I’d reply as I think Thomas Sowell would, with his standard question “compared to what?”
Compared to what is democracy a poor form of government?
Sure, sugar gum drop trees won’t spontaneously spring out of the earth when people get the vote. Nor is the vote an automatic cure for your aunt’s gout.
And there are plenty of failure modes. The particular ones you show from European parliamentary democracy are not surprising to me, as an American with a preference for the constitutional republic we nominally have here.
The key difference seems to be attitude toward government. In the US originally, and to some degree in pockets still, the federal government, and government in general, is seen as empowered with authority to secure your rights. Not positive rights to the fruits of the labor of others, but negative rights against abuse from others. From the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
This model of government does not include a “goodness generating machine” as one of the deliverables. Government exists to protect your “inalienable rights”, such as life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. It is not a happiness generating machine, which will fedex you monthly packages of happiness, it is a machine to protect your freedom, leaving you free to live your life and pursue happiness. You are the happiness generating machine; it is the freedom protecting machine.
This model has it’s own failure modes, such as when much of the populace starts wanting the government to be a “goodness generating machine”.
And it’s not a perfect machine even in a society of people who support it for it’s original purpose. Inevitably, those controlling the levers will exercise that power for their own interests, while the general population will have both limited knowledge and incentive to properly watch over them. “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” That’s an expensive price, suffering from free rider problems, so we should always expect some abuse of the system.
Wah wah wah! I can’t have all I want for the price of wishing for it!
So? It’s worked pretty well, and I’ll take it over the Gulag or the Great Leap Forward.
If you have a perfect machine handy, I’m all ears. The historical alternatives seem vastly inferior. So again I ask, compared to what does democracy suck?
I’d reply as I think Thomas Sowell would, with his standard question “compared to what?”
I agree with this criticism, yet I find it ironic that what I think is the strongest argument in favour of democracy is a fundamentally small c conservative one. Modern society (unwisely in my opinion) doesn’t let such arguments stop it from changing things. Yet when it comes to democracy someone just bringing up a quote by Churchill is enough to dispel all doubts.
You are the happiness generating machine; it is the freedom protecting machine.
I don’t think having government be a goodness generating machine is a good idea. I start here with an argument for setting up a democracy as one as someone who thinks this would work would present it. Hence the draft, before proceeding to critique it I wanted to make sure I was attacking a steel man of moderate social democracy the currently reigning Western ideology.
Looking from the outside it seems pretty obvious the US government is expected to be a goodness generating machine. This is especially true among the classes engaged in opinion making, let alone among the kinds of people who actually make up the USG and run the country. It also seems obvious democratic means will not change or restore it into an effective guardian of negative rights.
Recall what I said:
Secondly because educated opinion in America and Europe seems to admire the idealized version of this model.
Goodness generation is also the standard rationalization for the existence of everything from the department of education to an army geared for foreign intervention. For a reason, democracy basically is early stage socialism. Plato and Aristotle didn’t think much of democracy because of this. And we know from previous patients that early stage always gives way to late stages eventually, sometimes in a matter of months or years like in the case of the Russian revolution, sometimes decades and even centuries as is the case with the American one.
What does the “pro-freedom” or negative rights camp have? A few internet blogs and think thanks? Recall that even on lesswrong the Libertarian position is called “far right”. This is not an accident. In a democracy wealth redistribution with the pretext of higher goals is how elections are won. Even more damningly in a democracy the sate perhaps does not control the press but the press controls the state, and recall state power is supposed to be tied directly to public opinion! What we see is a power pump where public opinion drives changes in governance and changes in governance drive public belief. Nature finds a way, be it with birds loosing flight or herbivores finding a taste for meat or with “negative rights” memes suddenly finding themselves invested and nested in memeplexes supporting state expanding projects. I mean look at the Republican party.
And we know from previous patients that early stage always gives way to late stages eventually, sometimes in a matter of months or years like in the case of the Russian revolution, sometimes decades and even centuries as is the case with the American one.
No way, the Provisional Government wasn’t overthrown because it stuck to negative-rights-based policies and didn’t offer anything more—it was overthrown because it was too high-handed/spineless in Petrograd politics, carried on with a massively loathed war which stirred up the unrest in the first place, flirted with both the socialists and the right while not aligning itself with either… And the Russian Empire already had a bit of local self-government + public welfare and wealth and land redistribution going. Those welfare programs—preceded by things like Zubatov’s trade union experiment, - were launched precisely because the government wanted to quell revolutionary sentiment in the wake of 1905!
Up voted. I will take your word and consider myself corrected for now, since the Russian Revolution is on my list of things to study in the future.
