Difference between revisions of "Democracy"
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==Full Title or Meme== | ==Full Title or Meme== | ||
| − | A | + | A process of communal decision making. This can apply at the level of a standards body or a large, federated government. |
==Context== | ==Context== | ||
| − | We must make our choice, we may have [[Democracy]] or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few. Louis Brandeis | + | * A form of government that is the worst possible, except for all of the others that have been tried so far. - Winston Churchill |
| + | * We must make our choice, we may have [[Democracy]] or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few. But we can't have both. Louis Brandeis.<ref name=Anderson>Kurt Anderson, ''Evil Geneuses'', Random House (2022) ISBN 978-1984801340</ref> | ||
| + | * The context here is a political system that supports private property, and a capitalist economy based on private companies, all of which are regulated by the rule of law. | ||
| + | * Many, including the author, predict that a [[Nodal Point]] is coming sooner or later, where any old existing [[Democracy]] will need to adapt, or die. | ||
| + | |||
| + | ==Problems== | ||
| + | |||
| + | ===Inequality=== | ||
| + | The wealth holders have always used their wealth to manipulate the system. In the feudal system it involved the struggle of the barons against the King. Once equality before the law was introduced, the wealth holders were at a disadvantage when taxes were controlled by the majority. But now they hired experts to game the democratic systems to their own advantage. In Britain the law was settled by the law nobles in the supreme court of the house of Lords. In the US the wealth holders have found a way to bribe the law makers into putting judges on the Supreme Court that are friendly to their concerns to the point where any limitation on their ability to influence legislation has been ruled unconstitutional. | ||
| + | |||
| + | ===Racism=== | ||
| + | While it is possible to include racism as a form Inequality, it needs special attention as it has be written into both formal documents (the US constitution) to government "purity" campaigns like Burma's generals against the Rohingya Muslim minority. In "A Discussion of Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt’s How Democracies Die:<ref>Sheri Berman, ''A Discussion of Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt’s How Democracies Die'' University of Washington https://www.polisci.washington.edu/sites/polisci/files/documents/news/discussion_of_steven_levitsky_and_daniel_ziblatts_how_democracies_die.pdf</ref> a discussion on racism as a primary problem for the US is made. | ||
| + | ===The Tyranny of the Majority=== | ||
| + | Most governing documents try to avoid suppression of minority opinions. | ||
| + | |||
| + | ===Demigogues=== | ||
| + | * a political leader who seeks support by appealing to the desires and prejudices of ordinary people rather than by using rational argument. | ||
| + | When we empower the people to govern, we inevitably empower the sophists and swindlers among them. Demagoguery is thus a danger inherent to all democracies.<ref>Emily Pears, ''Demagoguery in America'' National Affairs (2022-09) https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/demagoguery-in-america</ref> | ||
| + | Hughie Long, Donald Trump, William Jennings Bryan | ||
| + | |||
| + | ===Power=== | ||
| + | Nietzsche describe the primal motivation of mankind as a will to power. | ||
| + | |||
| + | Let’s walk through how Charles I and Donald Trump each disrupted their respective constitutional orders—no tables, just a narrative arc that traces the stress fractures they exposed. | ||
| + | |||
| + | ===Charles I=== | ||
| + | The Divine Right Collides with Parliamentary Sovereignty | ||
| + | |||
| + | Charles I’s disruption was rooted in a theological conception of monarchy. He believed he ruled by divine right, accountable only to God. This belief led him to dissolve Parliament in 1629 and govern alone for eleven years—a period known as the “Personal Rule.” During this time, he levied taxes without parliamentary consent, imposed religious uniformity through high Anglicanism, and punished dissenters harshly. His attempt to enforce Anglican liturgy in Presbyterian Scotland triggered the Bishops’ Wars, forcing him to reconvene Parliament in 1640. | ||
| + | |||
| + | But the damage was done. When Charles tried to arrest five MPs in 1642, it was seen as a tyrannical overreach. The ensuing civil war wasn’t just a political conflict—it was a constitutional reckoning. Parliament ultimately tried and executed Charles in 1649, marking the first time a monarch was held accountable by his subjects. His downfall catalyzed the emergence of parliamentary sovereignty and the eventual constitutional monarchy. | ||
| + | |||
| + | |||
| + | === Donald Trump=== | ||
| + | Executive Power Meets Institutional Friction | ||
| + | |||
| + | Trump’s disruption is more performative than theological, but no less consequential. His approach to governance has consistently tested the boundaries of executive authority. From defying congressional subpoenas to issuing executive orders that challenge constitutional guarantees—such as attempting to end birthright citizenship—Trump has pushed the limits of presidential power. | ||
| + | |||
