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Is he talking about democracy as an ideal or democracy as commonly implemented? These are two very different things.. The ideal is to give everyone the same sa

Is he talking about democracy as an ideal or democracy as commonly implemented? These are two very different things.. The ideal is to give everyone the same say in what laws should govern the society. In my view, that ideal isn't overrated. It's just basic fairness. If you have two kids, that argue for a toy, what do you do? You force them each to have it for half a time, fairly. The societies that evolved the ability to implement such fairness spend less resources warring about who should get how much power (arguing about the toy), and so spend more resources on productive activities (playing with the toy).

dirtyaura 13y ago
If you - and apparently many others in this thread - actually read the article, you would know that he is not talking about ideal vs commonly implemented democracy at all. He is talking about other institutions of free society that are in his view as important as democracy, but are usually lumped together with democracy in political speeches of the leaders of the West. These other institutions that can exists with or without democracy are judicial independence, property rights, freedom of speech and opinion and, finally, legitimate opposition. In his view, all these can exist independently, and often existed before democracy in Western European countries.
- asgard1024 13y ago
  I read his article, but I didn't get his point, and you're basically explaining the reason why. He is not correct in lumping all those together in his analysis. Maybe he could say "Western democracy". I agree that these institutions existed before democracy. But you would also be hard-pressed to find democracy without them, but it's not because democracy would require these institutions to exist. I can perfectly imagine a democracy in Islamic society with Sharia law, that doesn't have those institutions. As long as everybody can secretly vote, with equal vote, they know what they vote about, and it's impossible to restrict voting of other people by voting, it's democracy in my books. However, I don't think it would last too long. The other innovations are probably so useful for majority of people that they would very quickly (and democratically) agree on implementing them. That's why we never see anything like this in the real world (in the real world probably both things co-evolve). In other words, I see democracy vastly more important than those institutions, because implementing democracy itself will probably lead to implementing these institutions, while the opposite is not true.

dirtyaura 13y ago

If you - and apparently many others in this thread - actually read the article, you would know that he is not talking about ideal vs commonly implemented democracy at all. He is talking about other institutions of free society that are in his view as important as democracy, but are usually lumped together with democracy in political speeches of the leaders of the West. These other institutions that can exists with or without democracy are judicial independence, property rights, freedom of speech and opinion and, finally, legitimate opposition. In his view, all these can exist independently, and often existed before democracy in Western European countries.

asgard1024 13y ago
I read his article, but I didn't get his point, and you're basically explaining the reason why. He is not correct in lumping all those together in his analysis. Maybe he could say "Western democracy". I agree that these institutions existed before democracy. But you would also be hard-pressed to find democracy without them, but it's not because democracy would require these institutions to exist. I can perfectly imagine a democracy in Islamic society with Sharia law, that doesn't have those institutions. As long as everybody can secretly vote, with equal vote, they know what they vote about, and it's impossible to restrict voting of other people by voting, it's democracy in my books. However, I don't think it would last too long. The other innovations are probably so useful for majority of people that they would very quickly (and democratically) agree on implementing them. That's why we never see anything like this in the real world (in the real world probably both things co-evolve). In other words, I see democracy vastly more important than those institutions, because implementing democracy itself will probably lead to implementing these institutions, while the opposite is not true.