The quick and dirty assessment I used was “a regime that is formally a liberal parliamentary democracy becomes communism” when picking the example. I didn’t however mean to imply it was just a guardian of negative rights, just that social democratic and socialist ideologies are strong attractors in democracies because they work like power pumps. This is why I called democracy early stage socialism. I’m farm from being alone in this view, many socialists basically think true democracy is socialism. The whole social democratic ideology was founded on this idea of step by step reforms towards socialism via democracy and that democracy will inevitably lead to it, so no need for violent revolution.
Hence the draft, before proceeding to critique it I wanted to make sure I was attacking a steel man of moderate social democracy the currently reigning Western ideology.
If the goal was to discuss a steel man of social democratic theory, it seems to me that you’ve done a reasonable job. But not being a social democrat, I don’t know that my opinion should count for much. You disagree with the social democrats for some reason. You don’t share some of their premises, so that what is steel as evaluated by your premises (or mine) is likely not so steely to them.
I like your basic thrust, of first identifying what government is supposed (by them) to be for. I was actually meaning to ask this of the social democratic crowd in our next monthly politics thread. As I related, in the US we have a specific narrative of what government is for, grounded in the ideology, events, and documents of the creation of the country. I don’t have a real sense of where Europeans get their answer to the question, “what is government for?”.
Should it be a goodness machine? I liked your explicit identification of it. That’s starts sounding uncomfortably theocratic, because it is.
But I haven’t liked your using “democracy” as a short hand for the party platform of generic social democrats. Calling it Social Democracy would at least consistently make it clear that you mean a complex of procedures, programs, and values, and not just voting, which was my initial impression when I’ve seen you question democracy in the past.
Unless you’re really opposed to voting per se, your use of democracy as shorthand for social democracy easily leads to mistaking your views on voting, and is just unnecessarily unclear regardless.
Looking from the outside it seems pretty obvious the US government is expected to be a goodness generating machine.
That’s the thing. The news you get is filtered through European Social Democratic media perusing American Social Democratic media. That’s the view you get from the outside.
But those who control the centralized levers are hardly all of the country. You’re not hearing what’s said at churches, and picnics, and group emails, and talk radio, and small town newspapers. Many people hear these voices instead, and don’t spend so much time listening to the Social Democratic media.
And as for “the educated”, you’ve got a biased sample again. Much of the educated are in science, technology, and business, and they are not quite so liberal. Socially liberal, but not social democrats.
I was most amused the other day to hear my sister rant about how the government had no right to tell her she had to wear a seat belt. I remember my dad similarly ranting, and thought the attitude was a rather old fashioned one that had died out as we increasingly accepted hyper regulation as an unquestioned fact of life. Having my thoroughly apolitical sister rant in this fashion was a surprise.
Probably in half the country, there is a large sentiment toward the negative rights view of government. People aren’t entirely consistent in this regard, and have been corrupted by programs such as Social Security that dishonestly sold themselves as government pension plans that you “earned” by paying into them. So they support this wealth transfer program because they feel they, and others, have earned their benefits.
And as long as the government is passing out goodies, people will push for their goodies. But talk to them about what government is for, and whether they want government to be passing out goodies at all, and you’ll get a different answer. There’s no real logical contradiction between condemning the trough and bellying up to the trough while it’s there.
If anything, in my lifetime, the negative rights view has made a huge comeback in the US, and particularly on explicit ideological grounds.
What does the “pro-freedom” or negative rights camp have? A few internet blogs and think thanks?
I was born in 1965. There was no institutional support of small government, libertarian ideas. Barry Goldwater had just gotten crushed when he ran for president, but he at least won the nomination as an explicitly pro freedom, small government candidate. See the quotes.
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Barry_Goldwater
Reagan ran on smaller government themes, which have largely become official Republican dogma. At least when they need to win an election. Like now.
Meanwhile, now they have blogs, and talk radio, and have even been making significant inroads into culture. Much of fantasy/scifi culture is explicitly libertarian. On the internet, libertarians have a huge presence, and the social democrats are usually on the retreat against them.
Multiple states have medical marijuana laws, which are largely hypocritical legalization laws, while explicit legalization initiatives in some states, and the demographics of support for legalization makes it almost inevitable to increasingly pass and spread in the next 20 years.
I mean look at the Republican party.
The Tea Party is largely made up of those who lean Republican but oppose the big government excesses of the Republican Party.
When people actually discuss the proper role of government, lots of Americans are very libertarian, and increasingly so in my lifetime.
