[ZeroGravitas]

Another only mildly disguised attack on democracy.

> If you’re used to thinking that our democratic system is in bad shape, that can sound jarring. But she’s working in the tradition of what philosophers call “ideal theory”; the aim is to sketch out what a good system would be, assuming that everyone fully complied with its rules.

I'm used to thinking that democracy is in poor shape because rich and powerful people prevent it from spreading further.

Which seems appropriate for this topic. But instead of diving into that, this author seems to take as a fairly key element of their argument that people getting stupid rich and then doing government type stuff without democratic oversight is good because the obvious alternative, democratic governance is fundamentally broken.

I'll check out the book by Emma Saunders-Hastings, “Private Virtues, Public Vices: Philanthropy and Democratic Equality” as its arguments sound pretty sensible.

[nomdep]

A pure democracy, a direct democracy, is no different than government though Facebook likes, everything becomes a popularity contest. You know, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others".

"The people", as a collective entity, is extremely dumb, so I think that the faster the communication advances, the worse democracy has become.

[WastingMyTime89]

That's why Switzerland is such a poor country and disappeared from the face of the Earth. The people who want you to believe other people are dumb and direct democracy is a bad thing are the ones benefiting the most from the current inbalanced form of government.

I mean if you think the people as a collective entiry are extremely dumb, why would you want any form of democracy or even society at all? Also, I have bad news for you but reallisticly speaking unless you are the unlikely strong outlier the average person is you (and me).

[simonh]

It clearly isn't impossible for direct democracy to work, but equally there is no guarantee that a measure that gets passed in that way will ever get implemented, or will be implemented in the way intended.

For a start, once the legislation hits reality and needs to be interpreted who decides how it was intended to be implemented? Who chooses which tradeoff should be made when measures conflict with each other? we had problems like this with Brexit in spades. We still have in the from of the relationship between Northern Ireland and the Republic, our leaving the EU free trade zone creates direct conflict with out obligations under the Good Friday agreement. Fortunately we have a government lead by a Brexiteer so I'm sure he'll have all that sorted out in no time.

In 2014 the Swiss passed an initiative to introduce quotas on immigration from the EU, in direct conflict with a treaty between Switzerland and the EU on free movement. It was never implemented.

None of these are the end of the world, but they are problems with the model that need to be taken into account and that direct democracy advocates need to address.

[coastflow]

Assume everyone in a population governed by direct democracy is not "dumb." Then, there is still a need for checks against what political scientist Alexis de Tocqueville called the "tyranny of the majority."

From the United States National Endowment of the Humanities [0]: "In America, [Tocqueville] saw and praised a people who enjoyed an unprecedented equality of conditions and political and civil liberty without endangering order or prosperity. But he also saw and criticized the way white majorities supported the institution of slavery and the unjust treatment of free blacks and Native Americans. In fact, the greatest danger Americans faced was inherent in their treatment of unpopular minorities."

"The power of the democratic majority arises from the fact that every individual is assumed to be competent to guide his own life and is politically the equal of every other individual. In this situation, the greatest legitimate power will always be with the majority."

A lack of "intermediary institutions, [makes a country have] “no lasting obstacles” in the way of the opinions, prejudices, interests, and momentary passions of the majority and tends towards an unthinking despotism over unpopular minorities."

[0] https://edsitement.neh.gov/closer-readings/alexis-de-tocquev...

[ZeroGravitas]

So Alexis Charles Henri Clérel, comte de Tocquevill, touring the US at a time (1831) when Women, Black people, Jews, White men without property etc. were regularly unable to vote concludes that the big issue of concern is that the democratic majority might pass laws affecting a minority? That seems almost perverse.

Yes, but what if we freed the hostages and then they all went out and kidnapped someone? Then we (we being the previous kidnappers) would be no better off! Probably best not to rush into this new fangled democracy thing.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_voting_rights_in...

He's literally and openly writing a book on how with his guidance a democracy can run a society as 'well' as an aristocracy does.

[Bubble_Pop_22]

> That's why Switzerland

Switzerland has the population of NYC, the city, not the metro area... and attracts the crème de la crème of a continent made of 740m people.

