Democracy can have many forms, some more authoritarian than others. And it being able to morph into a different form as the conditions change is very much a feature, not a bug.
WastedCucumber•3mo ago
In principle I agree that change is possible and good under democracy, but your comment seems wildly out of touch in the present context.he change that I see happening in the USA now does not seem like a change of democratic form, but a move away from democracy, because a lot of core rights/freedoms/structures are under threat: freedom of opinion, freedom of the press, right to protest, and maybe we'll see free and fair elections get weakened too before this process is done.
And none of that seems like a feature to me.
johncoltrane•3mo ago
You can have the core things you mention in other political systems and you can have democracy without them. Those are characteristics of the particular form(s) of democracy currently in place in most of "the west", not of democracy itself.
> maybe
I know, it's more exciting to play the worst scenarios in one's head, but… _maybe not_?
avmich•3mo ago
How you can have meaningful democracy without those features?
RealityVoid•3mo ago
> you can have democracy without them
Wholly disagree you can.
> I know, it's more exciting to play the worst scenarios in one's head, but… _maybe not_?
I don't know where I read this recently that russians never believe that something good can happen and americans never believe something bad can happen. It feels so real these last couple of years. You are obviously having democratic backslide and going into a bad place, but the absolute inability to realise this (at least from a large segment of the population) looking from the outside, is bordering on the absurde. There have been many dominant empires that fell. It is the peak of hubris that it can't happen to you.
sph•3mo ago
Democracy (from Ancient Greek: δημοκρατία, romanized: dēmokratía, from dēmos 'people' and krátos 'rule') is a form of government in which political power is vested in the people or the population of a state.
I would go so far as to say few of our so-called democratic countries are actually so. But one thing is for certain, a democracy can't be authoritarian by definition.
kannanvijayan•3mo ago
One thing that's worthwhile to understand, but very difficult to mentally reconcile, is the way in which Americans have the ability to redefine words to meet the need of branding.
In a very real and genuine sense, to most Americans "democracy and freedom" is simply whatever the USA does. This sentiment is then, after the fact, stitched into acceptability by these sorts of intellectual deflections.
Yeul•3mo ago
Americans want a strong leader.
It is understandable. The Netherlands is democracy to comes closest to ancient Athens. Twenty different political parties represented in parliament. A people who for 500 years have never agreed upon anything.
sph•3mo ago
IIRC ancient Athens was a direct democracy, which the Netherlands are not (and is technically a constitutional monarchy).
Liechtenstein and some Swiss cantons are the few remaining examples of direct democracy.
If Athens is legitimately a democracy then I am confused how you can come to the conclusion "one thing is for certain, a democracy can't be authoritarian by definition."
Athens killed Socrates using an authoritarian law after all.
sph•3mo ago
I think we're using two different meaning of authoritarianism. It means both "undemocratic/rule of the few" (my statement) and tyrannical (your position).
Any state, democracy included, can be a tyrant (i.e. cruel and oppressive) against its perceived enemies.
nutjob2•3mo ago
> Americans want a strong leader. It is understandable.
Is it? It seems incredibly stupid to me. It's putting 'strength', or intensity and effectiveness of action, above whether the action is a good idea or even makes sense. It seems to make competence secondary.
ImJamal•3mo ago
This makes no sense. Why can't a population democratically vote for authoritarian laws? As long as the people have the ability to freely vote, the laws actually passed are irrelevant.
Second, only men could vote in Athens. Do you consider that to be acceptable in a democracy?
webnrrd2k•3mo ago
It's commonly taught in grade and high school civics classes that, since the Declaration of Independence, the US has a tradition that certain rights are unalienable. It's a direct statement that there is no way to separate or sever those rights from a person.
It's a whopper of a run-on sentence, but it's in there: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
ImJamal•3mo ago
This still doesn't make sense.
Athens itself killed Socrates for violation of speech laws and yet they are considered a democracy. This would be a violation of the First Amendment which would be considered an unalienable right that the Declaration of Independence was talking about.
There is an interesting point, "deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed". If the governed consent to an authoritarian law, why would they cease to be a democracy? If 100% of voters voted to ban wearing the color green, they wouldn't be a democracy?
I think you are basically saying democracy means good policies and authoritarianism means bad policies so you cannot have authoritarianism and democracy, but that just isn't the definition of either of those words.
lemnossos•3mo ago
The problem with this etymology based political argument is twofold:
demos in Ancient Greek demokratia were blocks of assigned citizenship, so it is operationally closer to an electoral college than some idealistic "power to the people" interpretation of the term
who are the people? in Ancient Athens, "the people" ruling the demokratia were the male land owners... about 60% of the people in the city were excluded, most of them being slaves
Democracy now is a hugely complex ongoing negotiation, not some simplistic "dictionary says" naïvité. Go read Democracy in America, Aristotle is a bit outdated.
whattheheckheck•3mo ago
Yes governance power can take many forms but when it changes, it's no longer democracy.
