Imagine being unironically anti-democracy and also claiming to be a socialist.
Are we talking about American Democracy, where the police have carte blanche to brutalize protesters for objecting to police brutality and a SCOTUS majority can overturn a popular election?
Or Chinese Democracy where you can be in any party you want, but only the CCP gets to hold any real power? Or the Taiwanese Parliament, where politicians form gangs that attempt to beat up each other’s members?
Or Thai Democracy, where the courts are selected by the King and regularly disband majority governments for committing Lese Majesty?
Are we talking about Apartheid Israeli Democracy, where over half the population is disenfranchised for being Palestinian?
How about Iranian Democracy, where the Supreme Council gets to decide who can run for office?
Do we like the Brazilian style of Democracy, where an elected Prime Minister can be deposed by the AG and a fascist can fuck around massacring indigenous people for a Presidential term, while the former PM gets the charges dropped and has to run for his old seat?
Are we big fans of the DPRK, where a single family has dominated the federal government since the country’s founding? Or are we more inclined towards the Republic of Korea, which continues to send up the children and friends of the old 1970s Dictatorship to run the country, because 90% of the economy is controlled by six billionaire families?
Like, you can’t just say “anti-democracy”. Cuba claims to be a democracy. Argentina claims to be a democracy. The UK claims to be a democracy. Russia claims to be a democracy. What kind of democracy are we actually against?
If you want to fix things I’m all for it, but lets not pretend that the notion of “Western Democracies” being responsible for their problems has any merit whatsoever.
lets not pretend that the notion of “Western Democracies” being responsible for their problems has any merit whatsoever.
The problems tend to be anti-democratic in nature. The cozy relationship between mass media and corporate interests restricts information to the voting public. Privatization of public spaces forces candidates to raise enormous amounts of money just to secure space to host a rally or get a minute of TV coverage. And the legal means by which private party leadership can restrict access to a primary, combined with the broader public limits on who can participate in an election as an independent, help dictate the quality of candidates that voters have to choose from.
“Western Democracy” has always consisted, first and foremost, as a bunch of backroom deals and handshake arrangements. JD Vance didn’t get the VP slot under Trump because he was the second most popular Republican in the primaries. Neither Mike Johnson nor Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the House because they were the nation’s most beloved Congressfolks. Nobody on the current Supreme Court cares what the electorate thinks of them. None of this is small-d democratic. And all of it contributes to the basket of problems that plague our dysfunctional domestic policy.
Anarchist types prefer consensus-based decision making processes to democracy. We want the entire community to agree on a course of action, not just let 51% order 49% around.
Consensus sounds difficult when you have absolute morons who believe that farming isn’t real or boiling water erases it’s memory.
believe that farming isn’t real or boiling water erases it’s memory.
What? What¿
Wouldn’t that just lead to no action being taken and eventually falling to a system of government, likely invaders, who are capable of taking organized actions?
You know, like every power vacuum ever recorded for all of human history?
Hypothetically perfectly organized invaders, or invaders from the rival majority-rule system? More “action” isn’t necessarily better - it includes massive subsidies and bailouts for the 0.1%, a huge source of inefficiency.
If it’s the latter, then each soldier will be in various 49% groups. Our army today is half wage conscripts.
How young are you to think you’ll get a full consensus in any place in the country
Once the standard is full consensus, you can find politics adjust accordingly. That said, when a situation grows dire and the mechanics of elections no longer deliver beneficial reforms, people resort to politics by other means.
The purpose of a democracy is to diffuse tensions and cultivate a placid population. Stricter standards for advancing reform allow more people to feel included, but they also inhibit more radical change.
When too many people no longer have faith in the Democratic institutions, that’s when you start seeing real social upheaval. And that can happen in both high consensus and low consensus models.
The consensus of the reasonable, educated, and mentally stable? Yes. The consensus of the walmart wildlife? Ehhh…
The consensus of the walmart wildlife?
Obviously, your right to vote should be dictated by where you do your retail shopping. Maybe we should also factor in your taste in movies/music and your fashion sense.
FFS, Americans deserve another Trump presidency if people actually think like this. It sounds like what one of those MAGA maniacs would say about Tim Walz. “Don’t vote for him, he’s one of those fat old poors who shops at Walmart!”
You do realise that most functional democracies are consensus based, and not based on 51 % ruling 49 %?
In a functional democracy, you have representatives of various groups forming coalitions, such that most cases are passed by a relatively large majority. Of course, some stuff is pushed through by a slim majority as well, but if it’s sufficiently unpopular it’ll just be reversed after the next election cycle. In most cases, the part(y/ies) that hold the majority seek support from at least one opposition party to ensure that their bills aren’t immediately reversed once they lose power.
Consensus is at the absolute core of a functioning democracy, just not the absolute consensus that anarchists for some reason push for. You can’t have one person in a population of millions blocking a resolution. What about ten? One thousand? A well functioning democracy naturally finds this limit through the formation of coalitions that pass bills with a broad enough consensus that they more often than not survive when power changes hands.
