5 ms·

Many of the structures that make up our society (jails, taxes, laws, rulers) were not "our" creation, but the creation of kings. When those kings were deposed,

• rdl 13y ago
  What are structures that make up our society that were not creations of kings? (i.e. things created in the last hundred or two years, under democracy). Are these any less difficult to change? Fiat-money Central Banks mostly were created under democracies, and seem quite resistant to change. Social-welfare programs. Anything related to lobbying. I think the razor points to "institutions are highly resistant to change", not anything specific to monarchy vs. democracy.
  • chc 13y ago
    I don't think moxie is suggesting that they are durable because of their origin, but something more along the lines of what you're saying. I think the point is that they aren't the sort of thing a modern democracy would come up with on its own, but they're very hard to get rid of once you've allowed them in. (Not meaning to put words in anyone's mouth — just offering the thought the way my brain processed it.)
    • sliverstorm 13y ago
      Maybe I've just been wholly indoctrinated, but I don't see how laws are the sort of thing that wouldn't have been created. From what I can tell, any group of humans stuck together for a time comes up with rules, and laws are simply the codification of these rules.
      • AnthonyMouse 13y ago
        I think you can reasonably distinguish between having laws and having a criminal justice system as currently implemented. For example, you can have laws without having police officers or prosecutors or prisons. This is effectively what the civil court system does. That does leave the question of what to do with those who commit the most serious crimes like rape and murder, but those are a small minority of the crimes currently prosecuted and are generally not the ones that best exemplify the failure of the existing justice system.
        • sliverstorm 13y ago
          you can have laws without having police officers or prosecutors or prisons How do you enforce laws without enforcers?
          • lmm 13y ago
            The law can be enforced by nonprofessionals. It's inefficient but possible.
• john_b 13y ago
  In some ways the prison system in the U.S. seems to be worse precisely because it is supported by a democratic society. If prisoners are tortured under a king, their barbaric treatment can easily be associated with the cruelty of the king. This connection creates a risk of revolt, and a sensible king will be mindful of it. In a democratic society with a Kafkaesque prison system, torture of prisoners is not as easily associated with any one person's cruelty. Because most people are optimistic and don't like to believe that several hundred million of their neighbors would silently condone the torture of a whole class of people, it's easy for lazy minds to consider prisoner torture acceptable, necessary, justified, and so on to whatever stronger beliefs these individuals may hold. I'm not saying that prisoners would fare any better in a non-democratic society, but how people think of prisoner mistreatment would definitely be different.
  • moxie 13y ago
    Totally. I think one of the most pernicious things about ineffective but reaffirming processes like voting is that it's easy to conclude that if we don't change things, we must not have wanted them to change. Hypothetically, we believe in justice and freedom (and other good things and not bad things), or we would not have formed a democracy. Since we freedom-loving, democratic people would naturally act to end all oppression, it follows that if a policy, law or practice does not change then it must not truly oppress people.
  • ddonnelly 13y ago
    Preferential voting helps a lot to resolve this problem.