Democracy

From metawiki
If you don't vote you can't get the sicker

Democracy is the only political system capable of maximizing the sense of freedom and self-determination experienced by the citizens.

“Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” - Winston S. Churchill

The Churchill quote has become cliché, but for good reason. Those who dabble with alternatives always find out eventually.

Since all of the happiest countries are democracies, and there is no reason to believe that any of the inherently authoritarian alternatives would better serve their citizens in the long run, it's pretty easy to conclude that democracy represents a political best practice.

Democratic Best Practices

Within the realm of democracy, we can create Evidence-Based Best Practices that demonstrate which representation and voting systems produce the "best" government in terms of various metrics. These might include accurately reflecting the will of the majority, delivering government services efficiently and effectively, or implementing policies that successfully increase Gross National Happiness.

Methods like the one in this study that shows how the policies supported by the rich are implemented consistently more than those of the majority can be used to benchmark the health and effectiveness of democratic institutions.

Forms of Democracy

The structure of democracy can take many forms. Direct, representative, parliamentary, etc.

Voting can also take many forms. First-past-the-post and ranked choice are two options currently being debated in the US, but others exist as well.

Lottery-based representation has also been shown to reduce the drawbacks of self-selecting candidates and self-promoting elections that tend to attract the most narcissistic over the most qualified.

12 Types of Democracy Explained

Necessary for Freedom

The point is not that we need to allow every citizen to vote on every issue (direct democracy). It's that the people have a chance to vote, and the ability to replace the current political regime with another one when public opinion demands it.

This is a necessary part of freedom and balance of power. It also has to be possible in practice, not just in theory. When the levers of democracy are stacked too much in favor of entrenched powers, people lose trust in the institution of democracy even if there is a theoretical legal path to regime change.

Undermining Democracy Isn't Edgy

The rising popularity of anarcho-capitalism among the crypto-bro class has led many to explore alternatives to democracy. Most tend towards the creation of Network States that resemble the corpo compounds depicted in their favorite cyberpunk novels, but somehow utopian instead of dystopian, as every single one of those authors meant to portray it.

“Be careful. When a democracy is sick, fascism comes to its bedside, but it is not to inquire about its health.” -Albert Camus

For those that see themselves as the all-powerful rulers of those corporations, it represents a society that is free from the balance of power provided by government. It will give them the freedom to experiment with new technologies and forms of social organization without the slow and uncertain process of having to build majority consensus for your ideas. For fans of the Fallout games, this is basically the Vault-Tec master plan. [1]

The failures of American democracy are given as the biggest evidence for these arguments, that happen to be promoted by the American oligarch billionaires who would benefit the most from from them. They rarely mention the relative success that other countries without 2-party gridlock have been able to make, since that success is defined by their happiness and balance of power, not their ability to produce bigger billionaires.

Part of the rationale for this is due to the recognition of the power of self-organizing complex systems and scientific experimentation. Centralized government is the antithesis of the decentralized organization of complex systems. Capitalism works so well because it is decentralized and allows many different companies to experiment with new organizational structures and compete in the marketplace. What if governments could work the same way? What if we break up the government monopolies, let people create their own regional governments with whatever rules they can come up with, and people will naturally move to the ones that work the best. It's the free market, but for governments! Like most utopian visions, it only sounds great if you ignore all of the logistics.

Crypto-bros use accelerationism and effective altruism to justify these experiments ethically, arguing that the dismantling of the democratic state will allow more rapid development of technologies that will save lives and improve society. [2] The faster we can develop those technologies, the sooner future people can reap their rewards, therefore it is the most utilitarian thing to do. This perspective neglects the fact that if every generation does this, then each generation is sacrificing their happiness in order work feverishly producing and adopting new technologies focused on benefitting their future people. In this scenario, nobody ever gets to sit back and enjoy the fruits of their hard work by living the good life. Except for the trust fund babies, presumably.

