The idea of an uncorrupt government is naive, we would at least need direct democracy to prevent corrupt elitist groups from developing and taking advantage of the system
Direct democracy is still corruptible via propaganda. It’s way more difficult to steal a majority of votes, but if you use some carefully crafted us vs. them narrative, you can steer the public opinion in your favour. Which begs the question then, if public opinion (in this case just a bit over half) is in your favour, has democracy not been achieved?
And if so, is direct democracy not just the current system but with extra steps?
Or are we counting on a “more locks deter opportunists, but don’t prevent the ones truly bent on breaking in” in order to discourage minor acts of corruption hoping it wouldn’t cascade into something bigger?
as a group grows, the issues at hand become more complex, and then the standard citizen no longer has the time to both work and inform himself on the issues of the day to also participate in day-to-day politics in any meaningful way. Just like anything else, over a certain size specialization is required.
In a future with real democracy, the day to day applications of democracy are very much rooted in your local community.
What problems are there? Is the way your work is run inefficient or needs changes? Should your town start or stop doing x?
Things would be much more local focused for the most part. Your decisions would be “person x in charge of y is not doing a good job/ they aren’t doing what they said they would, they should be replaced” etc
Not like we’d really be voting directly on how big the grain quota for the year should be
Moving as many things to the city, and even community level is great.
On the other hand natonal level consideration like the planning and construction of new trade routes (e.g. the panama canal, transcontinental railway) of the future (e.g. astroid mining operations) will always stay in the national and even international level.
The idea is that with true democratic accountability, people would only need to intervene if the people they elected to do those jobs are doing a bad job. It’s an incredibly robust and layered system that heavily favors the people who choose, not the people who are chosen
you suggest a system where citizens could vote for no confidence in the gov at any time , so to dismantle it.
Today’s systems allow a vote of no confidence only to the elected represenetives. a national refarandum is usually required by law for some decisions (e.g. appoint some positions in the US) or to assure stable governence (e.g. brexit). a vote of no confidence does not hold to these critiria. In today’s democratic systems the closest parallel to what you are talking about is instsblity forcing the gov to go to early elections, or cause defectors in the parlament coallition to vote for no confidence. Both are cqused duo to public pressure, but not by the direct vote of the people.
let’s assume now we create such a system. something must trigger a vote, what is it? is there a monthly vote? can a patition like system allow for a vote if enough people request one? what are the logistics of the votr process? it should be at least as secure as the elections. That costs a lot of money, and adds a whole lot of overhead. The vote should also be as fair as elections, most countries, unlike thr US, consider election days as national holidays and close most buissneses. That takes a toll on the economy if done too many times.
Now consider you live in a highly polorized vountry where public opinion swings radically from side to side. a system suh as this will surely distablise the gov, which will change on a bi-monthly rate. This can cause the gov to cease functioning all together, imcluding military budgeting. With a weakened army the country may fall to out side forces, or worse fall to a military coup, which may be dictatorial in nature - destroying democracy in tje process.
Rousseau continues to motivate his second premise by providing a second source of instability for democracy. He raises the idea that populations of states are too large for democracies to function, stating that “it is contrary to the natural order that the greater number should govern and the lesser number should be governed. One cannot imagine the people remaining constantly assembled in order to attend to public affairs” (Cahn 341). In a democracy with thousands of people, especially during Rousseau’s time, there was no way to collect everyone into a space to continually vote on topics. Today, technology may exist to facilitate mass voting, but there is still not adequate time for all citizens to educate themselves and holistically cultivate their views on every issue. There is also the issue of the population wanting to remain assembled for legislative purposes. A large portion of the population could be too disinterested in politics or occupied by personal matters for the nation to remain assembled. Rousseau also brings up the point that a democracy “would not know how to establish commissions [to attend to public affairs] without the form of the administration changing” (Cahn 341). In a true democracy, when everyone participates in legislation, it is difficult to restructure the legislative branch, or develop a separate executive branch to enforce laws without altering the structure of the state to the point where it is no longer a true democracy. By creating smaller tribunals for political matters, the population’s participation in politics is reduced, thereby reforming the state into a new mixed system that is not a true democracy.
The idea of an uncorrupt government is naive, we would at least need direct democracy to prevent corrupt elitist groups from developing and taking advantage of the system
Direct democracy is still corruptible via propaganda. It’s way more difficult to steal a majority of votes, but if you use some carefully crafted us vs. them narrative, you can steer the public opinion in your favour. Which begs the question then, if public opinion (in this case just a bit over half) is in your favour, has democracy not been achieved?
And if so, is direct democracy not just the current system but with extra steps?
Or are we counting on a “more locks deter opportunists, but don’t prevent the ones truly bent on breaking in” in order to discourage minor acts of corruption hoping it wouldn’t cascade into something bigger?
I wrote “at least” …
as a group grows, the issues at hand become more complex, and then the standard citizen no longer has the time to both work and inform himself on the issues of the day to also participate in day-to-day politics in any meaningful way. Just like anything else, over a certain size specialization is required.
In a future with real democracy, the day to day applications of democracy are very much rooted in your local community.
What problems are there? Is the way your work is run inefficient or needs changes? Should your town start or stop doing x?
Things would be much more local focused for the most part. Your decisions would be “person x in charge of y is not doing a good job/ they aren’t doing what they said they would, they should be replaced” etc
Not like we’d really be voting directly on how big the grain quota for the year should be
Moving as many things to the city, and even community level is great. On the other hand natonal level consideration like the planning and construction of new trade routes (e.g. the panama canal, transcontinental railway) of the future (e.g. astroid mining operations) will always stay in the national and even international level.
The idea is that with true democratic accountability, people would only need to intervene if the people they elected to do those jobs are doing a bad job. It’s an incredibly robust and layered system that heavily favors the people who choose, not the people who are chosen
you suggest a system where citizens could vote for no confidence in the gov at any time , so to dismantle it.
Today’s systems allow a vote of no confidence only to the elected represenetives. a national refarandum is usually required by law for some decisions (e.g. appoint some positions in the US) or to assure stable governence (e.g. brexit). a vote of no confidence does not hold to these critiria. In today’s democratic systems the closest parallel to what you are talking about is instsblity forcing the gov to go to early elections, or cause defectors in the parlament coallition to vote for no confidence. Both are cqused duo to public pressure, but not by the direct vote of the people.
let’s assume now we create such a system. something must trigger a vote, what is it? is there a monthly vote? can a patition like system allow for a vote if enough people request one? what are the logistics of the votr process? it should be at least as secure as the elections. That costs a lot of money, and adds a whole lot of overhead. The vote should also be as fair as elections, most countries, unlike thr US, consider election days as national holidays and close most buissneses. That takes a toll on the economy if done too many times.
Now consider you live in a highly polorized vountry where public opinion swings radically from side to side. a system suh as this will surely distablise the gov, which will change on a bi-monthly rate. This can cause the gov to cease functioning all together, imcluding military budgeting. With a weakened army the country may fall to out side forces, or worse fall to a military coup, which may be dictatorial in nature - destroying democracy in tje process.
tl;dr: Gov sytems are hard to create
My comment was 2 sentences long, did you think it was a comprehensive description of an entire political system? Really silly friend
Go read some books about communist or post communist governance lmao
A term you might look for is Democratic Centralism, but theres also council communism and dozens of formulations of anarchist organization
But that is not a true democracy anymore then …
sauce: https://collegiuminstitute.org/blog/rousseau-and-democracy