The only way Democracy works is if you disenfranchise anyone without a vested interest in the long term and set minimum standards around wisdom.
It should be a narrow body of eligible voters.
Honestly the best scenario is probably something like county councils are the voter pool for Federal elections. That might work.
It should be a narrow body of eligible voters.
Honestly the best scenario is probably something like county councils are the voter pool for Federal elections. That might work.
> I do like the original constitutional plan, though, of citizens being represented by the House and states by the Senate.
Sounds great!
Even centrists should like it because it would result in more moderate swings in leadership
Sounds great!
Even centrists should like it because it would result in more moderate swings in leadership
I think there's a place for Democratic representation. One of the benefits of it is that you don't need to have a bloody war every time the king or one of his sons turns out to be a knob. You just wait a few years and everyone goes yeah that guy sucked and votes for someone else.
I mean really, both monarchy and voting for a representative involve a bunch of people getting together to decide who's going to be the next king, it's just that in one case it's a war contest and then another case it's a popularity contest...
The one upside of not having regular war contests is war actually sucks a lot and only really shows who's better at killing the enemy. Of course the downsides are that the cities end up crowded with all the wannabe elites because living in capital cities isn't so dangerous as it might be otherwise.
The upside of making it a popularity contest is that you never have anyone that's that unpopular for that long. The downside making it popularity contest is that there's absolutely no reason to believe that popularity even remotely relates to any practical skill.
To give the devil his due, the ability to wage war is much closer to a practical skill required in statecraft, and constantly infighting has the benefit of giving the elite classes something to go kill themselves in, helping to keep it from getting to oversized. Also, if you go back to Rome, the Roman empire was constantly being overthrown by people from within its own military because those people were at least competent in one thing. It was actually once an era of relative peace arrived that the caliber of people overthrowing the Roman emperor just weren't high enough to effectively rule...
I mean really, both monarchy and voting for a representative involve a bunch of people getting together to decide who's going to be the next king, it's just that in one case it's a war contest and then another case it's a popularity contest...
The one upside of not having regular war contests is war actually sucks a lot and only really shows who's better at killing the enemy. Of course the downsides are that the cities end up crowded with all the wannabe elites because living in capital cities isn't so dangerous as it might be otherwise.
The upside of making it a popularity contest is that you never have anyone that's that unpopular for that long. The downside making it popularity contest is that there's absolutely no reason to believe that popularity even remotely relates to any practical skill.
To give the devil his due, the ability to wage war is much closer to a practical skill required in statecraft, and constantly infighting has the benefit of giving the elite classes something to go kill themselves in, helping to keep it from getting to oversized. Also, if you go back to Rome, the Roman empire was constantly being overthrown by people from within its own military because those people were at least competent in one thing. It was actually once an era of relative peace arrived that the caliber of people overthrowing the Roman emperor just weren't high enough to effectively rule...
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Your model isn't representative of what history tells us.
In reality, merchants are typically at often odds with royalty and nobility.
The ming dynasty in china restricted trade because they were suspicious of the rising power of merchants. The tokogawa shogunate after the sengoku period in Japan locked down merchants. The Ancien Régime of France before the french revolution locked down on the merchant class. The English clamped down on the merchant classes in the Tudor period (though admittedly the English was the most democratic country in the world at the time). The Venician republic had a powerful merchant class before the goverment of the time decided "oh, we're the ones in charge and we want to keep it that way" and so essentially locked everything down into something closer resembling a nobility.
I should also mention that corporations are a strictly state construct, so just as the state introduced them about 400 years ago, it could just as easily abolish them. The corporations cannot by themselves abolish the state. The power dynamic is clear, especially in a monarchy or other autocracy where there is no discussion over who is in charge.
Contrast with the many ways corporations can influence the permanent state and democratic republics. It's well known that regulators often get jobs in the companies they regulate (or come from the companies they regulate), so contrary to a permanent nobility, the powers of government employees can be influenced by the companies they regulate. It's well known now that especially in places like America, politicians spend far more time making phone calls to solicit campaign contributions than they do on ruling, and so if megacorps can arrange to either get its employees to donate to get past campaign contribution limits or just fund stuff like superpacs that get around campaign finance laws, democratically elected officials cam easily be bought.
So it isn't remotely reasonable to assume that democracy is required or even preferred if you want to limit the power of the rich or corporations, and the permanent state under democracy may be just as effective as a method for the rich to exercise government power as a method to limit the power of the rich. In contrast to a democracy that the rich can buy out from under the voters or a permanent administrative state that can be bought out from under the state, having an opposing faction of autocrats who don't need the merchants to maintain their power.
I don't want to make it sound as if corruption goes away under an autocracy. Instead, corruption changes. Nobles jockey for position within their hierarchy, and they pick favorites among the rabble, they try to empower their relatives and build their legacy, and they can be selfish on a level that mere capitalists can't imagine, and they can abuse power on a level you can't imagine -- A rich capitalist typically isn't legally allowed to kill people (though they might use their wealth to try to get away with it, it isn't like an agent of the state like a Samurai who may immediately cut down any commoner they please without repercussion.
Ironically, one of the things that's different between an incompetent rich person and an incompetent autocrat is that the rich person can't bring literally everyone down with them. An autocrat can destroy everything in a nation, and if they make bad decisions then they'll drag everyone into destruction with them. By contrast, a rich person can only own so much of everything, and at worst all they can nominally destroy is their own property. Look at Meta, where Zuckerberg is going all-in on the Metaverse, a virtual reality world that most people who have ever strapped a VR helmet to their heads can tell you isn't a great idea. Meanwhile, our fearless leaders have gone all-in on many different projects to the point that the nation will likely have many crises within the next decade because they couldn't keep their wallets shut, and that won't affect one rich man's wealth, but everyone trapped under the boot of the state.