| + | In his second term, the dismantling of agencies like USAID, mass firings of inspectors general, and defiance of court orders (including deportations carried out in violation of judicial rulings) have led legal scholars to describe the situation as a constitutional crisis. Unlike Charles, Trump operates within a codified constitution, but his actions reveal how fragile enforcement mechanisms can be when norms erode and institutional actors hesitate to confront executive defiance. | ||
| + | |||
| + | ===The Common Thread=== | ||
| + | Stress Testing the System | ||
| + | |||
| + | Both figures exposed the limits of their constitutional frameworks. Charles I forced England to define the boundaries of monarchical power through revolution. Trump reveals how a modern democracy can be strained when executive power expands unchecked and institutional guardrails falter. | ||
| + | |||
| + | In essence, Charles broke the system and forced a rebuild. Trump bends the system, revealing its elasticity—and its potential to snap. | ||
| + | |||
| + | ==Speed== | ||
| + | [[Democracy]] is a human institution and so only progresses at the speeds that humans can accept. Even its founder, Solon, cautioned that: “No more good must be attempted than the nation can bear” | ||
| + | |||
| + | Unfortunately, the speed of technological advance seems to be such that even before [[Democracy]] has adapted to one change, technology may very well have obsoleted that and moved on to the next. | ||
| + | |||
| + | Some have argued that technology must be freed of governmental interference and allowed to move at its own speed, but that typically ensures that many human beings will be left behind. Wired reported in 2022<ref>Elanor Cummins, ''Overclocked'', Wired (2022-07) pp 38 ff.</ref> that Robert Hassan said "for decades, network computing, which made everything from [[Social Media]] to Zoom possible. This allows for a kind of connectivity that collapses both space and time. The result is that democratic politics seem interminably slow relative to the pace of commerce and culture." | ||
| + | |||
| + | When democracies want to complete a project quickly, they most often turn to private professional enterprise, or at least to a professional with a record. In other words the government appoints a dictator with limited power and term in office. The key word here is "professional" as they are required, by law, to be responsible for their work product. | ||
| + | |||
| + | ==Responsibility== | ||
| + | ===Personal=== | ||
| + | * What people do in private is their own business in-so-far as it breaks no laws. | ||
| + | * What people do in public should be beyond reproach if they wish to be known for their probity. | ||
| + | |||
| + | ===Corporate=== | ||
| + | Milton Freeman of the Chicago School famously asserted There’s no such thing as a free lunch. | ||
| + | |||
| + | A popular Friedmanism that encapsulates the idea that all choices have trade-offs—even if costs are hidden or deferred. | ||
| + | |||
| + | ==Stability== | ||
| + | Andrew Sullivan reported:<ref>Andrew Sullivan, ''Democracies end when they are too democratic'' New York Magazine 2016-05-01 https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2016/04/america-tyranny-donald-trump.html</ref><blockquote> | ||
| + | my mind keeps being tugged by a passage in Plato’s Republic. It has unsettled — even surprised — me from the moment I first read it in graduate school. The passage is from the part of the dialogue where Socrates and his friends are talking about the nature of different political systems, how they change over time, and how one can slowly evolve into another. And Socrates seemed pretty clear on one sobering point: that “tyranny is probably established out of no other regime than democracy.” What did Plato mean by that? Democracy, for him, I discovered, was a political system of maximal freedom and equality, where every lifestyle is allowed and public offices are filled by a lottery. And the longer a democracy lasted, Plato argued, the more democratic it would become. Its freedoms would multiply; its equality spread. Deference to any sort of authority would wither; tolerance of any kind of inequality would come under intense threat; and multiculturalism and sexual freedom would create a city or a country like “a many-colored cloak decorated in all hues.” | ||
| + | |||
| + | This rainbow-flag polity, Plato argues, is, for many people, the fairest of regimes. The freedom in that democracy has to be experienced to be believed — with shame and privilege in particular emerging over time as anathema. But it is inherently unstable. As the authority of elites fades, as Establishment values cede to popular ones, views and identities can become so magnificently diverse as to be mutually uncomprehending. And when all the barriers to equality, formal and informal, have been removed; when everyone is equal; when elites are despised and full license is established to do “whatever one wants,” you arrive at what might be called late-stage democracy. There is no kowtowing to authority here, let alone to political experience or expertise.</blockquote> | ||
| + | It is at this time that the dictator rises and promises to cut through all the crap claiming "too much freedom seems to change into nothing but too much slavery" and offing to take on the elites and so ends democracy. | ||
==References== | ==References== | ||
| + | [[Category: Glossary]] | ||
[[Category: Philosophy]] | [[Category: Philosophy]] | ||
| − | |||
| − | |||
Latest revision as of 08:18, 8 September 2025
Contents
Full Title or Meme
A process of communal decision making. This can apply at the level of a standards body or a large, federated government.
