there seems to be a fair number of LessWrongians who are revolted by democracy, and I’ve never been sure why.
But why
Because I think “democratic” is an applause light. Indeed the ur example of an applause light. People go as far as to often think of it as having intrinsic value! Indeed I think Western civilization has had an affective death spiral around democracy.
I think we systematically overestimated how good democracy is partially because of the following reasons:
We cherry pick what counts as democracy and especially what a failed democracy is, why do we so seldom consider the aftermath of a failed democracy (think Weimar republic )? The badness of Communism is more often talked about in the context of the mess it left in former Communist countries after collapse than in the context of the millions of lives it lost. Why not talk about democracy that way every now and then? I mean sure ideally you don’t want your car to crash. But if your car does crash you do hope it has been designed to make crashes as survivable as possible.
Wealthy countries with well educated citizens tend to be democracies. Wealthy countries with well educated citizens also tend to have high rates of obesity. Clearly obesity is less bad than starvation and democracy is less bad than Communism, but is this really something to brag about?
Because it says it is and most of us grew up in it. Children will believe in God just because they are told by their parents, imagine what they will believe if told by not only their parents, and perhaps priests but teachers too!
I can understand not approving of government in general, but democracies (which I’m going to tentatively define as governments where a noticeable proportion of elections have surprising enough results to be worth betting on) seem to have less awful failure modes than a lot of other sorts of governments.
Democracy is viewed as the only legitimate kind of government by Western thinkers. This stifles possible innovation in government. Democracy is also by far the most popular kind of government (who would have thought that popular government would be a popular concept?).
Also if democracy is indeed the best form of government tried so far, maybe by analysing it we can come up with something even better? Isn’t this argument for democracy merely a Burkean conservative one in nature ? LW dismisses those out of hand so often, yet when it comes to democracy it seems to be seldom questioned.
Think of the famous Churchill quote:
Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
A Vizier in Ancient Egypt could have said the same thing about divine right monarchy where the king is worshipped as a living god. Do we really expect no further positive (?) change in government except in the direction of it being more “democratic”?
Would you or anyone else be interested in explaining why democracy seems like an obviously bad idea to you?
That is more or less the point of the thread. But first I’d like to learn why people seem to think it is a great idea.
I think analysis of “democracy” would be more clear if we differentiated process from substance. In relation to your viewpoint, I think Churchill’s quote is best understood as:
[Particular process] is the worst process (at achieving particular [substantive result]), except for every other type of process ever tried.
Substitute Universal Suffrage elections for [particular process] and Idealized relationship of governed to government for [substantive result] and voila—Churchill’s quote. Just to be clear, the idealized relationship that Churchill is aiming for is the one I’ve called consent-of-the-governed.
My point is that you haven’t precisely articulated whether your argument is (1) the substantive goal is inappropriate for some reason, or (2) the process selected is unlikely to lead to that goal.
For example, the American Civil War can plausibly be considered a failure of the democratic process. But it can also be considered a success at improving the relationship of governed to government by changing the rules so that more humans were treated as citizens. If Lincoln had been absolute monarch (and accepted as such), I think the Civil War would have been less bloody even if Lincoln had attempted to achieve the same results that the Union actually achieved in history. (which weren’t precisely the aims that historical Lincoln actually articulated).
Good point about the Weimar Republic as an example of failure mode of democracy. I’m not sure whether it’s germaine that part of the failure was it ceasing to be a democracy. Any other examples?
For what it’s worth, I think of the failure mode of Communism as being partly the mass murder, and even in countries where there wasn’t mass murder, the impoverishment and oppression of citizens.
A sidetrack: Are there any sound generalizations about differences between communist countries which had genocide, and those which didn’t?
Good point about the Weimar Republic as an example of failure mode of democracy. I’m not sure whether it’s germaine that part of the failure was it ceasing to be a democracy. Any other examples?
