4 ms·

Democracy is an emergent property of a complex political system.

visakanv 12y ago
What do you mean by that? When I read "X is an emergent property of a complex Y", I can't help but interpret it as "something that sounds smart but doesn't actually explain anything".
- bayesianhorse 12y ago
  How do you define democracy? By the institutions? By elections? Turns out, lots of antidemocratic systems have elections, I would even argue a modern dictatorship should have as many elections and referendums as humanly possible. One democratic and one antidemocratic nation might have very similar constitutions, and institutions. Is it then about human rights and freedoms? Human rights are impossible to implement perfectly. There are always compromises. For example, if you want people not to hurt, kill and steal from each other, you better tax them to finance some kind of justice system. But taxation is a violation of the right to property, and policing restricts all sorts of freedoms. What we call "democratic countries" just have a "better" compromise than antidemocratic ones. Democracy being an emergent property solves all sorts of conundrums. Freedoms, and the protection thereof are essential to enable free and fair elections. These free elections are necessary to maintain control of the state aparatus which is necessary to guarantee these freedoms. An emergent property is hard to construct. We've seen how difficult it can be to establish a democratic system from the outside (Afghanistan), and how easy (Germany). The necessary parts of a working democracy (and what are these, anyway?) seem to depend on the other parts to work. But the general attitude is "Let's just have open elections, and everything is peachy!" And in a more subtle manner, in Europe people start to view "number of referendums" as the only measure to compare "democracticness".
  - atmosx 12y ago
    > But taxation is a violation of the right to property, and policing restricts all sorts of freedoms. That's true only if you are 'liberal' (to the extreme). Taxation is what gets you public health, schools, streets in places where you go once a year. It's what keeps remote villages connected to the mainland. In a sense, it's what society is all about. Otherwise we would be still living in the jungle like monkeys. So since your view is open to interpretation, better be cautious using strong terms like if you're talking about maths IMHO e.g. "[...]taxation is a violation of the right to property [..]"
    - bayesianhorse 12y ago
      If you read very closely, I said taxation and policing are necessary for a good compromise. If a government takes away people's money, then their right to property is violated, in my (not that liberal) view. But I just require very good reasoning and solid participatory control over that "taking away". Russia for example regularly expropriates some citizens, and always with an outwardly reasonable and legal justification. But in Russia there is no participatory control over the instutions doing this...
      - tormeh 12y ago
        The right to property is granted by the government. Your rights are the claims you can back with violence, and as long as you leave the violence to the police your rights will be defined by the government.
    - aianus 12y ago
      > That's true only if you are 'liberal' (to the extreme) No, it's quite literally true. Taxation is armed men taking your money by force. We've just agreed that it's worth it to violate property rights to some degree for the greater good.
      - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
        From its city-state inception, taxation is you giving money to the state, so the state ensures that armed men don't come and take your money by force. 10,000 years ago you were completely welcome to live outside of the city-state if you wished where everything is taken and kept by force; you'd just have a shorter/harder life at it.
      - michaelt 12y ago
        Property rights don't exist in a vacuum - they're made by us humans in our heads, just like intellectual property. Get rid of the government and you could take my house just by showing up with a bigger gun than me. Only thing I could do is get together with my friends and neighbours to form an armed gang for mutual property rights enforcement, AKA a government.

What do you mean by that? When I read "X is an emergent property of a complex Y", I can't help but interpret it as "something that sounds smart but doesn't actually explain anything".

bayesianhorse 12y ago
How do you define democracy? By the institutions? By elections? Turns out, lots of antidemocratic systems have elections, I would even argue a modern dictatorship should have as many elections and referendums as humanly possible. One democratic and one antidemocratic nation might have very similar constitutions, and institutions. Is it then about human rights and freedoms? Human rights are impossible to implement perfectly. There are always compromises. For example, if you want people not to hurt, kill and steal from each other, you better tax them to finance some kind of justice system. But taxation is a violation of the right to property, and policing restricts all sorts of freedoms. What we call "democratic countries" just have a "better" compromise than antidemocratic ones. Democracy being an emergent property solves all sorts of conundrums. Freedoms, and the protection thereof are essential to enable free and fair elections. These free elections are necessary to maintain control of the state aparatus which is necessary to guarantee these freedoms. An emergent property is hard to construct. We've seen how difficult it can be to establish a democratic system from the outside (Afghanistan), and how easy (Germany). The necessary parts of a working democracy (and what are these, anyway?) seem to depend on the other parts to work. But the general attitude is "Let's just have open elections, and everything is peachy!" And in a more subtle manner, in Europe people start to view "number of referendums" as the only measure to compare "democracticness".
- atmosx 12y ago
  > But taxation is a violation of the right to property, and policing restricts all sorts of freedoms. That's true only if you are 'liberal' (to the extreme). Taxation is what gets you public health, schools, streets in places where you go once a year. It's what keeps remote villages connected to the mainland. In a sense, it's what society is all about. Otherwise we would be still living in the jungle like monkeys. So since your view is open to interpretation, better be cautious using strong terms like if you're talking about maths IMHO e.g. "[...]taxation is a violation of the right to property [..]"
  - bayesianhorse 12y ago
    If you read very closely, I said taxation and policing are necessary for a good compromise. If a government takes away people's money, then their right to property is violated, in my (not that liberal) view. But I just require very good reasoning and solid participatory control over that "taking away". Russia for example regularly expropriates some citizens, and always with an outwardly reasonable and legal justification. But in Russia there is no participatory control over the instutions doing this...
    - tormeh 12y ago
      The right to property is granted by the government. Your rights are the claims you can back with violence, and as long as you leave the violence to the police your rights will be defined by the government.
  - aianus 12y ago
    > That's true only if you are 'liberal' (to the extreme) No, it's quite literally true. Taxation is armed men taking your money by force. We've just agreed that it's worth it to violate property rights to some degree for the greater good.
    - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
      From its city-state inception, taxation is you giving money to the state, so the state ensures that armed men don't come and take your money by force. 10,000 years ago you were completely welcome to live outside of the city-state if you wished where everything is taken and kept by force; you'd just have a shorter/harder life at it.
    - michaelt 12y ago
      Property rights don't exist in a vacuum - they're made by us humans in our heads, just like intellectual property. Get rid of the government and you could take my house just by showing up with a bigger gun than me. Only thing I could do is get together with my friends and neighbours to form an armed gang for mutual property rights enforcement, AKA a government.