Is Democracy a good thing?

It is now clear that the concept of democracy is not valued as I had assumed: and it is sobering to find that it is not seen as worthy of defence. It is true that the abandonment of that system has been noted, and criticised in a minor key: but at the same time the ease with which it has been overturned in Greece and in Italy is, at least, suprising. Since this has happened I have seen it justified in terms of the fact that the elected politicians in those countries have approved it. In these circumstances it is evident that my own notion of the centrality of democracy is not universally shared: perhaps not even widely. I am at a loss to understand how this has come to be. Until recently even those on the very far right have tendered the tribute of vice to virtue in the efforts they have made to pretend that what they pursue is in some sense democratic: but that is now gone. This is a greater problem than any so far considered in this thread. It gives the lie to a distinction I entertained upthread between the perceived threats in the US and in Europe. That notion must now be abandoned.

In another thread I commented on the views expressed in one paper to the effect that the 4 countries most badly affected by the financial crisis have no tradition of democracy: certainly both Italy and Greece were under totalitarian rule within the last century, and for significant periods of time. Can we then argue that the willingness to abandon that system is confined to nations where the idea is not deep rooted? I think not. Although other countries have not abandoned the forms there is a very strong feeling in the UK, at least, that democracy is increasingly unresponsive to the needs and wishes of the people. That is also resonating with some in America, as evidenced by the Occupy movements: for at bottom that is the complaint, I would argue.

When the people are disenfranchised (which I think is the root of this) there is a danger that the value of democracy is undermined: it seems that often people do not see the problem as a subversion of democracy, but as a failure of it in functional terms. In short they assume that democracy was working as intended and was failing to meet the legitimate aspirations of the people: they do not seem to think that it was not working as intended, because power has been transferred from the democratic power to another body, as I think. This narrative has a long history, and a shameful one.

Nonetheless it is now important to consider the implications of a shift in the prevailing wisdom. For many years we have presumed that democracy is " the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried." as Churchill said. That view was shared by left and right (or at least lip service was paid to it) and indeed we have fought many wars ostensibly to bring democracy to the third world etc. Or so we said. In face of the prevalence of that narrative it is truly surprising how easily it has been abandoned: how fragile our committment to it.

But it seems to me that it demands a consideration of other possible systems: we can no longer assume that democracy is desirable.

What Italy and, to a lesser extent, Greece, have decided to do, I would contend, is to adopt Plato's republic as a system of government. If that sounds extreme, you may find it instructive to read Popper's account of that in the "The open society and its enemies". Is this what we want?

The way I see it, everybody knows about the issues. They may not know about the same issues as you: they may not think the same issues are important as you do. But the notion that they do not know where their own interests lie is an odd one. In the end that is what people pursue, and so every one of them must be included. That is the point of democracy: it founds on a hypothesis that if everyone can have an equal influence on the uses of power, they will not be wholly exploited, for they will not allow that to happen, and they have the means to prevent it.

It seems to me inescapable that each of us is better informed about our own circumstances than about those of others: and that influences what we believe to be important. It also limits how far we can see the consequences of what we propose on the lives of those who are in different circumstances. We are not very good at that, even when we are trying: hell, we are not very good at seeing the consequences of what we do on ourselves, a lot of the time.

Of course people can be manipulated: We can certainly try to apply critical thinking, and that will help, but we can only apply it to the facts we have. And none of us have very many, in the scheme of things: government covers all sorts of things and we cannot know about them all: or even most of them. But there are limits to manipulation: there comes a point (it often seems surprisingly far down the line, admittedly) when the adverse consequences of policy on their lives cannot be spun or denied. It is ofen said that people do not starve in democracies: there is a chicken and egg question there, and it is not universal; but I think it is broadly true, and it is broadly a consequence of the democracy itself.

Power. That's the issue. Power corrupts, always. A state, being a body of power, is always doing criminal things - they always have. Just the degree to which they are wrong differs somewhat. Power wants to stay in power. Just watch those protests being beaten down. In that light, I would like to see the state disintegrate itself, and its election based democracies with it.

On the other hand, the state is currently indeed the best provider of a number of services (as mentioned in other threads, I think), such as infrastructure and health care. Perhaps it would be even better if that was European (or, in the end, global). But we first all have to agree that human rights are a serious business. And it seems we're not there yet. Not even in most of the European nations, where we are reverting the essential services, which should ensure our rights, to unaccountable private tyranny systems, a.k.a. corporations. Also here, I'm not entirely sure the state is the sole body who can organize it (once we get back to appreciating human rights), but seen from the here and now, it does seem to be our most realistic option: most of the systems are still somewhat intact and they do/did work. Maybe we can experiment and move on from the state organization at some point, but first we need to get our essential services in order. We do need the state for that, I think. And, inevitably, their democracy. Still beats dictatorships et al.

Coming in late to the conversation, I'm going to toss this in: democracy (alone) is a wonderful, functional thing on a small enough scale. Native Americans practised what amounts to democracy, and from what has been gathered, it worked extremely well because they lived as smaller tribes, with maybe a few hundred people.

My point there was not that it *was* democracy, just that they possessed a voting system which resembles democracy, and which worked. Mind you, this is second-hand knowledge, I don't know about much of any of this. But the Native Americans are really secondary to what I was talking about, just a convenient real-world example plucked from memory, which is admittedly flawed.

Plato was a proto-fascist. He opposed democracy in any form and I actually think he would be very happy with the current situation. He would have preferred the oligarchy to be composed a little differently, maybe, but he would not have had any problem with a true oligarchy disguised as democracy: he had no difficulty with subterfuge in the interests of stability and the ruling group.

I do not think that the size of the polity is the problem, really. City states were also easily manipulated by the orators of the day and smallness was no defence against the kind of problem Vorgoeth identifies.

He disliked democracy because he was a rich bastard, from family which included members of the thirty tyrants: I do not think it was anything to do with the fate of Socrates.

As to the difference between timocracy and oligarchy: a distinction without a difference IMO. Timocracy merely establishes qualifications for membership in the ruling class as property ownership. Usual figleaf of "noblesse oblige" but nothing of substance beyond rule by a small number of rich people. He did not even admit of social mobility, which in some cases serves as a partial justification for timocracy. He was just a bastard with a chip on his shoulder, so far as I can see.

Your third paragraph appears to be internally contradictory. I don't follow