VOTE today! And is the Federation a democracy? - Page 3

Awesonne · November 10 2012, 12:18 PM

Sci wrote:

Awesonne wrote:

Sci wrote:

What I described isn't even about values, per se. I described an inevitable, objective scenario -- that when not made accountable to the full society in the form of a democratic mandate, any ruling class will become corrupted by power and begin oppressing the masses, who will in turn become resentful. A lack of democracy will inevitably produce class conflict.

What if the ruling class must preserve a facade of democracy? What if you have a corrupt oligarchy composed by people too smart to provoke the people by openingly oppressing it?

No such thing. Any system of unaccountable, autocratic elites will eventually see that elite class revert to corruption, incompetence, and oppression. It is the nature of power that it corrupts and seeks to ever-expand, and it is the nature of unaccountable power to produce lesser and lesser competence. It may take more time or less, but eventually that "point of non-return" will always be reached.

Personally I think that in the worst case democracy is, paraphrasing Churchill, the best form of government that has been tried so far, and would strongly prefer it over current/described oligarchies. I have, however, some objections:

1. I should have been much more clear; I'm not talking about a compact, uniform oligarchy. There is no "class war", all the de facto power, and let's say (to simplify for the love of brevity) that game theory makes unquestionably dominant the "live your rich life and watch" strategy.
2. What if democracies are also a failure on the long run? We have no notion of a democracy standing up for more than about two centuries, and we can see the american system does have some cracks (it is not to me to judge how bad they are). In this case the "point of non-return" will eventually be reached by any government. [ of course citing the Federation would be pretty circular

]

By the way keep in mind that I think, as expressed, that the Federation IS a democracy because of the way its citizen think, astonishingly and wonderfully coherent with the democratic point of view.

Sci · November 10 2012, 09:25 PM

Awesonne wrote:

What if democracies are also a failure on the long run? We have no notion of a democracy standing up for more than about two centuries,

I don't see how we could say that, because there were no democracies before the mid-20th century. Every so-called "democracy" that existed before then was actually just another oligarchy that excluded people on the basis of race, sex, and/or religion. The United States, for instance, was not a democracy until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

Awesonne · November 11 2012, 02:23 AM

Sci wrote:

Awesonne wrote:

What if democracies are also a failure on the long run? We have no notion of a democracy standing up for more than about two centuries,

I don't see how we could say that, because there were no democracies before the mid-20th century. Every so-called "democracy" that existed before then was actually just another oligarchy that excluded people on the basis of race, sex, and/or religion. The United States, for instance, was not a democracy until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

Well, then a fortiori. We can't tell democracy will stand the trial of time by looking at history.

Sci · November 11 2012, 05:42 AM

Awesonne wrote:

Sci wrote:

Awesonne wrote:

What if democracies are also a failure on the long run? We have no notion of a democracy standing up for more than about two centuries,

I don't see how we could say that, because there were no democracies before the mid-20th century. Every so-called "democracy" that existed before then was actually just another oligarchy that excluded people on the basis of race, sex, and/or religion. The United States, for instance, was not a democracy until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

Well, then a fortiori. We can't tell democracy will stand the trial of time by looking at history.

I have not argued in this thread that we know with any certainty that democracy will last -- only that there is no such thing as liberty without it.

Awesonne · November 11 2012, 01:17 PM

Sci wrote:

Awesonne wrote:

Sci wrote:

I don't see how we could say that, because there were no democracies before the mid-20th century. Every so-called "democracy" that existed before then was actually just another oligarchy that excluded people on the basis of race, sex, and/or religion. The United States, for instance, was not a democracy until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

Well, then a fortiori. We can't tell democracy will stand the trial of time by looking at history.

I have not argued in this thread that we know with any certainty that democracy will last -- only that there is no such thing as liberty without it.

I know, and lol, we actually agree, if I am not mistaken, that the Federation is a democracy. You have btw stated that other forms of government would eventually produce class conflict - then we got taken in the flow of discussion since I do not agree with some basic opinions you have about democracy.

The reason for this apparent off-topic was: I can think of a non-democratic government without oppression, but I do believe Federation is a democracy due to the way we've seen its citizens relate to its values. That is, for me we can infer UFP is a democracy by looking at its citizens' psychology.

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