Does democracy possess any fatal flaws?

Great Debates
1

I believe it was Winston Churchill who said something to the effect that Democracy was the second-worst form of government, and that the worst was every other system ever tried. But most people today are pretty confident that however imperfect it might be, democracy is self-correcting enough that it can cope with any set of circumstances.

But is this true? Is there any conceivable situation in which democracy would utterly fail in the end? Any “contradictions” that would cause it fall apart if stressed the wrong way?

2

Purist democracy would be a horrible nightmare of a system to live under for all belonging to any voting minority. It would be the tyrrany of the masses, surely the second-worst or even arguably the worst kind of system.

Fortunately there are no purist democracies. In the U.S., for example, we have a constitutional republic which (often all too hypothetically) guarantees certain rights to all which the majority cannot legally deny them.

To reply to your specific question: "Is there any conceivable situation in which democracy would utterly fail in the end?" one answer is the situation in which the majority is granted too much power by allowing them the vote on too many issues.

3

‘Democracy’ is a pretty loose description. Swiss ‘democracy’ is very differnet from American ‘democracy’

But, if Democracy aims to put the power in the hands of he people, then democracy would screw up whenever ‘the people’ collectively screw up. Or, if the people contract their power out to someone else.

The people screw up: Depends on your view of ‘screwups’. If everybody gets a vote, but most people are idiots, idiotic things can become policy. Or, if you manage to trick people into voting for something, you can misuse the power of people. So a complete moron, or a fascist hate-machine can get elected, as long as he can appear to be something nicer.

Or you can get failures where the ‘one man, one vote’ system is seen as meaning ‘I vote for what’s good for ME’; a ‘Majority Rules’ mentality. Like, popularity of something that might be really bad for a small group of people, but pleasant for the majority. Example: right now, Canadian politicians are discussing legislation to make homosexual marriages legally equivalent to straight ones. There’s a lot of demand for a ‘free vote’ in the legislative assembly, so that members can vote yes or no to the bill in line with their conscience, or with the views of the people they represent. The opposing view is that gay marriage is a matter of equality for people and of human rights, and that the decision to not subjugate the minority can’t be a ‘Majority Rules’ decision.

Often, democracies have protections in place to limit the power of the people, or their elected representatives. A written constitution, for example, might say ‘All men are created equal’, and if the country holds to that constitution, then it can’t pass laws that violate it, even if they’re popular. Some constitutions have in them procedures for amending the constitution, but usually it’s very difficult to do.

The people contract their decison-making out: They do this whenever they allow themselves to be ignorant.

For example, they might accept what they’re told in advertising, or heavily slanted news reports, or even lies from their own government. Or, they may do what’s popular, because it’s popular, without questioning it. Cultural and social factors influence peoples’ decision-making a great deal.

If you do what’s generally accepted without thinking it through for yourself, including honestly analysing the merits of the other options, you’ve delegated your power to cultural mores, and the power rests not with the people, but with old ideas.

If you do what you hear from advertisers and believe pundits or politicians without seriously questioning, you’ve delegated your power to the pundits and editors, anf the power lies with the media giants, rather than the people.

In any case where people are ill-informed, apathetic, or let someone else do their thinking for them, democracy can fail.

4

When you have a country populated with several extremely divided factions (by extreme I mean … you don’t agree with me? … I kill you) then I think democracy is doomed to fail. eg. Iraq.

5

The problem with democracy is that it relies on the voting public to know what’s good for them, which is generally a ludicrous proposition. You can’t trust people to act in their own best interest, much less the best interest of the population as a whole. That said, a democratic system with effective checks and balances won’t COMPLETELY screw anyone, as no one individual or group has enough power to seriously break things. I would say that the US system of representative democracy is near-optimal, with more direct involvement at the local level, and less at the state and national levels.

An example of the failure of democracy is Nazi Germany. If a country swings too far in one direction before the system self-corrects, you get a revolution or collapse into fascism.

6

The alternative being those wise men that know what we really need? And how are they selected?