By the same token we should all swear by autocracy given how well are Singapore, UAE, Macao and Monaco faring.

[WastingMyTime89]

> Switzerland has the population of NYC, the city, not the metro area... and attracts the crème de la crème of a continent made of 740m people.

Switzerland has a native population with the traditional flaws and usual repartition of a normal population. Your rebuke is the usual one. People like to pretend direct democracy wouldn’t work for their usual pet peeve which generally boils down to them thinking they are much better than their neighbours and when you point to them that their argument is completely disproved by the fact that it already works in an actual rich country they just declare it doesn’t count out of intellectual laziness.

Also yes autocracy can work if you are fine with its main flaws: unequal treatment of the population. China is a better exemple than the countries you suggested looking at.

[WhompingWindows]

I think your equation isn't apt. Facebook likes run through personalized networks and are fed to users by privately curated algorithms which prioritize engagement and serving ads to benefit: Facebook.

In contrast, a pure democracy would be open questions and elections to any adult who is a citizen, without algorithms and corporate motivation interceding. This would theoretically benefit the aggregate voter: the citizens who vote.

[simonh]

The problem with direct democracy is that nobody implementing popularly mandated policies has a stake in successfully implementing them. There's no personal commitment. In contrast if a politician or party proposes policies and gets elected, everybody knows who is responsible for implementing those policies successfully, and the electorate can and will hold them accountable for it. In an ideal direct democracy where all decisions are made by popular vote, the leaders implementing those policies are reduced to functionaries. Even if they supported some measures, they're still going to be expected to implement other measures they disagree with. We had that here in Britain recently and it's a recipe for political paralysis.

[bluefirebrand]

> the electorate can and will hold them accountable for it

In theory. In practice is this what we're actually seeing?

In Canada at least, I don't think political parties are being held accountable for the promises they make during election campaigns. There is a huge tendency to promise the moon and deliver the status quo.

[simonh]

In practice the electorate has to make a pragmatic selection between the choices available to them. Once party leadership and policies emerge, those are your choices, neither may be ideal but that's what you've got. You might very well suspect the politician you vote for won't achieve everything they want to, but maybe they'll deliver more than the other politicians. That sounds terrible, and it's not great, but at least it's realistic.

In direct democracy there's the illusion of zero compromise, you can end up with whatever wacky or amazing combination of initiatives you like, but in reality compromises still have to be made and priorities are going to conflict with each other. Somebody still need to implement all of that.

I just think it makes sense that the person (or party) doing the implementation and deciding on the compromises should be the person who made the commitment.

[ouid]

I think that the parlance has ruined the discourse here. There's nothing "pure" about simple majority direct democracy. We should say that a pure democracy is one in which all governance is established with unanimous support. A social contract signed by everyone. First past the post representative democracy leaves ~75% of the signatures off of the final form. That's pretty bad.

[itronitron]

A good system needs to be resilient to people in power (the rule enforcers or sub-rule makers) not complying with the rules.

[throwaway2048]

Governments aren't the only people in power in modern America, billionaire (philanthropist or otherwise) hold as much or more power than any politician.

[gruez]

>this author seems to take as a fairly key element of their argument that people getting stupid rich and then doing government type stuff without democratic oversight is good [...]

Which part is bad? The "government type stuff" or the "without democratic oversight"? I agree that billionaires fielding their own armies/police forces would be pretty bad, but what's wrong with funding homeless shelters or schools? If I decide to volunteer at a soup kitchen, am I also "doing government type stuff without democratic oversight"?

[naravara]

> but what's wrong with funding homeless shelters or schools?

You don't get to be fabulously wealthy without some of the second order effects of your wealth accumulation being unsavory. Generally speaking, these people will do things like run out competition, foster massive economic inequality, and perpetuate labor abuses to pad their bottom line and then buy the indulgences by doing a cosmetically "good" bit of philanthropy. But they probably could have done more good by doing their day job in a less exploitative way.

[kodah]

Most of the time people don't do stuff just to be nice, it's because they want something. When our needs/desires are met as well, we feel good. Philanthropers, especially of the political nature, are trying to shape society and if leading examples are anything to go by they're influencing society to be more dependent on them and see it as okay.

