Why is democracy good?

>>it's better to fail as a team than to fail because of 1 cucked leader
why

Think of the German Empire and how it was ruined by one man's inferiority complex. It's better if important decisions, like whether or not to go to war, aren't being made by just one person.

I don't think the moderate oligarchies of the West are inherently bad, that's not my point at all. So I have some "belief" or faith in their ability to govern.

There are examples of democracies, monarchies, and the various admixtures. I don't know of any modern democracy; it could be done readily enough, and communications technology would be a great assistance for larger countries, but I don't know of anyone doing it today. I don't pretend to know the government of every nation, though. If you want some sort of absolute ruler, I hear NK has one. I hear he does a shit job, too.

Or, are you asking me "what is a democracy"? If that's the question, you could answer it quickly by either studying the government of a place like Athens, or read the relevant parts of a Classical Text like Aristotle's Politics.

Modern representative governments either outright violate, or heavily temper, democracy in every possible way.

It would be best if the only ones invested in the war would be the only ones who had to fight it.

but a mob can ruin a country just as well

>No government can give anything to anybody without first taking it from another.
>In a democracy that which is legal is seldom moral, and that which is moral is often illegal.
>His ultimate aim must be to restore the rule of law based on the perfect laws of nature. Do not choose him by his words. Choose one who has sacrificed all in the face of tyranny; choose one who has endured and persevered. This is the only reliable evidence of his worthiness and motives.

yeahokpal.jpg

I can't wait until this board is cleansed of stirnerfags.

>Putting "direct" and "indirect" in front of the term "democracy" is either a sign of carelessness, ignorance, or dishonesty.

??? You either decide how policies are decided on, (direct) or you decide WHO will be chosen to decide those policies (indirect). Those are both democracies, in both cases, you have one vote that helps determine what the majority wants.

It's not about failing as a team, it's about failure at all. Why would I want a leader who doesn't represent my interests in office, when there's better suited canidates who could do his job twice as good?

Individual humans are incredibly fallible. By allowing as many qualified people as possible to make decisions, you have a better chance of the government being able to function correctly. The problem is that most people are unqualified to make these kinds of decisions. However, allowing fallible humans decide who's qualified to vote obviously leads to the same problem, so allowing as many people to vote as possible is the only reasonable option.

why does the fallibility of the masses not rear themselves?

would you not be more likely to see the failings of lesser men show themselves more than those of greater ones?

From what I've read, individuals, even if they have some expertise in a field, will always make mistakes. However, if you average out the results, you end up with much fewer mistakes. Also, what do you mean by that second part?

get ten people in a room

assume that four of them are stupid, the fifth average, four smart, and one very smart

why should we 'average out" the results instead of having the five best in charge?

Like I said, letting fallible humans decide who's qualified to vote wouldn't work. After all, which of those 10 is going to decide who's going to get to vote?

in real life, how do we know who is the smarest and therefore the best to be put in charge? the most fit person to lead could be some random middle-class person while some retard get's put in charge because it's hit divine right or because of nepotism.

Your "indirect" is literally oligarchy. It is not a democratic process. This position is taken from the Classics. Direct elections were specifically considered oligarchic, as was the notion of the individual citizens surrendering their authority to the few.

You don't live in a democracy. You have no vote on whether we go to war. You have no vote on whether a law should be passed, you can't even put forward anything for a vote in the legislature. Also, you can't prosecute people for criminal offenses, and you can't interpret the law even if you are picked for a tiny little 6 or 12 man jury. The list goes on.

In every area of modern western government, the common citizens either vote for a lord or have one imposed upon them. You are not a citizen in any democratic sense.

But why have me natter on about this? Literally consult the birthplace of democracy, consult the multiple political theorists who put this all in writing.

the ones who've proven themselves most capable

easier said than done i know, but we also live in a time of ease and plenty where the less capable live just as we do. It used to be that hardship made the best more apparent. Military officers for example display leadership and cunning that the ancients recognized as being desirable attributes in governance.

