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I do, when citizens have the ability to steer their nation state (i.e. the ability to vote.) On this note, I've lived in a couple states with ballot initiative

• aleph_minus_one 1y ago
  > I do, when citizens have the ability to steer their nation state (i.e. the ability to vote.) You can also vote in the shareholders meeting.
  • thewebguyd 1y ago
    You have to buy your way into voting as a shareholder. In a democracy, it's just your given right as a citizen.
    • aleph_minus_one 1y ago
      > You have to buy your way into voting as a shareholder. In a democracy, it's just your given right as a citizen. In a democratic country, only the people who have citizenship are allowed to vote. In a shareholders meeting, only the shareholders are allowed to vote. You sometimes cam buy your way into citizenship. As a shareholder, it is your given right to vote in a shareholders meeting.
      • Fraterkes 1y ago
        Even if you think there's no qualitative difference between the 2 (which I think is a deeply immature idea, but whatever), there's an obvious quantitative difference: In practice democratic voting power is much more socioeconomically spread and shared than shareholder voting power.
      • radlad 1y ago
        Shareholders receive power proportionate to their buying power. Citizens get a single vote. > You sometimes cam buy your way into citizenship. As a shareholder, it is your given right to vote in a shareholders meeting. Maybe - depending on your jurisdiction. Just like whether you have citizenship or not.
        • aleph_minus_one 1y ago
          > Shareholders receive power proportionate to their buying power. Citizens get a single vote. Historically, there did exist experiments that not each person has the same voting power (for example the Prussian "Dreiklassenwahlrecht" [three-class franchise]): > https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreiklassenwahlrecht https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreiklassenwahlrecht Depending on the amount of taxes you paid, you were assigned to one of three classes. The sizes of each of these classes were chosen so that each class paid 1/3 of the whole tax volume. The votes in each class elected representants for this class. The idea is obvious: those who pay a lot more taxes should have more influence. Thus: each citizen has the same voting power is just the "currently fashionable" implementation of democracy.
          • radlad 1y ago
            Likewise, there are companies with classes of stock, each with different voting rights. But at this point we are simply discussing semantics.
    • PaulHoule 1y ago
      You also have a "vote" as a consumer. The market could be much more responsive than a "democratic" system. For instance, say you think pesticides are a bad thing. You can get 49% of the population to vote to the ban them and what do you accomplish? Nothing No wonder people look at politics with despair. If you can get 5% of the population to eat organic food on the other hand, you've reduced pesticide use by 5%. You create trade associations, the idea of organic food spreads more widely and maybe someday you get enough support that you can change the law. That's hope.
  • _aavaa_ 1y ago
    If you have money. And the more you have the more vote matters both in practice and within the rules of the system.
• vondur 1y ago
  I think California's system is a mess. It's been overrun with private interests bankrolling ballot initiatives and steamrolling them through. Add to that the Government itself sponsoring ballet initiatives that sale bonds to finance things that people don't understand really loans and it turns into a mess. I do like the ability to remove politicians from office via ballot though.
  • impossiblefork 1y ago
    One idea that I think is reasonable is to use some kind of actual meetings. Dividing people into groups of 50 or 100. Initiatives are voted on in these groups, if they are passed they go to the next level, 1000 people. Sort of like that idea in the Yes, Minister episode about 'genuinely democratic local government'. The idea here is the tree structure is to prevent people to push initiatives other than as individuals.