoli.
      - Lio 3y ago
        What makes you think the despot will tell you to eat broccoli? What if he just built a vanity project trans-fat factory and doesn’t want to loose face, so insists everyone must eat cheap trans-fats? What if the autocrat decides to block access to a free-press and to jail anyone that dares to say ice cream makes you fat? We can play what if scenarios all day but end result is always the same. In an dictatorship you can’t remove a bad actor from power or even laugh at them. In a democracy you can.
        hakfoo 3y ago
        I guess that's the opposite side of the coin I'm looking at. Being able to remove "bad actors" also means it's too easy to remove "good actors" who might brush people the wrong way. Democratic leadership will optimize for easy answers and never saying "no", because the alternative is political suicide. Imagine if Joe Biden went on TV tomorrow and said "we're taxing gasoline to USD100 per gallon to force private cars off the road. It's gonna be tough for a while, but you'll thank me in 2050 when the public transit is fully fleshed out and we hit a 1.5c climate goal." He'd be driven out of office in favour of someone who ran on a campaign of "let's roast the next generation so you can save a dime at the pump today." OTOH, Xi Jinping could probably get away with it.

by hakfoo 3y ago

Lio 3y ago

> Is democracy the only acceptable endgame? In my opinion, yes. Any other system of government means that you're being governed without consent and without a means to remove those in power without violence. In short, any regime without a democratic mandate is an illegitimate dictatorship. No mater how enlightened it claims to be.

hakfoo 3y ago
A problem is that democracy is hard to build and maintain. Even countries that are showcases for it have a hard time with keeping it stable in some situations. It requires either a lot of good faith by participants (most participants actually striving for the public good, and voters being able to disagree with an opponent, but still respectfully accept defeat) or systemic guardrails to effectively enforce good-faith style behaviour. Even with those guidelines in place, some countries are going to have a hard time with the nuts and bolts (How do you safely deliver ballots and count votes with an active insurgency? How do you campaign when only 10% of voters can read? How do you avoid a major ethnic/religious schism just being re-processed through the electoral system?) It's an aspirational goal, to be sure, but we can also respect that other systems are working reasonably well for some audiences, and in some cases might work better than a "more legitimate" democracy.
- Lio 3y ago
  I’m afraid I don’t respect that at all. The “state” does not know best. The reason that dictators withhold the vote is the same reason they refuse to allow a free press. They are scared of criticism. If they really knew what was best for everyone it would be obvious and people would vote for them. …but it ain’t obvious, so the hang on to power by repressing anyone that points that up is up and down is down. 4211
  - hakfoo 3y ago
    > If they really knew what was best for everyone it would be obvious and people would vote for them. I'm not sure most-- or even any-- people really know what's best for everyone. It gets even more complex when it turns into what's best for one group versus another, or what's best for today comes at a cost to be paid in 5-10-20 years. It's easy to catapult yourself into office by promising people ice cream instead of broccoli. The leader you want has to be persuasive enough to convince voters they want broccoli. An autocrat can just mandate broccoli.
    - Lio 3y ago
      What makes you think the despot will tell you to eat broccoli? What if he just built a vanity project trans-fat factory and doesn’t want to loose face, so insists everyone must eat cheap trans-fats? What if the autocrat decides to block access to a free-press and to jail anyone that dares to say ice cream makes you fat? We can play what if scenarios all day but end result is always the same. In an dictatorship you can’t remove a bad actor from power or even laugh at them. In a democracy you can.
      - hakfoo 3y ago
        I guess that's the opposite side of the coin I'm looking at. Being able to remove "bad actors" also means it's too easy to remove "good actors" who might brush people the wrong way. Democratic leadership will optimize for easy answers and never saying "no", because the alternative is political suicide. Imagine if Joe Biden went on TV tomorrow and said "we're taxing gasoline to USD100 per gallon to force private cars off the road. It's gonna be tough for a while, but you'll thank me in 2050 when the public transit is fully fleshed out and we hit a 1.5c climate goal." He'd be driven out of office in favour of someone who ran on a campaign of "let's roast the next generation so you can save a dime at the pump today." OTOH, Xi Jinping could probably get away with it.