Democracy’s flaw is that it can vote itself into very absurd positions. In that, it is a flaw of all governments. One dictator is no smarter than 270 million. The apparent strength of democracy is that it eliminates the need of trying to find out what people want, since we all already know. Of course, find that in practice. Unlike ambushed, I’m fairly confident with the idea of more direct voting. It doesn’t bother me to let people control their lives since, in a free country, we already presume that they more or less can. YMMV.

7

Since I already wrote a post today agreeing with erislover and pointing out that Hitler never was democratically elected I’ll just link to that one.

Just my 2sense

8

Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what’s the for dinner.

9

Democracy may mean that your country can go to war because other people voted for a government which does believe in the war - or the economic consequences of the war, which in turn may mean that you can get killed if you live in a country with a draft system, or you may be forced to kill other people.

What can be worse?

10

flonks: Democracies aren’t unique in that respect, they just shift who’s responsible for the war, to some extent.

11

Of course you are right. What I wanted to say is, democracy does not prevent it, it is not the remedy against everything.

12

Well, at least you are able to derive obvious pleasure from inserting your own words into my mouth and then voicing such outrage at your own absurd strawman, erislover! What part of the phrase “too much” is so difficult to grasp?

If I were as inclined to deliberate misrepresentations and strawmen as your post demonstrates you to be in this instance, I’d conclude that your admiration for “more direct voting” would doubtless include voting away the rights of any unpopular minority.

13

You call it a fucking nightmare, ambushed. I’m not sure where else you want me to go with that.

That you think this doesn’t happen now is interesting. In any election there will be a minority opinion that will lose. That’s why we have elections, so people win. That’s why we vote, so ideas conquer.

The part where I’m supposed to be happy losing power so I don’t have “too much” only to give it to some other guy on the off chance he cares about my opinion.

14

How about the fact that people are idiots? Given a choice, we would all vote for no taxes and all the benefits in the world.

When you dispurse power among people, you also dispurse accountability.

15

I don’t believe experience necessarily bears that out, msmith. People vote to raise their own taxes in local districts all the time.

16

“Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain.”

17

Does anyone who believes they live in a “Democracy” or a “Constitutional Republic” - what pretty words - really believe that they exercise any significant political power when they cast their puny, and mostly uninformed, vote on election day?

As an aside, “Consent of the governed” is a conscious fraud, in my view, no better illustrated than in that overrated series of articles known as the “Federalist Papers”. The contempt expressed by the writers for the intelligence of the common man is manifest in most of those articles, and the ideal government they envisaged was one that would keep the common man, or representatives of same, from being able to exercise any meaningful political power, as far as possible. In this, they succeeded most admirably.

Once the party or coalition of parties is in power for the prescribed period between elections, then those who have been elected to positions of power can do what they like for the next few years.

The people, the electorate, hoi polloi, have no real or significant power to restrain those whom they have elected to be their “representatives”.

So the question is meaningless once the form of government under which most of us are obliged to operate is recognised for what it is.

An Elective Dictatorship.

I do not use this descriptor in any condemnatory sense, but I believe things can be better clarified once things are accurately labelled.

To live under the belief that those transparent frauds currently described as: “Democracy” or “Constitutional Republic”, a distinction with no difference in today’s context, are the last word when it comes to governance, is no better than believing in the divine right of kings.

18

Alan Owes Bess: As it should be. The common man wields less and less power as you move from from local up to the federal level, and his competence to make decisions declines. When you have two dozen informed citizens making decisions in your town, each one has significant input and makes a real difference in local politics, presumably on issues that directly affect them and that they know about. When you have twenty million people on the national level, what does each individual know about international affairs? Thus, the power of each individual is limited to choosing who they think will best represent their issues, and the lack of individual power is why we break up into political parties.

19

Why allow this if you’ve already admitted they don’t know what they’re doing? It doesn’t make one bit of sense to me. If people can choose what they want, then let them choose what they want.

20

Just because people can’t handle the particulars of foreign policy doesn’t mean that they can’t form a general idea of what they like, such as “Hey! Let’s wallow in protectionism! No foreign involvement anywhere!” and then elect someone to handle the particulars for them, someone that’s paid to pick advisers that DO know what they’re doing.

It’s the difference between me saying “Hmm, I want peace in the middle-east. Lemme hire Bob over here to get that for me,” versus me coming up with a viable middle-east peace plan.