Democracy is good for putting checks on the government, but the Republic is the preferable form of government.

it provides a wealth of legitimacy

if it creates better leaders and more of them it is good

Democracy? More like idiocracy.

The problem is that even our current methods of promotion are flawed. Why does being good at small unit tactics as a sergeant mean you deserve to be promoted to lieutenant and work with operations instead? The same problem appears in every other field as well.

>Why does being good at small unit tactics as a sergeant mean you deserve to be promoted to lieutenant
you don't
senior NCOs take notice of your aptitude for traits they desire in an officer, and then you go to OCS where you are then trained and tested to see if you should be given a commission.
what should be desired is the best meritocracy we can get, so that we can actually put the better above the lesser.

Meritocracies are just as fallible as democracies though. After all, why are the senior NCOs qualified to select who gets promoted? Because they were picked by other, more senior officers? In the end, as long as humans are involved you can't have a perfect system, but by making each fallible human have as little impact as possible, you have a more perfect system.

there is no question that benevolent dictators are the best form of government during their own lives

the problem with that model is succession. these "great men of history" do not usually have great sons and never have great grandsons

this results in expensive power struggles every 100-200 years that cripple the state's ability to build long term wealth and success

the democratic model rarely results in "great men" leading the country, but it can do in times of crises (ww2 and the cold war for example), but it usually delivers someone who is at least competent, or does so often enough to keep the lights on in the long term

>After all, why are the senior NCOs qualified to select who gets promoted?
because they became senior NCOs by proving themselves, but this comes down to when did the non-human element present itself?
the answer is in struggle, when hardship came some proved better than the rest, and those were put above the others.
one man was cool under fire, so he was promoted, he then directed his squad under fire effectively, and he was promoted, and so on and so on.
by having favorable attributes, he was placed where he would be most beneficial.

The problem is that they are often taken out of positions they did well in and placed into positions where the skills don't necessarily correlate. One example is the small unit tactics to operations I mentioned, another is a store manager being promoted to a regional manager. In both cases the person being promoted may have had the right skill set to do their current job correctly, but not their new job.

So, you're putting it like this:

democracy:
>50 people in a city
>30 vote for a law
>20 vote against it
>law is passed

western government:
>50 people in a city
>30 vote for person A
>20 vote for person B
>person A takes office, and only HE determines whether or not a law goes into place

Right? I'm understanding what you mean user, but the question I have is: Could a PURE democracy like the one listed above really work, or are all large governments fated to become oligarchies ?

>he fell for the democracy isn't oligarchy meme.

Nobody has ever tried a fucking alternative, you gr*Ek-worshipping cuck

It was obviously impossible in the past when information would take weeks or even months to transport across the country. Now that we can have nearly instant communication from anywhere, direct democracy for millions of people could be possible.

the meritocracy fails to present itself then

my grandfather was made to go through OCS after his SNCOs saw his aptitude for leadership under stress, but he was tested to make sure of this. and rest assured evaluations are made when moving up in the ranks.
what you exemplify is the a failure of making a meritocracy, which would be better spent on improving it rather than changing from it.

Nobody has ever tried an alternative because an alternative hasn't been found. You're literally just agreeing with me.

It'd be really interesting to have elections by the citizens any time a society has to make a decision. Never was able to see this before before desu. Good discussion user.

Western 'democracies' essentially function, in theory, by a mass voting for a figure who in theory will vote similarly to the way they do. Of course, to make oneself known, one always clings to other groups which are technically formed by citizens but have unequal 'voting power' so to say through their capacity, utility, or funding. This is also possible on the democratic level, on the level of the individual demos, but that is terribly inefficient even in small poleis. It requires that an ancient lobbyist bribe at least a majority, whereas now a lobbyist must only bribe a few people, to a even single person. What people fail to understand is, is that this system we call democracy actually lacks the personal responsibility and intentional division of power that democracy used to at least minimize corruption, whereas corruption works as well in the modern system (an oligarchy) as it does in any oligarchy. Meaning, a 'democracy' is as corrupt as any 'totalitarian' state. In fact, all it takes for a 'democracy' to become 'totalitarian' is for the right lobbyists to work together. the NSDAP coming into power is a typical and popular example of exactly what I described. But, what people now fail to realize is that the only counter to this bribery (concentrated propaganda, so to say), is wide-spread propaganda, through public education, law, social norms, and so on. But, because all these forms of propaganda are essentially dependent upon the same powers that could become 'totalitarian' with few real difficulties, there is no actual counter-force; in fact, the force moves with it.
We are already living in a so-called 'dystopia'.
>an alternative hasn't been found
Wrong; an alternative has not been recognized.
Read my above point on propaganda.