If anything a better analysis comes from the book Logic of Political Survival. The selectorate and the winning coalition are much smaller than previous generations because of the massive accumulation and consolidation of wealth. So they dont have to do jack shit for the majority of people because theyre irrelevant in gaining or holding power. The majority of Americans hold and wield absolutely no political power in placing anyone in power. And then are surprised when they get wrecked. Or maybe theyre not surprised because they simple dont know how much theyre country is getting looted
slices•3mo ago
David Sacks might be interested to know his title is now "Zar".
xof_research•3mo ago
Fixed
potato3732842•3mo ago
They couldn't hoodwink the population into voting for whatever they consider optimal, so they've gone all in on force multipliers for government, because they can still just buy the government.
xof_research•3mo ago
Thanks for linking this. Any comments, feedback appreciated. We are part of team behind project.
johncoltrane•3mo ago
WastedCucumber•3mo ago
And none of that seems like a feature to me.
johncoltrane•3mo ago
> maybe
I know, it's more exciting to play the worst scenarios in one's head, but… _maybe not_?
avmich•3mo ago
RealityVoid•3mo ago
Wholly disagree you can.
> I know, it's more exciting to play the worst scenarios in one's head, but… _maybe not_?
I don't know where I read this recently that russians never believe that something good can happen and americans never believe something bad can happen. It feels so real these last couple of years. You are obviously having democratic backslide and going into a bad place, but the absolute inability to realise this (at least from a large segment of the population) looking from the outside, is bordering on the absurde. There have been many dominant empires that fell. It is the peak of hubris that it can't happen to you.
sph•3mo ago
I would go so far as to say few of our so-called democratic countries are actually so. But one thing is for certain, a democracy can't be authoritarian by definition.
kannanvijayan•3mo ago
In a very real and genuine sense, to most Americans "democracy and freedom" is simply whatever the USA does. This sentiment is then, after the fact, stitched into acceptability by these sorts of intellectual deflections.
Yeul•3mo ago
It is understandable. The Netherlands is democracy to comes closest to ancient Athens. Twenty different political parties represented in parliament. A people who for 500 years have never agreed upon anything.
sph•3mo ago
Liechtenstein and some Swiss cantons are the few remaining examples of direct democracy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy#Examples
ImJamal•3mo ago
Athens killed Socrates using an authoritarian law after all.
sph•3mo ago
Any state, democracy included, can be a tyrant (i.e. cruel and oppressive) against its perceived enemies.
nutjob2•3mo ago
Is it? It seems incredibly stupid to me. It's putting 'strength', or intensity and effectiveness of action, above whether the action is a good idea or even makes sense. It seems to make competence secondary.
ImJamal•3mo ago
Second, only men could vote in Athens. Do you consider that to be acceptable in a democracy?
webnrrd2k•3mo ago
It's a whopper of a run-on sentence, but it's in there: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
ImJamal•3mo ago
Athens itself killed Socrates for violation of speech laws and yet they are considered a democracy. This would be a violation of the First Amendment which would be considered an unalienable right that the Declaration of Independence was talking about.
There is an interesting point, "deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed". If the governed consent to an authoritarian law, why would they cease to be a democracy? If 100% of voters voted to ban wearing the color green, they wouldn't be a democracy?
I think you are basically saying democracy means good policies and authoritarianism means bad policies so you cannot have authoritarianism and democracy, but that just isn't the definition of either of those words.
lemnossos•3mo ago
demos in Ancient Greek demokratia were blocks of assigned citizenship, so it is operationally closer to an electoral college than some idealistic "power to the people" interpretation of the term
who are the people? in Ancient Athens, "the people" ruling the demokratia were the male land owners... about 60% of the people in the city were excluded, most of them being slaves
Democracy now is a hugely complex ongoing negotiation, not some simplistic "dictionary says" naïvité. Go read Democracy in America, Aristotle is a bit outdated.
whattheheckheck•3mo ago
If anything a better analysis comes from the book Logic of Political Survival. The selectorate and the winning coalition are much smaller than previous generations because of the massive accumulation and consolidation of wealth. So they dont have to do jack shit for the majority of people because theyre irrelevant in gaining or holding power. The majority of Americans hold and wield absolutely no political power in placing anyone in power. And then are surprised when they get wrecked. Or maybe theyre not surprised because they simple dont know how much theyre country is getting looted