Libertarian governments tend toward rent seeking bureaucracies as time goes on. But rent seeking creates pressure, both fiscal and regulatory, for a return to libertarian principles.
Meanwhile, now they have blogs, and talk radio, and have even been making significant inroads into culture. Much of fantasy/scifi culture is explicitly libertarian.
Joss Whedon strikes again. Just watched The Avengers last night. The movie started with various pontifications on freedom vs. submission to power.
I’d reply as I think Thomas Sowell would, with his standard question “compared to what?”
Compared to what is democracy a poor form of government?
Sure, sugar gum drop trees won’t spontaneously spring out of the earth when people get the vote. Nor is the vote an automatic cure for your aunt’s gout.
And there are plenty of failure modes. The particular ones you show from European parliamentary democracy are not surprising to me, as an American with a preference for the constitutional republic we nominally have here.
The key difference seems to be attitude toward government. In the US originally, and to some degree in pockets still, the federal government, and government in general, is seen as empowered with authority to secure your rights. Not positive rights to the fruits of the labor of others, but negative rights against abuse from others. From the Declaration of Independence:
This model of government does not include a “goodness generating machine” as one of the deliverables. Government exists to protect your “inalienable rights”, such as life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. It is not a happiness generating machine, which will fedex you monthly packages of happiness, it is a machine to protect your freedom, leaving you free to live your life and pursue happiness. You are the happiness generating machine; it is the freedom protecting machine.
This model has it’s own failure modes, such as when much of the populace starts wanting the government to be a “goodness generating machine”.
And it’s not a perfect machine even in a society of people who support it for it’s original purpose. Inevitably, those controlling the levers will exercise that power for their own interests, while the general population will have both limited knowledge and incentive to properly watch over them. “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” That’s an expensive price, suffering from free rider problems, so we should always expect some abuse of the system.
Wah wah wah! I can’t have all I want for the price of wishing for it!
So? It’s worked pretty well, and I’ll take it over the Gulag or the Great Leap Forward.
If you have a perfect machine handy, I’m all ears. The historical alternatives seem vastly inferior. So again I ask, compared to what does democracy suck?
I agree with this criticism, yet I find it ironic that what I think is the strongest argument in favour of democracy is a fundamentally small c conservative one. Modern society (unwisely in my opinion) doesn’t let such arguments stop it from changing things. Yet when it comes to democracy someone just bringing up a quote by Churchill is enough to dispel all doubts.
I don’t think having government be a goodness generating machine is a good idea. I start here with an argument for setting up a democracy as one as someone who thinks this would work would present it. Hence the draft, before proceeding to critique it I wanted to make sure I was attacking a steel man of moderate social democracy the currently reigning Western ideology.
Looking from the outside it seems pretty obvious the US government is expected to be a goodness generating machine. This is especially true among the classes engaged in opinion making, let alone among the kinds of people who actually make up the USG and run the country. It also seems obvious democratic means will not change or restore it into an effective guardian of negative rights.
Recall what I said:
Goodness generation is also the standard rationalization for the existence of everything from the department of education to an army geared for foreign intervention. For a reason, democracy basically is early stage socialism. Plato and Aristotle didn’t think much of democracy because of this. And we know from previous patients that early stage always gives way to late stages eventually, sometimes in a matter of months or years like in the case of the Russian revolution, sometimes decades and even centuries as is the case with the American one.
What does the “pro-freedom” or negative rights camp have? A few internet blogs and think thanks? Recall that even on lesswrong the Libertarian position is called “far right”. This is not an accident. In a democracy wealth redistribution with the pretext of higher goals is how elections are won. Even more damningly in a democracy the sate perhaps does not control the press but the press controls the state, and recall state power is supposed to be tied directly to public opinion! What we see is a power pump where public opinion drives changes in governance and changes in governance drive public belief. Nature finds a way, be it with birds loosing flight or herbivores finding a taste for meat or with “negative rights” memes suddenly finding themselves invested and nested in memeplexes supporting state expanding projects. I mean look at the Republican party.
No way, the Provisional Government wasn’t overthrown because it stuck to negative-rights-based policies and didn’t offer anything more—it was overthrown because it was too high-handed/spineless in Petrograd politics, carried on with a massively loathed war which stirred up the unrest in the first place, flirted with both the socialists and the right while not aligning itself with either… And the Russian Empire already had a bit of local self-government + public welfare and wealth and land redistribution going. Those welfare programs—preceded by things like Zubatov’s trade union experiment, - were launched precisely because the government wanted to quell revolutionary sentiment in the wake of 1905!
Up voted. I will take your word and consider myself corrected for now, since the Russian Revolution is on my list of things to study in the future.