The idea that an authoritarian system, whether absolute or oligarchical, is less corrupt or easier to reform than a modern democracy is simply laughable. an authoritarian system REQUIRES corruption in order to function. Let me put it like this, any authoritarian leader maintains his power through the loyalty of privileged groups. In the case of a feudal monarchy it's the landed aristocracy, in the case of a modern junta it's the military. In all cases the authoritarian must serve those groups needs instead of the nations. If he does not those groups withdraw their support and he is overthrown. This means that the state is specifically designed to cripple itself for the betterment of the autocrats supporters over the interests of the nation. In a word, corruption. Thus because the law is not actually meant to address their needs, the population must turn to either illegality or revolution in order to survive, both of which are harmful to the well being of the nation. As for the belief that democracies cannot produce great leaders America alone provides several counters to that claim. Teddy Roosevelt, Lincoln, FDR, Washington, Adams, and more were all able to be strong and powerful leaders capable of both pushing thorough rapid reforms and guide the nation through crises’ while remaining subject to the rule of law and the democratic process. But what about the bad ones? A bad monarch or other dictator can destroy his nation utterly, meanwhile it is popularly thought that Nixon was the Worst president in the past Century, yet the nation was able to chug along without falling into ruin and get rid of him without a civil war or a coup.

One strong benefit is that it creates clear means for peaceful transfer of power, and greatly lowers the stakes of losing power. Losing power in a monarchy, clique of warlords, fascist dictatorship, etc - or your group trying to take power and failing - has a high likelihood of being lethal and/or leading to serious retribution against allies of the loser.

In a democratic system the process of gaining and losing power is regulated and the aforementioned tension is deescalated. If you lose an election, you and your supporters can go home safely, and most importantly *try again* in the future. It takes much of the maneuvering for power out of the shadows and places it within a predictable context. The players now know when the others will challenge their power, when the opportunities to take it are, and are incentivized to work within the system. For a textbook historical example, see the Meiji oligarchs of late 19th c. Japan. The ruling clique ended up ushering in a legislature, political parties, elections, etc because they grew sick of the destabilization, having to keep one eye on their backs to watch for a knife, fear of rivals plotting secretly in the shadows, etc.

Democracy also provides a peaceful and restrained means of getting rid of shit leadership without a revolution or military coup wreaking havoc on the entire country.
>inb4 OP ghosts

Fucking nailed it. The idea that authoritarian systems are the most efficient, free of corruption, etc is a meme.

>Let me put it like this, any authoritarian leader maintains his power through the loyalty of privileged groups.
But that's much the same in today's western liberal democracy. Powerful donors, private individuals or groups controlling the media, creating the narrative and public opinion, large multinational corporations lobbying, various NGO's, need all to be satisfied for a candidate to even get as far as running for President. What happened to Bernie Sanders at the DNC is still in recent memory.

The idea that democracy is a level playing ground and somehow excludes corruption and doesn't involve privilige groups is also laughable to me. In many ways its worse because many people have the illusion that it is. In the USSR when you read the Pravda you knew it was a bullshit towing the party line, when you read western media the narrative and impression is that it's free and unbiased when it's not.

Arguing in terms of morality is dumb, I'm a civilian and I'd rather have one vote than none, I'm gonna want what's in my best interests

>Is it good
No, no system of government is perfect but you are born into whatever you are born into. The will of the people is not inherently a good thing, no.

As much as people don't want to admit it, sometimes people don't know what is best for them, and the will of the masses is easy to control when needed.