To promote an informed population and democracy in Rwanda, international agencies had promoted development of the media during the years leading up to the genocide.[27] It appeared that promoting one aspect of democracy (in this case the media) may, in fact, negatively influence other aspects of democracy or human rights. After this experience it has been argued that international development agencies must be highly sensitive to the specific context of their programmes and the need for promotion of democracy in a holistic manner.[27]
Good point about the Weimar Republic as an example of failure mode of democracy. I’m not sure whether it’s germaine that part of the failure was it ceasing to be a democracy. Any other examples?
What is a failure mode? Are you seeking examples of bad outcomes and bad behavior in democracies, or something more specific?
A sidetrack: Are there any sound generalizations about differences between communist countries which had genocide, and those which didn’t?
What are some examples of communist countries that have not engaged in mass murder? In Cuba and Nepal the death tolls haven’t been so dramatic by Cambodian standards. Are there other tame examples?
Is the Cultural Revolution in China an example of mass murder? I learned that there was lots of oppression, suffering, and starvation. But deaths were not an intended result, only a byproduct that the ruling elite didn’t care to prevent. By contrast, Stalin’s starving of the Kulaks was intended to cause death.
Regardless, the Cultural Revolution doesn’t reflect well on communism.
I think you should read the article you linked to all the way through; starvation is not the only kind of violence that occurred. If someone dies during or as a consequence of your torturing them, it is standard to say you’ve committed murder even if your intentions were non-lethal, right? (I think it is too generous to grant such good intentions in this case, but irrelevant). If you torture ten thousand people and one hundred of them die, you have committed mass murder. This kind of mass murder was common throughout 20th century communist china, routine during the cultural revolution. There were some events during the CR on an even more enormous scale, in tibet and inner mongolia.
But nevertheless, I have a hard time reconciling the observations with non-incompetence explanations:
It presents two empirical findings: 1) in 1959, when the famine began, food production was almost three times more than population subsistence needs; and 2) regions with higher per capita food production that year suffered higher famine mortality rates, a surprising reversal of a typically negative correlation.
I’d say they count—if a system doesn’t allow for quickly changing (or better, preventing) policies which cause death on a grand scale, there’s something wrong with the system.
OK communist Yugoslavia is a more important example than communist Nepal. But you’re not counting the soviet union as eastern europe? Non-soviet eastern europe is not unrepresented on wikipedia’s digest of communist mass killings.
But why Because I think “democratic” is an applause light. Indeed the ur example of an applause light. People go as far as to often think of it as having intrinsic value! Indeed I think Western civilization has had an affective death spiral around democracy.
I think we systematically overestimated how good democracy is partially because of the following reasons:
We cherry pick what counts as democracy and especially what a failed democracy is, why do we so seldom consider the aftermath of a failed democracy (think Weimar republic )? The badness of Communism is more often talked about in the context of the mess it left in former Communist countries after collapse than in the context of the millions of lives it lost. Why not talk about democracy that way every now and then? I mean sure ideally you don’t want your car to crash. But if your car does crash you do hope it has been designed to make crashes as survivable as possible.
Wealthy countries with well educated citizens tend to be democracies. Wealthy countries with well educated citizens also tend to have high rates of obesity. Clearly obesity is less bad than starvation and democracy is less bad than Communism, but is this really something to brag about?
Because it says it is and most of us grew up in it. Children will believe in God just because they are told by their parents, imagine what they will believe if told by not only their parents, and perhaps priests but teachers too!
Democracy is viewed as the only legitimate kind of government by Western thinkers. This stifles possible innovation in government. Democracy is also by far the most popular kind of government (who would have thought that popular government would be a popular concept?).
Also if democracy is indeed the best form of government tried so far, maybe by analysing it we can come up with something even better? Isn’t this argument for democracy merely a Burkean conservative one in nature ? LW dismisses those out of hand so often, yet when it comes to democracy it seems to be seldom questioned.
