What are the pros and cons of Democracy?

Democracy is a a shitty form of government.
Really, we should be basing human governments based on human behaviors.
I think a republic would suffice, except really tone down the scale.
Instead of everyone getting a vote, each family offers a patriarch to represent them, who then vote within the extended family for the extended families representative. That representative then has a vote in a forum consisting of the representatives of all the families of the tribes representative. For any issue beyond that local level, they vote for a tribal representative to participate in a regional congress.
Instead of a government that enforces laws, laws are enforced and generated within family/tribe/regional units, only escalating when the crime involves parties from different family/tribe/regions.
So for example, stealing from a family member would be a different crime and punishment from stealing from someone in a different tribe.

Would that form of government be viable?

It's the worst period

Democracy is tyranny of the 51%. And the 51% can usually be manipulated pretty easily by the 1%.

I'm not sure what would be better, though.

>peasants couldn't have possibly worn blue clothes as this would shatter my entire worldview which is based on no evidence
Fuck off

The issue with that being a perfect form of government user, is that humans were never designed to have the entire ideal system of society from birth engrained in them. Hunanity is designed to take influence from other humans and form a compromise system from their natural morality and what they learned, as a way to improve society without the slow process of natural selection changing brain patterns. The golden rule seems to be engrained, but that can't define every interaction for us. If you want proof of this power of external influence, simply look at how different Roman society was to medieval society in social behavior.

Now here's the issue. The fact that we can have behaviors form like that, most likely means that there are some stable forms of society that are better than what it naturally falls into. This can be derived from the fact that natural selection is not perfect in the first place, like any part of nature, and then the industrial revolution changed the situation faster than it could act. Your society opens the doors for families to form any system, and some will simply be self-destructive, like that one mass suicide cult. While that's great and all, following beliefs, if something outside of their group imposed their ideas on them, they likely would have been happier people.

Humanity needs something imposing a few more rules of society, even between family members, than nature provides in order to be ideal. Whether by law like a federal government, or by influence like Religion. I don't know what rules, but I can guarantee they exist.

See Plato:

In the first place, are they not free, is not the city full of freedom and frankness, a man may say and do what he likes. And where freedom is, the individual is clearly able to order for himself his own life as he pleases. Thus in this kind of State there will be the greatest variety of human natures. This, then, seems likely to be the fairest of States, being an embroidered robe which is spangled with every sort of flower. And just as women and children think a variety of colours to be of all things most charming, so there are many men to whom this State, which is spangled with the manners and characters of mankind, will appear to be the fairest of States... Is not their humanity to the condemned in some cases quite charming. Have you not observed how, in a democracy, many persons, although they have been sentenced to death or exile, just stay where they are and walk about the world -- the gentleman parades like a hero, and nobody sees or cares?... Is not this a way of life which for the moment is supremely delightful...

Eventually we find... complete equality and liberty in relations between the sexes... the father standing in awe of his son, and the son neither respecting nor fearing his parents, in order to assert what he calls independence... the teacher fears and panders to his pupils, who in turn despise their teachers and attendants... You would never believe - unless you had seen it for yourself - how much more liberty the domestic animals have in a democracy. The dog comes to resemble is mistress, as the proverb has it. They are in the habit of walking about the streets with a grand freedom, and bump into people they meet if they don't get out of their way. Everything is full of this spirit of liberty....

What it adds up to is this, you find that the minds of the citizens become so sensitive that the least vestige of restraint is resented as intolerable

Aristocracy in the way that Plato thought would be better than Democracy.

Democracy, even in its crappier forms, gives people the perception that they can control government.

It doesn't matter if this is actually true, as long as people continue to think that they have a say, it quells dissent in the long-run. People don't respect laws that they feel they can't object to.

For this reason, democracy is "better" in keeping society stable. An aristocracy or dictatorship that doesn't bother disguising itself as one will fall at some point, through one way or another.

In a sense however, democracies are truly democratic. In the short term, it is true, the upper caste leads society in whatever direction they want, but because they only care about themselves and not of "future generations of elite", they do what they can to keep power towards the end of their lifetime, and some of that is to make "small" concessions to the people to prevent rebellion, that slowly build up. In some sense, the idea of an everpresent threat in the commoners spawned by the French Revolution, is more influential than any of the formal conceptions of Democracy.

Think about it. The top elites of most societies are 50+, and they can expect some of the policies they implement to not really effect them much in the future. So if people are protesting in the streets over a cause, or if it's a cause that doesn't effect them that can make them just a little less likely to be overthrown, they simply concede a bit and lend support, and guarantee their rule for their lifetime. Gradually, these concessions make the state more and more aligned with the people's interests, making the fact democracy doesn't work short-term irrelevant.

This can also explain why Democracy doesn't jive with Islamic states in modern day. The elite in the West gradually ceased to be clergy-like, and left them with Nobles that don't desire a code to be implemented past their lifetime, rather just caring for themselves and their elite friends. This was actually a boon to Democracy. The societies in Islam still have a cause embedded in their elites, that they genuinely believed up until very recently. They have an investment in the people acting a certain way, in order to be a good Muslim. And this makes sure they don't let the people, who "don't know what's good for them", decide anything.