The quick and dirty assessment I used was “a regime that is formally a liberal parliamentary democracy becomes communism” when picking the example. I didn’t however mean to imply it was just a guardian of negative rights, just that social democratic and socialist ideologies are strong attractors in democracies because they work like power pumps. This is why I called democracy early stage socialism. I’m farm from being alone in this view, many socialists basically think true democracy is socialism. The whole social democratic ideology was founded on this idea of step by step reforms towards socialism via democracy and that democracy will inevitably lead to it, so no need for violent revolution.
If the goal was to discuss a steel man of social democratic theory, it seems to me that you’ve done a reasonable job. But not being a social democrat, I don’t know that my opinion should count for much. You disagree with the social democrats for some reason. You don’t share some of their premises, so that what is steel as evaluated by your premises (or mine) is likely not so steely to them.
I like your basic thrust, of first identifying what government is supposed (by them) to be for. I was actually meaning to ask this of the social democratic crowd in our next monthly politics thread. As I related, in the US we have a specific narrative of what government is for, grounded in the ideology, events, and documents of the creation of the country. I don’t have a real sense of where Europeans get their answer to the question, “what is government for?”.
Should it be a goodness machine? I liked your explicit identification of it. That’s starts sounding uncomfortably theocratic, because it is.
But I haven’t liked your using “democracy” as a short hand for the party platform of generic social democrats. Calling it Social Democracy would at least consistently make it clear that you mean a complex of procedures, programs, and values, and not just voting, which was my initial impression when I’ve seen you question democracy in the past.
Unless you’re really opposed to voting per se, your use of democracy as shorthand for social democracy easily leads to mistaking your views on voting, and is just unnecessarily unclear regardless.
That’s the thing. The news you get is filtered through European Social Democratic media perusing American Social Democratic media. That’s the view you get from the outside.
But those who control the centralized levers are hardly all of the country. You’re not hearing what’s said at churches, and picnics, and group emails, and talk radio, and small town newspapers. Many people hear these voices instead, and don’t spend so much time listening to the Social Democratic media.
And as for “the educated”, you’ve got a biased sample again. Much of the educated are in science, technology, and business, and they are not quite so liberal. Socially liberal, but not social democrats.
I was most amused the other day to hear my sister rant about how the government had no right to tell her she had to wear a seat belt. I remember my dad similarly ranting, and thought the attitude was a rather old fashioned one that had died out as we increasingly accepted hyper regulation as an unquestioned fact of life. Having my thoroughly apolitical sister rant in this fashion was a surprise.
Probably in half the country, there is a large sentiment toward the negative rights view of government. People aren’t entirely consistent in this regard, and have been corrupted by programs such as Social Security that dishonestly sold themselves as government pension plans that you “earned” by paying into them. So they support this wealth transfer program because they feel they, and others, have earned their benefits.
And as long as the government is passing out goodies, people will push for their goodies. But talk to them about what government is for, and whether they want government to be passing out goodies at all, and you’ll get a different answer. There’s no real logical contradiction between condemning the trough and bellying up to the trough while it’s there.
If anything, in my lifetime, the negative rights view has made a huge comeback in the US, and particularly on explicit ideological grounds.
I was born in 1965. There was no institutional support of small government, libertarian ideas. Barry Goldwater had just gotten crushed when he ran for president, but he at least won the nomination as an explicitly pro freedom, small government candidate. See the quotes. http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Barry_Goldwater
Reagan ran on smaller government themes, which have largely become official Republican dogma. At least when they need to win an election. Like now.
Meanwhile, now they have blogs, and talk radio, and have even been making significant inroads into culture. Much of fantasy/scifi culture is explicitly libertarian. On the internet, libertarians have a huge presence, and the social democrats are usually on the retreat against them.
Multiple states have medical marijuana laws, which are largely hypocritical legalization laws, while explicit legalization initiatives in some states, and the demographics of support for legalization makes it almost inevitable to increasingly pass and spread in the next 20 years.
The Tea Party is largely made up of those who lean Republican but oppose the big government excesses of the Republican Party.
When people actually discuss the proper role of government, lots of Americans are very libertarian, and increasingly so in my lifetime.
Libertarian governments tend toward rent seeking bureaucracies as time goes on. But rent seeking creates pressure, both fiscal and regulatory, for a return to libertarian principles.
While the view may have made a comeback, the goals it seeks are growing more and more distant and politically difficult to acheive.
Joss Whedon strikes again. Just watched The Avengers last night. The movie started with various pontifications on freedom vs. submission to power.