[throwawayqdhd]

> Politicians spend the money to fund campaigns, but also on handing out favours, jobs and cash to constituents. “It’s sort of an unholy nexus,” as Raghuram Rajan put it to me during his tenure as head of India’s central bank. “Poor public services? Politician fills the gap; politician gets the resources from the businessman; politician gets re-elected by the electorate for whom he’s filling the gap.”

I know this will never be popular opinion, but as a citizen of a poor, developing country with widespread corruption, I sometimes have to wonder: is democracy really the best model for poor nations that don't have the foundations to foster it?

[DanielBMarkham]

You want a layered, federated, representative democracy. Not just a democracy.

By layering and federating, you introduce noise into the system. One layer may be controlled by one party, another by another. You are purposefully introducing noise and isolating possible corruption vectors. With enough noise and isolation, each time power switches over at a node or layer, there's widespread "corruption cleaning" that mostly involves running out all the corrupt guys from the other party and setting up your own corruption that works in a different way.

Looked at another way, the system has to have a way to be wrong. If one person or one party controls everything from top to bottom (or the system stops being layered and federated), then there's no feedback loop -- and there's your unholy nexus.

Personally I'd add term limits to the mix, mainly because I think whatever the government is, it should be understandable and controllable by an average citizen. Also if you're in for a long time, it's doubtful you'll change your ways -- and there goes the feedback loop again.

You never eliminate corruption. That's a fool's game. Instead what you want is to isolate it in such a way that over time it's easy to identify and remedy.

[sidm83]

The government at federal level is still a very "noisy" affair. The ruling coalition though enjoying significant majority in lower house is far from simple majority in the upper house which holds elections once in 6 years. You only need to watch a few minutes of a session in action to realize it is well and truly a very noisy affair.

India saw the rise of regional parties with the parallel fall of the Congress party since the 90s. There are many states now where Congress has only namesake presence. This resulted in coalition rule at the federal level which was finally reversed in 2014 when BJP came to power with simple majority (though also as part of the NDA coalition). Subsequently it won most state elections, effectively gaining power in 19/31 states/union territories. But due to the bicameral nature of Indian parliament, it is far from majority in the Rajya Sabha (Upper House, where the MPs are indirectly elected). Because of this they have not been able to introduce many legislations.

[DanielBMarkham]

The government at federal level is still a very "noisy" affair.

Perhaps so. Perhaps not. I suspect we have different definitions of "noisy". There's also a tremendous gap between what you see in the media and how things actually work. That's one of the cornerstones of a corrupt system, sadly: the impenetrable nature of trying to observe it from the outside.

I wish you the best of luck. My advice is to acknowledge human nature and create systems that work with it. These systems tend to be the ones that are able to adapt and thrive over time.

[sidm83]

I completely agree with your POV. Hoping corruption will go away is a fool's game indeed. Just trying to highlight that compared to US system of 2 party rule, India is a true multi party system since the 90s (from a faux one earlier when Congress dominated). The BJP lead coalition appears to be reversing this but its dominance is still far below the levels enjoyed by Congress from 1947 to late 80s. And there is good possibility of its dominance reducing starting from the state elections scheduled later this year.

[CaptainDecisive]

I think you've got a fair point. But democracy is the least worst system of government that we know of. This idea has been around for a long time. I know the Churchill quote 'Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.' Apparently he said this in the 1940s but he attributed it to some earlier source.

Modern well established democracies have just had a longer time to refine the system to a slightly less shitty version of the democracy that come before them.

So you might be right, but I wonder if it's the journey that matters? Ie is it that countries have to go through the process in order to get to a better place? So you can't just drop a democracy system from another country in place somewhere, and hope that it works. That of course doesn't mean you shouldn't learn from the mistakes of others.

[credit_guy]

I dislike the term "democracy". The correct term that characterizes the western systems (such as the US) is "checks and balances". Having multiple check and balances is the best way to limit corruption, having general elections is a very poor proxy. Just see how many countries have general elections (and so can call themselves "democracies") and are ruled by a president for life.

[ksec]

>I know this will never be popular opinion,but as a citizen of a poor, developing country with widespread corruption, I sometimes have to wonder: is democracy really the best model for poor nations that don't have the foundations to foster it?

I actually think you have a very valid concern. As Churchill once said "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others." ( I know it isn't Churchill who said it first, but let not derail the topic )

As someone who has lived in Representative Democracy, Direct Democracy, and Authoritarian countries, My only conclusion is, none of the above form of government matters as much. What is much more fundamental, in every form of government is well educated, and well informed people. They need to be taught to think independently, and critically, to make values of things, to make a judgement, and (much) more importantly, to learn from the mistakes if they did make a wrong judgement. Education is the key and possibly the only key to political and society progress. Once we have that, any form of Government will work, as ultimately the power of Government comes from People, even Authoritarian.

