When Democracy Is the Wrong Tool

[billroper]

Democracy is, as Winston Churchill once said, "the worst system, except for all the others." In terms of government, I don't have much doubt that this is true. But sometimes, the whole concept of voting is applying the wrong tool to solve the particular problem that you're dealing with.

Voting is a good way to solve a problem when there are many people who are being affected by what's being voted upon and when there's no clear consensus solution to what the right solution to the problem is, nor any time to continue the discussion until a consensus is reached. (Yes, I know that you and I know what the right solution is and it's only those idiots out there who are completely incapable of reasoning logically who think otherwise...) But when you're trying to develop a solution, simply casting a vote doesn't do anything to help develop the correct answer. It says what you believe the correct answer to be, but it doesn't convey to the other members of the group anything about why you believe that answer to be correct.

Most people that you or I deal with aren't stupid. They may be ignorant, in that they don't have all of the facts that they might need to have in order to reach a correct answer. There are subjects on which I'm certainly ignorant. But ignorance is easier to correct than stupidity is, assuming that there are any actual facts to be discussed. (In the absence of factual data, we're frequently doomed to twist in the wind, since it's much harder to get to an answer when the facts are in dispute.)

What I'm trying -- and perhaps failing -- to say here is that I don't care what you think nearly so much as I care why you think it. I'm unlikely to learn anything from the former, but I may well learn something from the latter.

And I'd rather not be ignorant. I'd rather be right.

Even if what I believe is right tomorrow is not the same thing that I believe is right today.

Comments

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Right and wrong are concepts not often brought into the political arena. People say they bring them in all the time, but they have their own version of what "right" and "wrong" are. And, underlying their stated philosophy is sometimes a radically different worldview that they'd rather people didn't know about.

Say, for example, tax cuts vs. tax increases. Lots of people consider tax cuts to be A Good Thing, but they've got several different reasons -- they don't believe the government should have their money, they believe in the private sector, they're in the private sector and want money that's currently going to government programs to come to them instead, etc. On the other hand, taxes pay for many services which a lot of people need, many of which are simply not done as well if the profit motive is involved. And that's not even getting into income vs. business taxes, the estate ("death") tax, progressive vs. regressive, sales/gas/other consumption-based taxes, etc.

I didn't learn anything in my useless Civics courses in school. Pretty much anything and everything I know about politics and political philosophy came from getting myself hip-deep in it. Unfortunately, that's not something a lot of people are going to do. Even more unfortunately, a lot of 'em will dip in a toe, and then believe they've gone in hip-deep.

[smallship1.livejournal.com]

Democracy is a lousy system which we're stuck with because of that thing in your Declaration of Independence about all humans being created equal. If you'd just kept to a rigidly defined social hierarchy things would run sooo much more smoothly... :)

The answer to the question "why do you think A?" is likely, at least in my case, to be "because I think B and C and A follows from that." If you trace it back far enough (probably having to resort to hypnosis) you might find the root of the belief is a completely unrelated event somewhen in my childhood that made me think Z. Sometimes it's simpler. I think democracy is a lousy system because every single government that my country has had since I have been old enough to know what a government was has been proved either corrupt, incompetent, or both, without even one exception. I don't have names and dates in order, but I remember reading or hearing about it on a regular basis since I was in school. On the other hand, I think we're stuck with it because I believe in that bit of the Declaration, and I believe that if Commander Vimes gets the vote, Nobby Nobbs *has* to have the vote as well no matter how certain we are he'll misuse it. Why I believe those things...I don't know.

[madfilkentist]

The question of who should have the vote and the question of what things are proper subjects of voting are two different things. Some things may not be voted in, no matter how many people want them (at least short of 2/3 of Congress and 3/4 of the states), because of that thing in the Bill of Rights saying "Congress shall make no law ..."

[awfulhorrid.livejournal.com]

Voting is a great thing ... most of the time. Although of course when you put up say, basic human rights (and already we must pause and say: Define these please) ... well, I pretty sure some things shouldn't be put to a vote!

David Gerrold has a great bit in one of this books about a class room of students where the teacher asked "How can we determine the sex of this cat?" To which one of the kids suggested voting. The teacher agreed to this idea (probably just to demonstrate this very idea) and they all voted that the cat was a male, which they then named 'Pete'. Several weeks later, Pete had kittens. (The tag line to the story was "So much for Democracy.")

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

I invented a much better system of government than democracy as the background for a fantasy novel I might write someday. Imagine a big, fairly bureaucratic empire, somewhat like Rome. At each level of authority, when people report to their boss, they do it under the influence of a magic lie-detector spell, so the boss will know if they are incompetent or corrupt. At the top, the emperor is checked by reporting (in formal public rituals) to the high priest.

Best run place you could imagine, ever, until someone manages to replace the artifact that verifies that the emperor is truthful and sane with a fake just as said emperor goes bonkers...


To be a little closer to Bill's point, though, as I see it the proper function of voting in a democracy isn't to make regular decisions about how the country should operate, it's to act as a check on the people who are running things. Elect people; if they do a bad job, elect different ones; if they ignore an issue that the people are really seriously exercised about, initiative and referendum allows the people to act directly, but it needs to be hard enough for the citizens to bring a citizens' initiative to referendum that it doesn't happen too frequently or lightly. Unfortunately, the whole concept is predicated on the idea of a well-informed, well-educated electorate; as Jefferson told us, with an ignorant populace the results are undesirable. Might just as well try your luck with a king. (The king bit is my thought, not AFAIK Jefferson's.)

[backrubbear.livejournal.com]

What I'm trying -- and perhaps failing -- to say here is that I don't care what you think nearly so much as I care why you think it. I'm unlikely to learn anything from the former, but I may well learn something from the latter.

Democracy, at its purest, requires an educated populace. This was presumed in the original Greek version.

Things that are less stated, but seem presumed is that you have a commonality of belief. Given the same set of facts, we can reach differing conclusions based on our beliefs. This may include morality, but it may include other things as well.

The other thing is that the population needs to be small enough to sustain a commonality of belief. This works okay in a greek city-state of yore, but I can't see how that'd ever work today. I suspect that's an argument further in the Irony of Democracy, but I haven't gotten that far in the book.