That's what I took away from OP.

[ryandrake]

To me, the key downside of philanthropy is the "without democratic oversight" part. It's all fine when the billionaires are funding homeless shelters or schools: things everyone can agree are a public good. We are extremely lucky that guys like Bill Gates suddenly got a soft spot for fighting malaria after amassing their fortunes. But nothing exists to stop these billionaires from donating to causes against the public good.

That's the problem. The public should define what "public good" means, not rich people. As inefficient as taxes/government is, at least the voters are theoretically in the driver's seat, and get to at least indirectly define public good through elected representatives. With philanthropy, we're simply letting a single wealthy demographic decide "this is public good, trust me bro", and the public can't vote out rich people if they disagree.

[s1artibartfast]

But that's not true. The people and the democratically-elected government are the ones that Define what qualifies as a charity.

We have said through our Democratic process that these are good things.

https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/charitable-organiz...

[rhn_mk1]

That's an impediment, yes, but it's not a barrier. There's nothing preventing billionaires from putting their money into causes which are not charitable. There's only a disincentive in the form of lowered efficiency.

[s1artibartfast]

Sure, but now you are arguing that the rich shouldn't be able to spend money as they choose, and not against deductible philanthropy.

That is a different beast entirely.

[ZeroGravitas]

You could make the same argument for tax loopholes, in fact they may actually just be the same thing in many cases.

[s1artibartfast]

How do you define loophole. Is is the code that explicitly gives a tax credit for children and dependence a tax loophole?

I don't think that you can make a coherent argument that a law operating as intended is considered a loophole.

[goodpoint]

> what's wrong with funding homeless shelters or schools?

...that such organization replace the government in doing such services and they obviously run without democratic oversight

> If I decide to volunteer at a soup kitchen, am I also "doing government type stuff without democratic oversight"?

Do you have the power to control how millions are spent? To direct thousands of employees?

No - then it's the opposite of undemocratic. It's actually very good for society.

[ZeroGravitas]

Interesting you mention those two topics:

Erik Prince: founder of Blackwater, private mercenary army.

Betsy Devos: former education secretary and champion of charter schools

Both children of Edgar and Elsa Prince, Erik runs their charity:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Foundation

[jimmaswell]

I think you absolutely need a few billionaires to undemocratically shake things up on their own once in a while. Push forward a new vision on rockets, transportation, satellite communication, etc. Government organizations can be too prone to stagnate or languish in design by committee otherwise, see NASA not doing much new in a long time and any city taking forever to get through its own red tape to build anything.

[ouid]

There's a LOT of money to be made telling poor people that rich people are good. Given how much we have collectively been paid to find a good argument for enriching the rich, I don't find any of the arguments to be anywhere close to commensurately convincing, do you?

[ZeroGravitas]

No, but it doesn't have to be convincing if you're a kid and all your stories are about the daughters of authoritarian warlords aka princesses, or genetically superior Ubermensch aka Superheros.

[User23]

The fundamental problem with democracy is, to not put too fine a point on it, that most people are idiots who really have no business having a say in how a city should be run, let alone a continental scale empire. You may see that as an "attack," but it's an observable pattern that has held everywhere and always in human history. Even the provably fair ancient Athenian method of sortition produced catastrophically inept governments. Meanwhile modern "democracy" is a propagandic plutarchy that observably prioritizes the interests of the plutocrats so highly above those of the general population that the latter have, effectively, no say whatsoever.

[terr-dav]

>The fundamental problem with democracy is, to not put too fine a point on it, that most people are idiots who really have no business having a say in how a city should be run, let alone a continental scale empire. >Meanwhile modern "democracy" is a propagandic plutarchy that observably prioritizes the interests of the plutocrats so highly above those of the general population that the latter have, effectively, no say whatsoever.

The former is a consequence of the latter. At least in modern times. Also don't forget that our notional foundations for democracy are rooted in a slave-society. I don't know how that's 'fair' unless you disregard the slaves.

And of course most people have no business in running a government: most people have no experience governing! Most people are subjects in mini-dictatorships (employees of employers).