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> And the Netherlands was already a democracy before the USA's Declaration of Independence They were a republic.
by BigTTYGothGF 3mo ago
> And the Netherlands was already a democracy before the USA's Declaration of Independence
They were a republic.
- karlshea 3mo agoA republic is a democracy.
- randallsquared 3mo agoIt need not be democratic in the modern, universal suffrage sense.
- stonogo 3mo agoNetherlands was not. It was a republic of oligarch-run states. They did not have even landholder suffrage until halfway through the 1800s.
- topgrain2 3mo agoYeah, “ackshually it’s a republic” is usually a case of midbrow “incorrecting” (political scientists regularly use “democracy” to label a basket of political systems that include democratic republics, it’s not just normal vulgar usage, the “pros” use it that way, too, all the time)… buuuuut this time it might be a hair worth splitting.
- ButlerianJihad 3mo agoLike the People’s Republic of China, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics? Those ones?
- ianburrell 3mo agoRepublic back then meant commonwealth with any form of government. The Dutch Republic was loose union of seven provinces. Republic changed to mean democratic government by representatives without monarch.
- true_religion 3mo agoI don't think the meaning of republic changed, it just got conflated with democracy because we often say 'Democratic Republic', which requires at least in modern (18th century and beyond) terms that the common people vote to decide political direction or policy. The US itself didn't start off very democratic, and could have stablized into a more oligarchic nation if it kept the notion of only allowing property owners to vote. Originally, land ownership wasn't a high barrier of entry, but in a more modern era corporations or oligarchs could own most of the land, and lease it out to prevent anyone else from gaining a vote.
- intrasight 3mo agoThe Republic of Venice formed in 697
- euroderf 3mo agoSan Marino claims the year 301 AD.
- BigTTYGothGF 3mo agoWhile technically correct, that doesn't prevent the Netherlands from also being one a millennium later.