>the five best

that's just like your opinion man

Democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. It is good because it is better than the alternatives.

Idk Socialism with Chinese characteristics is looking pretty fine right about now

Yeah, suicide nets and all.

>be french
>fucking nobody speaks my language except few autists in canada and some niggers
>"hey lets post picture in french on the english-speaking forum with no explanation whatsoever
Why does every french guy does this? Its like some kind of mental disease or something.

i'm californian and i speak french
Also remember that this is a French board amerinigger

Gives the mob the illusion of choice.

The Electoral College needs to go.

So basically capitalism?

State capitalism.

>It is good because it is better than the alternatives.
better by what metric? Empires have done some pretty good shit.

pretty good answer desu wu senpai

And then immediately collapsed because there is no good way to ensure succession works right in an empire unless you have some form of elections.

>And then immediately collapsed
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Empire

>And then immediately collapsed

Rome survived for 1500 years as an empire.

>In a democracy those who control the media, and thus the minds of the electorate, have power undreamed by kings or dictators.
Yeah it's too bad no dictators or kings ever got the idea to control of the media.

nigga u dumb

>Do not choose him by his words. Choose one who has sacrificed all in the face of tyranny; choose one who has endured and persevered. This is the only reliable evidence of his worthiness and motives.
That went so well for all those Latin American, African, and Asian countries that "picked" former guerilla fighters as their strongmen.

It gives the pleb the illusion that they have some control over their government, thus less likely to revolt.

>western industrialized nations are successful
>western industrialized nations are democratic
>democracy makes nations successful

Kek

Democracy is good because you posted a cute kot

Yes, that is one particular example of how a democracy differs from an oligarchy. The system of government is a lot more than just passing laws, though, as indicated elsewhere.

Anyway, other people have responded, but I agree with them that a broadly democratic system can work in a large country. Especially with the recent improvements to communications technology.

How democratic you want a system to be is up to you. Athens incorporated some oligarchic institutions and practices into its system.

flavor of the century desu senpai

Nobody has ever tried an alternative to democracy?

The Republic died the day Tiberius Gracchus was murdered. Everything after that was just a giant corpse slowly rotting.

>Democracy is favored because it allows every person to voice their concerns
No it doesn't. Money has the biggest effect on policy outcome.

Democracy isn't good.

>people keep posting this moronic infographic

...

Democracy was great for promoting the flow of information across an entire population, but with modern propaganda techniques, Democracy actually begins to reverse this. It's also the opposite of effective. The USA is only stable because of its historically massive surplus of goods. If the USA was ever able to experience true shortages then a democracy only causes splits in the population. The same splits are also often based on insignificant issues.

In terms of effectiveness the Chinese political system surpasses the system of the USA.

Convicts can't vote

Democracy is fragile and susceptible to turn in a chaotic turmoil. the system itself foment division and divergence in the political power and in that situation is more likely to form radical factions who are tolerated for democracy's sake. This is why modern democracy, (as like others political systems) needs to rely on a large military to supporting them so nothing short of another state can challenge its authority. But Liberals and democrats seem to forget the state authority -as with all authority- is derived ultimately from the barrel of a gun. That is why the democratic system fails when someone faction, group or popular individual stealing the loyalty of armed forces away from the democratic state.

Democracy is popular because it's a legitimacy factory. Instead of worrying about the royal succession and the popularity of the ruler, every four years you can put another pair of malevolent despots on the ballot and tell the public that they asked for this shit.

So authoritarian forms of government don't rely on the military's power either? What's to stop the military from taking control in a dictatorship versus a democracy?

It isn't, people forget how obliviously stupid the common folk is. But it's still a better alternative to authoritarianism.

>rules of nature

Democracy is pure shit

>representative "democracy"
>democracy

Pick one

Actually authoritarian forms of government rely and are supported on the military power, some regimes are even formed for that reason. Look North Korea, the militars have a big influence on the state, it will be very difficult to overthrow a regime like this unless you cause division in the military power or defeat their army.

