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Why would the countries you listed not be democracies[1]? Despite corruption and civil liberties violations, the electoral process in each of those countries ha
by andrewfong 13y ago
Why would the countries you listed not be democracies[1]? Despite corruption and civil liberties violations, the electoral process in each of those countries has not been compromised (at least no more than it's traditionally been).
[1] I assume by democracies, you would also include constitutional republics.
- fossuser 13y agoAt least in the US there has been a subtle undermining of elections from a dependency on the organizations that fund campaigns. Lawrence Lessig talks about it here: http://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_the_republic_we_must_reclaim http://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_t...
- andrewfong 13y agoHence the "at least no more than it's traditionally been". Money in politics is an important issue, but an old problem. It's certainly not any worse than it was in the 1890s or the 1920s. Also, the problem Lessig raises is sort of weird from a democracy perspective as it arguably stems from too much free speech. That is, when speech is not free as in beer but is free as in freedom, in a market economy, the wealthiest speakers tend to crowd out the rest and disproportionately influence campaigns and politicians. So I'm not sure I'd file that as "democracy is dying" so much as "democracy is hard".
- fossuser 13y agoI think his argument is that it is worse today, largely because the cost of running a campaign has dramatically increased and that funding doesn't depend on the people, but on an extremely small subset.