The

The United Kingdom is a good example of slow concessions resulting in a Democratic society. There is no point where their monarchy suddenly became Democratic, but yet here we are, in a world where the brits have an effectively democratic system.

Plato's ideal state was a technocracy. (protip, the EU is not a technocracy unfortunately)

>technocracy
>wanting scientists and engineers to push us closer to the singularity

>Aristocracy in the way that Plato thought would be better than Democracy

Plato's republic is not realistic as an actual state. People just don't behave that way.

Yeah, it's somewhere between oligarchy and a bureaucratic dictatorship

plato's regime sounds objectively terrible though

>pros
Nothing.
>cons
Everything.

All forms of government are corrupt because they necessitate violence.

If the dictator/oligarchy can do a better job than voters then it follows that democracy shouldn't be allowed. However how often does that happen?

The type of person who can rise to power usually has motives that don't align with the greater good, the monarch born into power might not be competent and doesn't necessarily have the right motives either.

Democracy is often incompetent and people are easily led astay but their motives are not completely off the chain and given enough time they can iron out flaws in law, state services, bureaucracy and the civil service. In a democracy anyone can criticize the government, even if they don't have good policies, often there are at least a few people pushing for better policies who might succeed one day, whereas under a dictatorship they are violently repressed and stand no chance.

If a situation ever arose where the majority of people wanted to start a nuclear war for no good reason, chances are we were completely fucked long before that point anyway.

>just because you're a critic of democracy you're automatically a monarchist

ok, nice discussion there.
if you find that democracies biggest potential con, then what are the pros of democracy?

Good post.

Not really

>my special snowflake communism is better
good one mate.

>Plato's republic is not realistic as an actual state
its never meant to be realistic.
Its the description of a Pure Form of government
You take your conclusions from that Pure Form, and try to figure out the best possible form of government in the real world

To me the pro of democracy is that it tends towards mediocrity. Leaders generally can't generate the power and support to do anything extreme. This means no maniac dictators going apeshit and ruining everything.

The con is the same. Democracy's are horribly bad at long-term planning, it's always trying to appeal to the next election. Even for leaders who know they won't get elected next need to put up with the potential that the next guy will just undo everything they've done. You never get to enjoy the prosperity of having an actually competent dictator/monarch/etc doing good by your country.

Basically, democracy eliminates the worst excesses of monarchy, but also eliminates the prosperity and benefits of a good ruler secure in their position who can exert their will.

How did it ever get to be thought of as smart to have democracies on a wide scale? I could see small states like Athens, but massive states with millions of people? Most people don't even know the mechanics of the political process work, let alone the in depth implication of various policy. Heck, most people can't even grasp philosophies of governing the self, let alone the infinitely more complex philosophy of governing society. Monarchy makes much more sense, the monarch, a living personification of the nation, is qualified, isn't beholden to any lobbyists or "friends" for getting him in power, and he doesn't have to engage in favor trading to gain more power. The mechanics of a government should be one body, not factions and special interests in constant strife with each other. It's no surprise leftism lead to communist totalitarianism, leftism sought to resolve all dialectical tension after deposing of the monarch, the linchpin that unified everything; so in order to have the unity leftism thinks the world is progressing toward, factions have to be abolished by a party instead of a monarch (of course, this doesn't abolish them at all, it leads to the same game of tit-for-tat and owing favors and slander involved in democracy, albeit with more lethal consequences).

>Gradually, these concessions make the state more and more aligned with the people's interests, making the fact democracy doesn't work short-term irrelevant.
except you can just sell an overarching narrative through propaganda, that favors the ruling oligarchy and such alignment never happens
The majority will think so, and they will see their votes as proof of this, but effectively this is not true

there is no "pure form of government" though. the "best" government is completely dependent on the circumstances surrounding a specific society and reasoning for how to deal with those specific problems for those specific people

Pure Form, in the context of Plato's work

Boobs are best when they're equal and even.

Democratize the workplace to decentralize

Democracy is the regimentation of the law of the strongest, therefore by its own existence being a paradox. If there is the law of democracy, how can it be said that the law of the strongest can be?

This. Modern democracy ensures that a terrible leader can't do that much to ruin his government, but on the flip-side it also ensures that an amazing leader can't do much to advance his government.

Dictatorships and most forms of monarchy are the opposite. While giving an extremely competent leader like Napoleon near-total control of the state is very beneficial, it's can also be disastrous when someone unqualified ends up taking the throne.

>each part of the country elects an MP
>these MPs form a parliament.
>All the areas get an elected voice
vs
>every person votes for which party it wants to have ruling it
>they slit the seats per percentage
>meaning an areas MP likely won't be the one elected.
>All areas that aren't London or another massive slum city don't matter any more and so are neglected.
>Welcome to the caliphate.

Yes they also only worked 3 hours a day for one season.
Though some nobles were complete dicks, and some were really nice, and most were just average. Just like now.

I want to fuck her real bad

Depends on what degree of democracy we're talking about. Can people directly vote on health regulations, building safety codes, police funding, corporate taxation, fishing quotas, minimum wage, metro network expansions and so on?

Or do they just get fucked over by business bribing the state and local administration?