That is of course ignoring capitalism sneaking through, where human greed are maximised. Where Education isn't about teaching the basics of thinking and values, but skills set that you are required to get a job.

[gepi79]

Democracy depends on the knowledge and understanding of the people (demos).

General mistrust regarding the media and politicians is required. E.g. the weird behavior of the top UK politicians in the Skripal case, the lies related to the war in Iraq, the war in Libya, the war in Syria.

Understanding the basics of science is important too. If you believe in working cars then you should believe in climate warming and the need for urgent change too because the involved science is basically the same.

Understanding of non-classic or modern or progressive economics is important too.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2X_Ywepzm46_uGJDfRjYeQ/vid...

[oblio]

What's the alternative? Enlightened dictatorships are even worse. Sure, they work for a while, but at some point family ties override everything and you end up with Dumbo as chief of state when his brilliant parent dies.

[rapsey]

Counter point: singapore.

[rueynshard]

Singapore might be a flawed democracy, but it still is one. The ruling party does fear losing vote share in elections and adapts its policies to win public support (e.g. in the 2011 elections when the opposition won 40% of the vote).

[rapsey]

During its forming it was essentially a dictatorship

[sumedh]

Even Singapore's founder/dictator said that Singapore style government wont work in huge country like India with its different religions, languages, cultures etc.

[oblio]

I do know about Singapore. Feel free to point out another 5 examples from the entire history of mankind, all 5000 years of it, all across the world.

Oh, to clarify, I want a longer time frame. I want a autocratic regime which didn't hit the "Dumbo peak" within 1 century, +/- 20 years. Heck, even Singapore doesn't qualify, their system has been up for only about 60 years. They still have about as many years to hit a dud.

I'll wait :)

[rapsey]

This is a silly argument. Every regime has an arch and succumbs to corruption eventually. "Works for a while" describes every regime in history of mankind.

[oblio]

Why would it be silly? The whole point of democracy is to prevent that decay...

Or are you assuming that democracy naturally devolves into a corrupt regime? I doubt it. It seems to be the exact opposite: stable, long term democracies are the most resilient ones.

[krapp]

>Or are you assuming that democracy naturally devolves into a corrupt regime?

All governments regardless of their nature or intent devolve into corrupt regimes over time. The nature of government - authority through a monopoly on violence and coercive taxation - makes corruption, authoritarianism and collapse inevitable.

[rapsey]

How many long term democracies are there? If you mean US and not see corruption (which is only getting worse) then you are paying very poor attention. The US is an oligarchy at best and a fascist state (and no I do not mean Trump) at worst.

[intended]

Yes? I think it’s the habits of being a democracy, checks and balances, informed citizens, independent police and judiciary - that make a working system.

But if you are never allowed to build that, then what ?

[thisisit]

I hold an even more unpopular opinion - socialism doesn't help the poor which it actually tries to. Take a look at how China, Russia and even India's elite have amassed wealth. Purely through a socialistic system which is supposed to help everyone by giving too much power to a handful of people.

To paraphrase someone on HN - laws tend to made for David to fight Goliath. But with time Goliath comes to understand the rules and uses it to shut down the Davids.

[TheSpiceIsLife]

I believe this is the comment you are referring to:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17480914

This is an evergreen story. Regulations sold as weapons for davids to defend against goliaths are instead used by goliaths to fend off davids. It turns out that Goliath can learn to use a sling too, and can hurl bigger stones with it. This is why goliaths like regulations so much, and why patents may be more disease than cure.

[thisisit]

Yes, thank you. Tried to find the relevant article using algolia but couldn't remember the exact thread.

[TheSpiceIsLife]

FYI: I used algolica and limited the search to comments in the past week and searched for the term "davids" (without quotes).

[ksec]

It depends on how you define and view "socialism". It seems to me most US citizens have a vert different view on socialism then everyone else from CommonWealth countries.

[shanghaiaway]

Chinese style governance is undisputedly better.

[amit5094]

Even I have thought this for a while and India in it's current state has been a good example of a failed democratic state. While dictatorship cannot be the answer, I wonder if we should have some other alternatives mode of ruling too.

[known]

Without imposing 40% https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inheritance_tax India cannot solve Poverty/Corruption/Crime/Unemployment/Underemployment

[godelmachine]

>> India in its current state has been a good example of a failed democratic state.

That's too big a thing to say! Please elaborate more.

[amit5094]

When votes can be easily bought by the politicians, the power resides with wealthy and few. Religion and caste still play very important role in politics. Outsides won't understand and insiders fail to accept the truth. Because democracy is considered to be "untouchable" just like religion.