[y80]

> Democracy is not about having control of your own life. It is about a large group of other people having control over your life.

Democracy is about balancing individual freedom with the demands of living in society. There is no other system of decision making which even attempts to reconcile these two adversarial relationships (individual vs. society).

>What you are thinking about would be volunteerism/Non-aggressionism.

I fail to see how you could have an undemocratic voluntary society. I'd argue democracy is the backbone of a voluntary society.

[cderwin]

> Democracy is about balancing individual freedom with the demands of living in society.

No it's not. Democracy does not inherently balance individual liberty with societal necessity. In fact, democracy says absolutely nothing about individual liberty or societal necessity at all. Democracy is a form of government that holds regular public elections. It is not anything else. It might be argued that democracy is a necessary condition for liberty, but it is certainly not a sufficient one.

[y80]

>Democracy is a form of government that holds regular public elections

Democracy is a group of people co-operating in a system through equal representation. This does not require a state apparatus or government.

>It might be argued that democracy is a necessary condition for liberty, but it is certainly not a sufficient one.

Solely sufficient? Absolutely not, that's what I'm saying, but yes it is a necessary condition. It's is the sustinence on which liberty grows.

[tormeh]

>It might be argued that democracy is a necessary condition for liberty, but it is certainly not a sufficient one.

I think that's too strong. Some dictatorships have more liberty than some democracies. Democracy increases the odds of liberty immensely, but is neither necessary nor sufficient.

[stale2002]

Democracy is voting. It is majority rules.

A voluntary system is basically the opposite. Every who wants to participate in something, can choose to do so. Or choose not too. You don't vote on what should be done, and then force everyone to go along with it.

Majority rules is force. You go along with the decision of the group or else. Whereas voluntaryism is zero force. No matter what the group decides, how many people vote for it, you never ever use force on anyone to make them go along with the group.

Thats fine if you think that using force is necessary for the greater good of making society better.

There are lots of good arguments for why the government threatening people with guns, in order to get them to pay taxes, for example, is needed in order to get anything done at all in society.

But don't dress it up in pretty words and call it "voluntary". Voluntary is the absence of force. It is the idea that no matter what I do, as long as I don't directly harm another people, noone should use force against me.