We got to see the weakness of (even representative) Democracy in this regard, where the banks all did bad things that caused problems for people in 2008 and the government stepped up and did what it needed to do -- it gave a trillion dollars to the richest people on earth. Something that affected rich shareholders ended up everyone's problem, starting an era of big spending and big debt that has sold entire generations into debt slavery. Oddly enough, largesse with other people's money and racking up massive debt is exactly the outcome of Democracy Plato predicted in The Republic.
I think with all this being said it's important to not I'm not anti-democracy, or anti democratic republicanism or constitutional monarchism. There's a good reason why democratic republicanism or constitutional monarchies with elected MPs have led the world for centuries, and democracy plus capitalism is ultimately a meritocratic system that gives the best chance for someone without any ties to the state a chance to succeed. It's just that it's very important to understand the realities of governance, and that people who consider other forms of governance aren't just loons without any basis for their opinions -- there are things that could be better under autocratic or monarchic rule, particularly if the autocrat or monarch was a benevolent and wise one. Singapore and North Korea show different ends of a spectrum, both ruled by autocrats, one is one of the most developed regions in the world, and in the other kids pick up poop off the ground to help fertilize the fields as everyone starves (at least according to stories from one North Korean defector I listened to).
In reality, merchants are typically at often odds with royalty and nobility.
The ming dynasty in china restricted trade because they were suspicious of the rising power of merchants. The tokogawa shogunate after the sengoku period in Japan locked down merchants. The Ancien Régime of France before the french revolution locked down on the merchant class. The English clamped down on the merchant classes in the Tudor period (though admittedly the English was the most democratic country in the world at the time). The Venician republic had a powerful merchant class before the goverment of the time decided "oh, we're the ones in charge and we want to keep it that way" and so essentially locked everything down into something closer resembling a nobility.
I should also mention that corporations are a strictly state construct, so just as the state introduced them about 400 years ago, it could just as easily abolish them. The corporations cannot by themselves abolish the state. The power dynamic is clear, especially in a monarchy or other autocracy where there is no discussion over who is in charge.
Contrast with the many ways corporations can influence the permanent state and democratic republics. It's well known that regulators often get jobs in the companies they regulate (or come from the companies they regulate), so contrary to a permanent nobility, the powers of government employees can be influenced by the companies they regulate. It's well known now that especially in places like America, politicians spend far more time making phone calls to solicit campaign contributions than they do on ruling, and so if megacorps can arrange to either get its employees to donate to get past campaign contribution limits or just fund stuff like superpacs that get around campaign finance laws, democratically elected officials cam easily be bought.
So it isn't remotely reasonable to assume that democracy is required or even preferred if you want to limit the power of the rich or corporations, and the permanent state under democracy may be just as effective as a method for the rich to exercise government power as a method to limit the power of the rich. In contrast to a democracy that the rich can buy out from under the voters or a permanent administrative state that can be bought out from under the state, having an opposing faction of autocrats who don't need the merchants to maintain their power.
I don't want to make it sound as if corruption goes away under an autocracy. Instead, corruption changes. Nobles jockey for position within their hierarchy, and they pick favorites among the rabble, they try to empower their relatives and build their legacy, and they can be selfish on a level that mere capitalists can't imagine, and they can abuse power on a level you can't imagine -- A rich capitalist typically isn't legally allowed to kill people (though they might use their wealth to try to get away with it, it isn't like an agent of the state like a Samurai who may immediately cut down any commoner they please without repercussion.
Ironically, one of the things that's different between an incompetent rich person and an incompetent autocrat is that the rich person can't bring literally everyone down with them. An autocrat can destroy everything in a nation, and if they make bad decisions then they'll drag everyone into destruction with them. By contrast, a rich person can only own so much of everything, and at worst all they can nominally destroy is their own property. Look at Meta, where Zuckerberg is going all-in on the Metaverse, a virtual reality world that most people who have ever strapped a VR helmet to their heads can tell you isn't a great idea. Meanwhile, our fearless leaders have gone all-in on many different projects to the point that the nation will likely have many crises within the next decade because they couldn't keep their wallets shut, and that won't affect one rich man's wealth, but everyone trapped under the boot of the state.
We got to see the weakness of (even representative) Democracy in this regard, where the banks all did bad things that caused problems for people in 2008 and the government stepped up and did what it needed to do -- it gave a trillion dollars to the richest people on earth. Something that affected rich shareholders ended up everyone's problem, starting an era of big spending and big debt that has sold entire generations into debt slavery. Oddly enough, largesse with other people's money and racking up massive debt is exactly the outcome of Democracy Plato predicted in The Republic.
I think with all this being said it's important to not I'm not anti-democracy, or anti democratic republicanism or constitutional monarchism. There's a good reason why democratic republicanism or constitutional monarchies with elected MPs have led the world for centuries, and democracy plus capitalism is ultimately a meritocratic system that gives the best chance for someone without any ties to the state a chance to succeed. It's just that it's very important to understand the realities of governance, and that people who consider other forms of governance aren't just loons without any basis for their opinions -- there are things that could be better under autocratic or monarchic rule, particularly if the autocrat or monarch was a benevolent and wise one. Singapore and North Korea show different ends of a spectrum, both ruled by autocrats, one is one of the most developed regions in the world, and in the other kids pick up poop off the ground to help fertilize the fields as everyone starves (at least according to stories from one North Korean defector I listened to).