Why democracy?

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Democracy, according to Rousseau's idea of the social contract, is the subordination of the individual will to the collective will (sounds kind of like communism to me, but whatever). The idea is apparently that government decisions will be better if everyone is permitted to have a say. Why is this? Do large groups of people inherently come to a better conclusion than a smaller group of people? When the 19th Amendment was passed, the size of the electorate was doubled and yet there was no discernible impact on the outcome of elections. I frankly do not see how democracy is beneficial; since the power is more diffuse, there is less reason for any individual decision-maker to be informed or aware, which leads to huge numbers of people voting without understanding the issues, which to me invalidates the entire concept of a democratic election anyways. At this point, elections really are decided more by who has better ads and gets more favorable media exposure than anything else; it seems to me that it would be better simply to institute a lottery system. Elections would cost less and our leadership probably would be no more or less competent.

I agree, Orwell. I've heard it said that Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner. That's great if you're the wolves, but it really sucks if you're the lamb. Being able to vote isn't what makes us free; rights and civil liberties are the things that make us free. Our rights can be threatened by a dictator, obviously, but these same rights can also be threatened by majority mob rule. As was the case after 9/11 there was a massive support for illegal government wiretapping and terrorist watch lists and all sorts of things of that nature which violate the constitution. This happened under a democracy, so it can't be said that a Democracy will guarantee you'll be free. Only eternal vigilance can guarantee freedom.

I disagree with your final stance. I think that a lottery system would be less effective than our politicians for a simple reason: our politicians are smarter than our voters. Yes, the voting populace is stupid, but it is the fact that we *don't* have direct democracy or some system like that which protects us. Our leaders are advised by competent men and even though they have to deal with "voter desires" they also have to look for longer run interests to keep their jobs. Frankly, I think that if our system were purely democratic then it'd be worse, and although special interests are evil, they are likely to run the show if there were a lottery anyway as they would deal with rubes under a lottery system.

I am not going to say that democracy is an excellent system, but I do not think it is as comparatively bad as you claim.

I was feeling a bit sarcastic when I wrote that, AG, I don't really want a pure lottery system. Perhaps among the contenders for the position, we may as well use a lottery system or a rotation basis? Really, my main issue with democracy is that, from an economics standpoint, universal suffrage makes every vote worthless (decreasing marginal value) so there is no incentive for the individual to be informed. If voting was limited to a smaller group, whether it was some select group or even just a random segment of the population, voters would probably choose to be more informed t=when they do have the opportunity to vote.

Oh, voting rights lottery system. I can sort of understand that. I think both of us would be emphasizing the republican ideas of government over the democratic ones(speaking in the sense of political systems rather than parties) I still would not like it, but then again, I don't like government in the first place.

I'm not sure if a lottery that would produce random outcomes would be more optimal than our current system. Personally, I'd favor having either tests to vote (like IQ or a test with complicated knowledge about government and some math), or give people w/ more education/higher IQ/higher test score more votes. An even better system would be Robin Hanson's "Futuarchy", which involves "voting on values, betting on beliefs". In effect, the voters say what we want (so we get values), and the betting markets tell us how to best get there (and betting market becomes policy). Betting markets generally have a better record at predicting events and winners than polls, and are surprising resistant to being tampered with (ie someone who wants to skew results so we can win/look good).

Overall, I'd agree with your position that democracy isn't that great; but unfortunately, today questioning democracy is essentially anathema (as is talk of giving some people more votes than others or taking away votes from people).

Democracy is a way to have a chance to govern the governors. It's a circle government. From the governors to the people to the governors again. Like my internet connection, fast download, and an upload half that speed, but there is still an upload. It's a legal upload. Other governments, it's usually illegal to delete a leader's power, but a democracy has a way to do it without losing one's good name.

I wonder if robotocracy is the next new thing.

Sounds about right, but after a while they'll start rigging the jackpot...

Probably not, a lot of the debate is over things that are over ideas that are considered idiotic by the best of our studies, or moralistic debates that cannot be reduced in such a manner. Ideology will always demand its say and more will be upset by its passing than joyous I would imagine. Not only that, but robotocracy would only carry forward the biases of its creators anyway, if our robots were programmed by socialists then they'd act socialistic, if they were programed by traditionalists then the robots would carry forward tradition. Robots are better are analysis of data, but the issue comes down to the formulation of answers, as there are only correct answers within a human given rubric but not an objective one.

Democracy requires an active well informed and intelligent citizenry in control of the means of communication. Without that, as demonstrated by the re-election of Bush, it doesn't work.

You got that right. And you're from Finland?

No, democracy works best with those features. Bush hasn't completely obliterated our nation... yet, at least.

Although the possibility does not seem absolute yet, I'm waiting for a Bush attack on Iran and the declaration of a national emergency to forestall the coming presidential election. It probably won't happen (at least I hope not) but I don't put anything past the fear mongering oil driven neocon Republicans and the toothless Democrats.

Agreed. However, even with an intelligent and well-informed citizenry, democracy can be prone to hiccups. Democracy isn't neccessarily the best system, but it can work.
Tyranny by the majority need only be tyranny by the ignorant, stupid mob.

Even with that, it would still be rational for citizens to be ignorant on many issues (detailed budget plans for example). You could say having an informed and intelligent citizenry reduces some of the negative effects of democracy, but even then, people will still make silly election decisions (I know some fairly intelligent people who voted for Bush for what I would say legitimate reasons (i.e. not "he'll protect us from terrorists")).

I'd say democracy works best when there are more rules in place to control the government, fewer people get to vote, or requiring super majorities for all decisions.

Yes, I prefer the idea of a republic. Preferably with different levels of citizenship- everyone would have the typical civil liberties such as free enterprise, free speech, etc ad nauseum, but only certain groups would be permitted to vote and hold office. I don't like government either, but sometimes it can be a necessary evil.