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Post #1
This is a debate of almost metapolitics, not about how government is run, but how the system of how government is run should be selected.
Degrees of Democracy:
Non-intervention
Nothing should be done to create a state, let everything happen naturally for the greatest level of majority rule. Ex: Anarchy/Assassin's Creed Ideology.
Complete Democracy
There should be no constitution limiting what laws can be passed and literally anything should be accomplishable through a majority vote, even removing democracy.
Democratic Constitution
The only amendment limiting what laws can be passed in the constitution should make it impossible to remove democracy, but otherwise anything should be possible like above.
Amendable Constitution
There can be amendments limiting what laws are passed, but they can be repealed. Ex: Most governments.
Un-Amendable Constitution
The Constitution has democracy, but it limits what decisions democracy can make. Ex: A socialist government with a constitution that democratically decides how socialism is run (like what they teach in public schools), but does not allow socialism to be removed.
Authoritarian
No Democracy. Ex: A dictatorship or military junta.
I'm all for an Un-Amendable Constitution that follows my ideals, but when I remove myself from the issue I really don't know what the best would be.
Of course there's the thought that non-intervention is going on anyways, because whatever happens happens whether or not there is a constitution in place, but that's too meta for us normal humans.
So, what is your opinion, to what degree should we have democracy?
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Amendable Constitution, provided changes to the constitution are done through a national referendum. Although your average joe may lack the political train of thought, usually a referendum is enough to represent the opinions of the public, and that is definitely an aspect of democracy. This system would prevent representatives and lawmakers making big decisions on behalf of the public without its (the public's) consent.
However, referendums shouldn't be used too often for bills that fit within a constitution. As said, your average joe may lack understanding of politics and what the public may see as evil (such as increased taxation) may be more beneficial if implemented, for example increased taxation may increase government income without causing too much of a negative effect on the economy, but no one likes taxes.
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non-intervention.
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Amendable constitutions have proven to be quite stable and as a result seem like the best system.
Overall I think you should rather focus on if the constitution is rigid or flexible as opposed how much can be amended or not.
Overall you really only have 2 kinds of governments out there right now. Amendable constitution vs authoritarian.
So the more important differentiatior is how easy it is to make amendments. Which defines the rigidness of the constitution.
Also there's essentially no difference between an amendable constitution and a democratic one, at least according to what you write. The difference lies in what a nation defines as basic democratic principles which vary - european countries tend to have a somewhat broader range, though not as absolute for instance.
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those are not true democracies that you mentioned, true democracy is direct democracy
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Technocracy all the way!
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This. Most things on this list are republics in nature.
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AUTISMAL FEDORA WEARING MASSIVE RUNNING JOKE - PRAY CROHN'S DISEASE KILLS ME
July 2010
17,345 Posts
I find that everything mentioned there so far is just another name for plutocracy.
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I'd like to see how that would work out.
Edited:
Im guessing it would be similar to theocracy.
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He never said anything about elected officials, so it could be a direct democracy. But I agree, those are the best.
Edited:
I think it would work great, except for one thing: who picks the Technocrats?
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Technically they are democracies, but representative democracies.
The issue with full democracy - aka everyone has voting rights and everyone has the power of proposal is that everyone gets swamped by an insane amount of legal proposals, no one has time to actually figure out what said proposal will be about and there would be just so many of them that people would get disinterested.
As a result you tend to have representative democracies with a number of direct democracy principles worked into them. Referendums on important things for instance.
A republic and democracy are terms that handle different things though.
As to technocracy - it's often proposed to use a random pool of the people inside of the profession to be chosen.
No one mentioned anything even close to a plutocracy. As those tend to require elections limited to a social group, no elections at all or other direct ways of controling who gets inside of the governing body and who does not.
In some cases you can have a faux plutocracy where funding the campaign of becoming a member of the legislative body is incredibly expensive, but legally that is still a democracy as the elections aren't closed to candidates who can't put that money on the table.