Context
- A form of government that is the worst possible, except for all of the others that have been tried so far. - Winston Churchill
- We must make our choice, we may have Democracy or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few. But we can't have both. Louis Brandeis.[1]
- The context here is a political system that supports private property, and a capitalist economy based on private companies, all of which are regulated by the rule of law.
- Many, including the author, predict that a Nodal Point is coming sooner or later, where any old existing Democracy will need to adapt, or die.
Problems
Inequality
The wealth holders have always used their wealth to manipulate the system. In the feudal system it involved the struggle of the barons against the King. Once equality before the law was introduced, the wealth holders were at a disadvantage when taxes were controlled by the majority. But now they hired experts to game the democratic systems to their own advantage. In Britain the law was settled by the law nobles in the supreme court of the house of Lords. In the US the wealth holders have found a way to bribe the law makers into putting judges on the Supreme Court that are friendly to their concerns to the point where any limitation on their ability to influence legislation has been ruled unconstitutional.
Racism
While it is possible to include racism as a form Inequality, it needs special attention as it has be written into both formal documents (the US constitution) to government "purity" campaigns like Burma's generals against the Rohingya Muslim minority. In "A Discussion of Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt’s How Democracies Die:[2] a discussion on racism as a primary problem for the US is made.
The Tyranny of the Majority
Most governing documents try to avoid suppression of minority opinions.
Demigogues
- a political leader who seeks support by appealing to the desires and prejudices of ordinary people rather than by using rational argument.
When we empower the people to govern, we inevitably empower the sophists and swindlers among them. Demagoguery is thus a danger inherent to all democracies.[3] Hughie Long, Donald Trump, William Jennings Bryan
Power
Nietzsche describe the primal motivation of mankind as a will to power.
Let’s walk through how Charles I and Donald Trump each disrupted their respective constitutional orders—no tables, just a narrative arc that traces the stress fractures they exposed.
Charles I
The Divine Right Collides with Parliamentary Sovereignty
Charles I’s disruption was rooted in a theological conception of monarchy. He believed he ruled by divine right, accountable only to God. This belief led him to dissolve Parliament in 1629 and govern alone for eleven years—a period known as the “Personal Rule.” During this time, he levied taxes without parliamentary consent, imposed religious uniformity through high Anglicanism, and punished dissenters harshly. His attempt to enforce Anglican liturgy in Presbyterian Scotland triggered the Bishops’ Wars, forcing him to reconvene Parliament in 1640.
But the damage was done. When Charles tried to arrest five MPs in 1642, it was seen as a tyrannical overreach. The ensuing civil war wasn’t just a political conflict—it was a constitutional reckoning. Parliament ultimately tried and executed Charles in 1649, marking the first time a monarch was held accountable by his subjects. His downfall catalyzed the emergence of parliamentary sovereignty and the eventual constitutional monarchy.
Donald Trump
Executive Power Meets Institutional Friction
Trump’s disruption is more performative than theological, but no less consequential. His approach to governance has consistently tested the boundaries of executive authority. From defying congressional subpoenas to issuing executive orders that challenge constitutional guarantees—such as attempting to end birthright citizenship—Trump has pushed the limits of presidential power.
