What is the moral basis of democracy ?

[LovePrevails]

Hey I could use some critique of this article I am working on, both as an extract and part of a larger work,

if you could help by drawing my attention to areas that could easily be improved or suggest more arguments that should necessarily be covered then please fire away your advice

 

 

What is the moral basis of democracy?

In day to day life democracy is not the basis of anything. I do not want the majority to decide what shirt it is acceptable for me to wear, what food I should eat, what friends I should have or what hobbies I should partake in. I don’t want the majority to decide what job I should choose, and neither does anyone else. Only in a totalitarian dictatorship do we find these personal habits dictated by force and coercion. Yet there are some parameters in our society for which activities are considered socially acceptable in each of these respects nonetheless. The majority does not decide what shirt it is acceptable or me to wear, that much is true, and yet in some places it would be ill advised for me to wear nothing. I can choose what and where I eat, but if I did decide to eat a baby I would likely run into trouble. You can choose your friends, but if you prefer to keeping the company of Nazis you may find yourself rather isolated in other circles. Your hobby is your choice, but if you make kicking people’s dog your my new favourite pastime you will not be a popular person. While the government does not decide my profession, I can only get a job that someone is willing to employ me for, or sell a service that someone else is willing to buy. Thus we have established that social boundaries can be derived from the aggregate of the social interactions within a culture based on consensus, without anyone electing political representatives or taking any votes.

However, this is not a case against democracy, but simply an illustration of the fact that our day to day decisions are not subject to democratic whim and yet are sufficiently regulated towards the consideration of others in most cases.

 

 

Democracy is Two Wolves and a Sheep Voting Over What is for Dinner

The case against democracy can be illustrated as such. Supposing a mutual friend of ours rented an apartment together with us, and it was decided that we ought to run the apartment as a democracy. It would be perfectly acceptable under this system of governance that we should vote and our mutual (likely former) friend need clean up the kitchen every night, and even do all of the other household chores. The two of us being in the majority, whatever we should decree necessary for the third party to do would be morally legitimated under the system of democracy. What is more, if our flatmate refused to cooperate with our decrees then we could declare that we live in a democracy, thus she is breaking the law and therefore should be incarcerated.

The point is well illustrated by the tasteless joke “9 out of 10 people enjoy gang rape.” That is, in fact, democracy in action.

There are other problems with democracy though. The first is rational ignorance, which is to say that because everyone only has one vote and one vote does not hold much sway in a nation of many voters it is not rational for every voter to become well informed on the issues they are voting on. We hand over the power to an electorate which had a mandatory education, but no training in logic, critical thinking, politics, state-craft, political philosophy or economics. Most are woefully under-qualified to vote.

Each party provides a package deal. That is to say, when we go shopping we can buy a table without buying chairs, the specificity of what you can get depends on demand – few people buy all the components of a refrigerator and it would be more expensive. In democracy you get a choice between few platforms that cover too many issues and are probably too similar on too many of them (some may believe in stricter or less strict sentences for victimless crimes, but none will consider ending prohibition, some may believe in more or less taxation but none will fundamentally challenge the moral validity of taxation as an institution.)

When you have certain sectors of society who benefit from government programs (such as you and I did in our hypothetical apartment scenario) they have a great incentive to campaign to keep those benefits. Democracy is bribocracy. The government is for whoever pays for it – and most of who pays for it are rich people who own corporations and can use preferential regulations, corporate welfare, international banking, tax dodges, and other special privileges calculated by shrewd accountants and savvy lawyers which the lay person or small business could never afford.

But they are not the only ones. Politicians will offer civil servants lucrative pension in lieu of pay rises, because pay rises would have to be paid immediately from the public purse, and felt instantly by the tax payer who might rebel. If the costs of these special privileges can be passed on to future administrations – it becomes someone else’s problem.

Should any politician try to take these special privileges away a scandal would instantly ensue – public strikes would mobilise – people would express outrage, even if these measures were deemed necessary for the health of the economy.

Like it or not, these benefits are bribes for votes – if one party’s policy was to remove them the civil servants would certainly vote for a different party. The more you can pass the buck onto future generations in the form of national debt, money printing, or fixing interest rates, the less people will complain of tax increases. Bribocracy in action.

 

Constitutional Government or Checks and Balances

Some argue constitutionalism as a solution. Having laws that state that individuals have inalienable rights hitch no other law should be able to circumvent, but when has this worked? The United States is supposedly a constitutional republic, which consistently ignores its constitution. The constitution itself is only a piece of paper and cannot protect anyone from anything, and those who are expected to enforce a constitution will always be those with the least incentive to do so.  

Either those who are in power are called to regulate themselves (and why should George Bush put himself on trial for warcrimes?) or else any person who would likely benefit from cooperating with those in power would be expected to keep them balanced and in check.

 

 

[RuralRon]

Who is the intended audience for this?

 

It starts off quite well, but it gets a bit weak near "rational ignorance". I don't see anything here I disagree with, but it is rather long winded (I tend to be that way myself).

 

Kindof hard to critique without knowing what you're trying to accomplish with the piece and who it's target audience is. IMO the salient points are found in the very first paragraph. The examples in the second paragraph are also good. You make valid points throughout, but they lack the punch of the first portion up to rational ignorance.

 

Hope that is useful feedback.

[LovePrevails]

it's aimed at liberals and part of a larger work