>the militars

Military*

Why not just kill them all with thermonuclear weapons

A democracy can fail, surely a people can simply go completely mad and dissolve into anarchy. However, that's far less likely to happen than it is for your leadership to go completely mad.

Dictatorships are inherently awful and degenerate because physical force that's meant to maintain order for the society is instead used to maintain their own stay in office. The only way for to remove them from power is either they step down (unlikely) or by physical force (guns).

Democracy ensures that leaders cannot hold office by physical force. New leaders are cycled into congress and old leaders out by vote.

>I'm gonna want what's in my best interests
But do you actually know what is in your best interests? That's why democracies are inefficient, people who know nothing of politics, get all their information from the big medias think that they are competent enough to decide what is the optimal decision for them.
You don't ask a butcher to fix your plumbery, same goes for politics.
Of course it's better to have a say than having no say while being under a corrupt government. But democracy is still fundamentally inneficient.

>Pick your strongman wisely. He must be a guardian in his heart. He must be one who has shown that his only purpose in life is the preservation of the folk. His ultimate aim must be to restore the rule of law based on the perfect laws of nature. Do not choose him by his words. Choose one who has sacrificed all in the face of tyranny; choose one who has endured and persevered. This is the only reliable evidence of his worthiness and motives.
they all thought this
when has this ever turned out well for the average person?
i honestly want to know

>democracy good
That's an Oxymoron, Democracy is literally the most evil system mankind has devised.

Benevolent dictators exist. Like this Prussian king in the 18th century or this Singaporian dictator (forgot the names, sorry)

Democracy is good as long as its system guarantees private property and guarantees individualism and provides juridic structures that enforce any public or individual authority in impossibility to dispose my life after it's desire.

This way it's good, the moment this stops it just becomes totalitarian tyranny.

Democracy isn't good, it's just better than what we had before it. There are still fundamental flaws with the concept.

eg. Rights and freedoms - under democracy, they don't really exist in any permanent and meaningful way, because they can always be voted away.

We're (arguably) freer than we've ever been under a government or other coercive control, yet we're still not free.

In a few hundred years, we'll probably have something entirely different again.

>representative democracy is just voting for one person to make all the decisions!
What is senate/parliament
>freedoms can just be voted away! Tyranny of the masses!
What is a constitution/limited government
>muh benevolent dictatorships
Nobody's perfect, there will always be someone who's fucked up by a dictator. Just because you agree with x dictator's morals doesn't mean he's 'benevolent'.

A representative constitutional republic (or athenian-esque democracy for smaller states, if you wish) allows for the greatest flexibility of a state and ability to react to events as needed, because of not being tied to the morals of one person/party or a small upper class but the majority of the population. They also, if they have a constitution which does so, are good at limiting government intervention and preventing the 'Total dictatorship of the masses' pure democracy might result in.

But I guess this is just my opinion. Oh well, have fun reading Plato, or whatever.

>What is senate/parliament
except these are always filled with heirarchical political parties with one or a few people at the top controlling them
>What is a constitution/limited government
and yet practically every example of such governments have legislated away such freedoms when they thought it was in their interests

>Rights and freedoms - under democracy, they don't really exist in any permanent and meaningful way, because they can always be voted away
user that's what the constitution and the courts are for. theoretically the 1st amendment could be voted away, but the amendment process is quite difficult, especially if there was an amendment as controversial as that.

What do you say we have? Dictatorshop? Monarchy? Meritocracy? A one-party state?

Why are you arguing with a Chavist/Bernout?

I'm sure the people of Assyria, Rome, medieval Europe, Nazi Germany, and North Korea all had more rights than those in a modern democracy, since apparently people in democratic systems have no rights.

semi-hereditary aristocracy/oligarchy

its not a dictatorship or a one party state, instead a wealthy elite control all major institutions in society and compete with one another for wealth and power based on rules they all agree upon, when those rules are threatened by the people they unite to prevent any threat to their rule.

there is an element of meritocracy, since in theory anyone can join this elite as it is defined by its wealth and wealth alone, but also once part of the elite a person and their children almost always remain so