Think of the famous Churchill quote:
A Vizier in Ancient Egypt could have said the same thing about divine right monarchy where the king is worshipped as a living god. Do we really expect no further positive (?) change in government except in the direction of it being more “democratic”?
That is more or less the point of the thread. But first I’d like to learn why people seem to think it is a great idea.
I think analysis of “democracy” would be more clear if we differentiated process from substance. In relation to your viewpoint, I think Churchill’s quote is best understood as:
Substitute Universal Suffrage elections for [particular process] and Idealized relationship of governed to government for [substantive result] and voila—Churchill’s quote. Just to be clear, the idealized relationship that Churchill is aiming for is the one I’ve called consent-of-the-governed.
My point is that you haven’t precisely articulated whether your argument is (1) the substantive goal is inappropriate for some reason, or (2) the process selected is unlikely to lead to that goal.
For example, the American Civil War can plausibly be considered a failure of the democratic process. But it can also be considered a success at improving the relationship of governed to government by changing the rules so that more humans were treated as citizens. If Lincoln had been absolute monarch (and accepted as such), I think the Civil War would have been less bloody even if Lincoln had attempted to achieve the same results that the Union actually achieved in history. (which weren’t precisely the aims that historical Lincoln actually articulated).
Good point about the Weimar Republic as an example of failure mode of democracy. I’m not sure whether it’s germaine that part of the failure was it ceasing to be a democracy. Any other examples?
For what it’s worth, I think of the failure mode of Communism as being partly the mass murder, and even in countries where there wasn’t mass murder, the impoverishment and oppression of citizens.
A sidetrack: Are there any sound generalizations about differences between communist countries which had genocide, and those which didn’t?
Here you go:
My comment on it.
What is a failure mode? Are you seeking examples of bad outcomes and bad behavior in democracies, or something more specific?
What are some examples of communist countries that have not engaged in mass murder? In Cuba and Nepal the death tolls haven’t been so dramatic by Cambodian standards. Are there other tame examples?
Is the Cultural Revolution in China an example of mass murder? I learned that there was lots of oppression, suffering, and starvation. But deaths were not an intended result, only a byproduct that the ruling elite didn’t care to prevent. By contrast, Stalin’s starving of the Kulaks was intended to cause death.
Regardless, the Cultural Revolution doesn’t reflect well on communism.
This question is so startling to me I’m not sure I understand it.
There are things as morally wrong as mass murder that don’t qualify as mass murder.
I think you should read the article you linked to all the way through; starvation is not the only kind of violence that occurred. If someone dies during or as a consequence of your torturing them, it is standard to say you’ve committed murder even if your intentions were non-lethal, right? (I think it is too generous to grant such good intentions in this case, but irrelevant). If you torture ten thousand people and one hundred of them die, you have committed mass murder. This kind of mass murder was common throughout 20th century communist china, routine during the cultural revolution. There were some events during the CR on an even more enormous scale, in tibet and inner mongolia.
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/09/the-institutional-causes-of-chinas-great-famine-1959-61.html pointed to an interesting paper on that topic. I read it, but I don’t know enough about China to really evaluate it.
But nevertheless, I have a hard time reconciling the observations with non-incompetence explanations:
See also Tthe Great Leap Forward.
I’d say they count—if a system doesn’t allow for quickly changing (or better, preventing) policies which cause death on a grand scale, there’s something wrong with the system.
Something very wrong—yes.
Mass murder - ??
Edit to add: On reflection, the Great Leap Forward is a lot more like Stalin and the Kulaks than the unedited version of this comment might suggest.
Most of Eastern Europe, I think.
OK communist Yugoslavia is a more important example than communist Nepal. But you’re not counting the soviet union as eastern europe? Non-soviet eastern europe is not unrepresented on wikipedia’s digest of communist mass killings.
I’m not listing the Soviet Union as Eastern Europe.
The Wikipedia page lists mass murder in East Germany and Bulgaria as disputed, but it seems that things were generally worse than I thought.