Interesting story, democracy in the USA and UK. We actually have been locked in a kind of competition for over 200 years. Did you know that?
Who is the most democratic, and who will accomplish what first. For example, did you know Great Britain abolished slavery before we did? Interesting.
Anyways, that is why I was a little bothered by this website.
The subject matter doesn’t bother me, because I know the USA will never become part of the Commonwealth of Nations (anymore than they will become our 51st state–face it). But I was a little puzzled by the post by Rudolph Hucker. He writes:
I understand the Americans-are-stupid part (probably from the way we seem to talk to them). But why does he think we are the least democratic?
In the UK, they still have the House of Lords, which can delay passage of a bill for up to a year. It seems to me, for that reason alone, we are in fact more democratic than them.
Why yes, I did know that. It was in all the papers…
Because he is trying to make a political point against the US it looks like. Basically, most people who reply to Yahoo! Answers are idiots, and it was a silly question in the first place with a lot of really stupid or silly answers (we won’t join because the US ‘want to be special’? :p).
It all depends on how you define ‘democratic’. The House of Lords has pretty limited and constrained powers…really, they are a check (a very limited check) on the House of Commons. The British parliamentary system is similar to the US system (in fact, we based a lot of ours on their system, which is unsurprising since we were British before the Revolutionary War ;))…I don’t think either are more or less ‘democratic’, just different. We aren’t in any sort of competition with the Brits to be The Most Democratic™.
Well, leaving aside the ‘he’s an idiot’ angle (or he’s a troll looking to fish for outraged Americans), my guess is he has some kind of political axe to grind against the US.
ETA: BTW, the ‘best answer’ guy answered this 6 years ago…
Ah, perhaps I’m daft, but the post ends with "Canada did participate in th " and I see nothing about slavery and no way to continue reading the rest of the post.
The Electoral system, based on the states, is remarkably non-democratic. A voter in Wyoming has something like 30 times as much influence on the Presidential election as a voter in New York. The Senate, too, is non-democratic. ETA: Oops, that should have been “3” times, not “30” times. My error. Apologies.
Britain, back in the day, had such things as “rotten boroughs” and other failings. “One voter, one vote” is an ideal that neither the U.S. nor Britain live up to absolutely, because of our history and origins.
It’s a ridiculous comment. The U.S. would be in the top 5 or so “most democratic” by any reasonable standard, were it ranked among the Commonwealth nations, and frankly trying to rank Canada, the U.K., the U.S., India and Australia on who is most democratic requires arbitrary criteria anyway.
I wouldn’t call it “history and origins”. Democracy is stupid, hence why we live in a Republic. A “One voter, one vote” system, while probably not significantly different from what we have today, still raises the chances of the Tyranny of the Majority and reduces the ability of the majority of the electors to have done a proper job investigating all the candidates. We probably already have too much democracy in the American system, and are rubbing up against the tragedy of the commons.
Well, leaving aside the troll-angle and the fact that you can’t stack up countries on a scale of ‘democraticity’ when democracy has nearly as many meanings as there are democratic countries, the most charitable reading I can give the comment is that it’s inspired by the recent study arguing that in terms of political power, actual policy in the US is dictated by a wealthy minority rather than the democratic majority, making it into a kind of oligarchy.
I’d argue that ‘abolishing slavery’, while a laudable act, isn’t inherently a democratic one. It’s liberal, it’s decent, sure, but it’s only democratic if it were abolished by a democratic state.
As for the UK House of Lords, I am a fan of it (although I’d support certain reforms), but I would argue that the distinction here about democracy between the UK and the US is this: in the US, the Senate can block anything the House proposes. In the UK, the Lords can only delay for up to 13 months - the House that represents the people will always eventually get its way.
So in that sense, I would argue the UK does pip the US in democracy. In other matters however, I’ll not comment.
The Senate was created so small less populated states would have a greater voice in passing federal legislation in the union. How is that at all equivalent to affording the privileged a greater voice in The House of Lords? That it is now essentially ineffectual only strengthens the case for disbanding it.
Exactly, though one hardly needs a study to demonstrate the power of the corporatocracy and wealthy oligarchy. Call me devil’s advocate, but putting aside some of those commenters’ intentionally provocative anti-Americanism, I would posit that democracy in America is uniquely undermined by three significant factors (all three are mentioned here, normally a pretty conservative source):
[ul]
[li]Control of the political system by the wealthy and their corporate lobbyists, greatly exacerbated by the burgeoning “money is speech” meme being fostered by exactly that group. The study that you and another poster mentioned finds, to quote The Hill, “that ordinary Americans have virtually no impact whatsoever on the making of national policy in our country. The analysts found that rich individuals and business-controlled interest groups largely shape policy outcomes in the United States.”[/li][/ul]
[ul]
[li]One of the lowest voter turnout rates among industrialized countries. Again quoting the above article, “America’s turnout rate places us near the bottom of industrialized democracies. More than 90 million eligible Americans did not vote in the presidential election of 2012 and more than 120 million did not vote in the midterm elections of 2010.” Comparative numbers for other countries can be found here.[/li][/ul]
[ul]
[li]Lack of political engagement by the lower economic sectors (exacerbated by a concerted effort by some factions to discourage voting by minorities and the poor). “Electoral turnout in the United States is highly correlated with economic standing: The more affluent Americans vote in much higher proportion than the less affluent. A study by Ellen Shearer of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern found that 59 percent of 2012 voters earned $50,000 or more per year, compared to 39 percent of non-voters. Only 12 percent of non-voters earned more than $75,000, compared to 31 percent of voters.”[/li][/ul]
It was in all the papers…