No matter how well you think this is going to play out, it is authoritarian by definition. You cannot increase freedom by taking away self-determination, since the freedom value of political self-determination outweighs any possible gains in the personal or economic space. Any increased freedom you could gain from being able to move between societies would be offset by the masses who would be denied that freedom by economic constraints and the innate desire to be near family. The only people whose freedom is increased by the network state is billionaires, who already suffer from a dangerous lack of restraint.

The solution to preserving democracy and freedom, breaking political gridlock, and creating effective government that can truly be responsive to the problems of the future, is to create a new consensus about our vision for that future and how we work towards it. The issue with democracy is that culture hasn't made up its mind about which way to go. The solution isn't to let an authoritarian dictate that for us, or to create thousands of little authoritarians that compete for a solution. It is to get a supermajority consensus about how we should solve our biggest problems.

To that end, the first problem that needs to be solved is how to ensure that the will of that supermajority is enacted by our representatives. This will require reforming the 2-party system and the incentive structures of having to compete for fundraising dollars with no limitations.

First, let's look at a sensible presentation of the pros and cons of democracy.

Is democracy really the best form of government?


Now, let's see what some our tech billionaires think about democracy.

In this podcast, Ezra Klein and James Pogue have an excellent conversation about the political and cultural forces behind the Broligarchy.

MAGA's Big Tech Divide


This video is one of the best introductions to the anti-democracy philosophy of the crypto-bros.

DARK GOTHIC MAGA: How Tech Billionaires Plan to Destroy America


The Groypers are another anti-democratic online movement that evolved from trolling culture into overt racism, fascism, and Christian Nationalism. They steer a significant portion of the conversation on social media due to their inherently outrage-friendly takes on the issues that work just as well for the algorithm as they work poorly in their dating lives.

Groypers


Hostile Government Takeover (EDM Remix)

Breaking the Two-Party System

Perhaps a parliamentary system would've been better then?

Despite George Washington's warning in his farewell address, the American two-party system seems to have created an insurmountably entrenched neoliberal establishment. This is one of the most common reasons given by those who work to undermine it, or opt-out while waiting for someone else to start a revolution.

What we often fail to realize is that the actual parties are made up of a handful of local volunteers in every locality across the nation. If a different handful of like-minded activists decide to join their local party organizations, they can quickly gain a majority and hence determine the future direction of that party.

We have already seen this happen in the Republican party, with the Tea Party of the Obama years moving them significantly towards libertarianism and anti-establishmentarianism, and then the MAGA movement taking over a few years later. The Republican party is completely different today because handfuls of highly motivated people across many localities joined their local party organizations and voted to change its direction.

Now, what if the sane people did that? Granted it's more difficult because they tend to have more friends, family that talks to them, and generally richer lives that leave less time for volunteering at the local precinct. Political grifters make this stuff their job, how can people with real jobs compete?

Before we can implement structural changes like ranked choice voting, banning gerrymandering, getting rid of the electoral college, and others that would fundamentally change the two-party balance of power, we must start by taking over the local party apparatuses and filling them with people who support these policies. If we don't have enough volunteers yet to accomplish this, then we need to have one-on-one conversations to spread this meme until we do.

In this video, Adam Conover makes a similar point. Civic organizations, unions, and party participation used to be how progress got made. We need to rebuild these communities to take the 2-party system back from the oligarchs.

The Secret History Behind Why the Dems Keep Losing


Duverger's Law explains why first-past-the-post voting results in 2-party dominance.

Duverger's Law and the Two-Party System Explained


Tweak the Vote - Radiolab

Democratic Music

A vote was taken and these won. Songs from the Top 50 Songs for Democracy & Voting Playlist.

Willie Nelson - Vote 'em Out


Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band - No Matter Who You Vote For The Government Always Gets In


Patti Smith - People Have the Power


Phil Ochs - Days of Decision


DEVO - Freedom of Choice


Dolly Parton - The 19th Amendment