Orwell's worst nightmares

submitted by fred_red_beans from cms.zerohedge.com

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[–][deleted] 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

Democracy is a system that allows oligarchy to have absolute power with no responsibility. They can commit any atrocity and hide behind the will of the people.

In a monarchy, the king is responsible. In a theocracy constitutional republic with clear laws, betrayal is obvious. In a democracy, the elites can claim that it's the people harming themselves. And if life becomes intolerable, they can mercifully institute an oligarchy to protect the population against its own stupidity.

[–][deleted] 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

This is somewhat true, although you write "democracy" as if its only flavor were nationally determined representative democracy. There is also localized direct democracy, where the smallest subdivisions of a country (say, the borough or neighborhood levels) make most of the rules through a directly democratic process.

That's what Gaddafi's Lybia had and it worked great for them. Oh, they had laws that would be repulsive in the West, but that's precisely why the system works: the laws are made by the people for the people and thus, represent the people themselves. African muslims will make vastly different rules than Northern white christians, obviously.

In such a system, what you describe becomes impossible. Imagine a mega-corporation having to lobby every neighborhood of an entire nation. They couldn't do it. Instead, local tiny companies would pop up and destroy that mega corporation through their vastly superior efficiency.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I was talking about the top level. The one, where decisions for what is allowed or prohibited at lower levels are made.

In Gaddafi's Lybia, no matter how good the elites are at their game, there were things Gaddafi would never allow them to do. Lobbying an absolute monarch can be hard. Lobbying a temporary president should be easier. Lobbying a constitution would be a fun thing to watch, too bad it has to rely on people for enforcement.

At local level, the best system is when everyone has a personal domain with no intersections, there are no conflicts and much growth. The second best, is when everyone is cooperative and can reach a consensus. Once there is a conflict and no consensus, we have to apply imperfect systems, and the efficiency decreases.

[–]JasonCarswell 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Truth!