In his second term, the dismantling of agencies like USAID, mass firings of inspectors general, and defiance of court orders (including deportations carried out in violation of judicial rulings) have led legal scholars to describe the situation as a constitutional crisis. Unlike Charles, Trump operates within a codified constitution, but his actions reveal how fragile enforcement mechanisms can be when norms erode and institutional actors hesitate to confront executive defiance.
The Common Thread
Stress Testing the System
Both figures exposed the limits of their constitutional frameworks. Charles I forced England to define the boundaries of monarchical power through revolution. Trump reveals how a modern democracy can be strained when executive power expands unchecked and institutional guardrails falter.
In essence, Charles broke the system and forced a rebuild. Trump bends the system, revealing its elasticity—and its potential to snap.
Speed
Democracy is a human institution and so only progresses at the speeds that humans can accept. Even its founder, Solon, cautioned that: “No more good must be attempted than the nation can bear”
Unfortunately, the speed of technological advance seems to be such that even before Democracy has adapted to one change, technology may very well have obsoleted that and moved on to the next.
Some have argued that technology must be freed of governmental interference and allowed to move at its own speed, but that typically ensures that many human beings will be left behind. Wired reported in 2022[4] that Robert Hassan said "for decades, network computing, which made everything from Social Media to Zoom possible. This allows for a kind of connectivity that collapses both space and time. The result is that democratic politics seem interminably slow relative to the pace of commerce and culture."
When democracies want to complete a project quickly, they most often turn to private professional enterprise, or at least to a professional with a record. In other words the government appoints a dictator with limited power and term in office. The key word here is "professional" as they are required, by law, to be responsible for their work product.
Responsibility
Personal
- What people do in private is their own business in-so-far as it breaks no laws.
- What people do in public should be beyond reproach if they wish to be known for their probity.
Corporate
Milton Freeman of the Chicago School famously asserted There’s no such thing as a free lunch.
A popular Friedmanism that encapsulates the idea that all choices have trade-offs—even if costs are hidden or deferred.
Stability
Andrew Sullivan reported:[5]my mind keeps being tugged by a passage in Plato’s Republic. It has unsettled — even surprised — me from the moment I first read it in graduate school. The passage is from the part of the dialogue where Socrates and his friends are talking about the nature of different political systems, how they change over time, and how one can slowly evolve into another. And Socrates seemed pretty clear on one sobering point: that “tyranny is probably established out of no other regime than democracy.” What did Plato mean by that? Democracy, for him, I discovered, was a political system of maximal freedom and equality, where every lifestyle is allowed and public offices are filled by a lottery. And the longer a democracy lasted, Plato argued, the more democratic it would become. Its freedoms would multiply; its equality spread. Deference to any sort of authority would wither; tolerance of any kind of inequality would come under intense threat; and multiculturalism and sexual freedom would create a city or a country like “a many-colored cloak decorated in all hues.”
This rainbow-flag polity, Plato argues, is, for many people, the fairest of regimes. The freedom in that democracy has to be experienced to be believed — with shame and privilege in particular emerging over time as anathema. But it is inherently unstable. As the authority of elites fades, as Establishment values cede to popular ones, views and identities can become so magnificently diverse as to be mutually uncomprehending. And when all the barriers to equality, formal and informal, have been removed; when everyone is equal; when elites are despised and full license is established to do “whatever one wants,” you arrive at what might be called late-stage democracy. There is no kowtowing to authority here, let alone to political experience or expertise.
It is at this time that the dictator rises and promises to cut through all the crap claiming "too much freedom seems to change into nothing but too much slavery" and offing to take on the elites and so ends democracy.
References
- ↑ Kurt Anderson, Evil Geneuses, Random House (2022) ISBN 978-1984801340
- ↑ Sheri Berman, A Discussion of Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt’s How Democracies Die University of Washington https://www.polisci.washington.edu/sites/polisci/files/documents/news/discussion_of_steven_levitsky_and_daniel_ziblatts_how_democracies_die.pdf
- ↑ Emily Pears, Demagoguery in America National Affairs (2022-09) https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/demagoguery-in-america
- ↑ Elanor Cummins, Overclocked, Wired (2022-07) pp 38 ff.
- ↑ Andrew Sullivan, Democracies end when they are too democratic New York Magazine 2016-05-01 https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2016/04/america-tyranny-donald-trump.html
