Is Capitalism Anti-Democratic?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Is Capitalism Anti-Democratic?

Rob Filter: Jan 19, 2009

falcon2424 posted:

This is you saying that people have wrong-preferences.

Maybe they do. Maybe your preferences are better. But wanting the system to ignore the majority in favor of you is not a call for increased democracy.

Democracy is a system. The system has a goal; ensure that the actions of the government best represent the will of the people.

If you double someone's free time, they have more time to research political parties and ensure they vote for the politician they agree with the most. This makes a country more democratic.

If you ensure someone has no free time, they have no time to research political parties and must instead rely on advertisements and short content news to decide on who to vote. This means their vote is less likely to be for the politican they agree with the most.

Keeping wide swaths of the population with no free time would drastically hinder a democratic systems ability to ensure the actions of the government best represent the will of the people.

Do you disagree with any of this?

# ¿ Apr 29, 2014 03:56

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Rob Filter: Jan 19, 2009

falcon2424 posted:

Actually, yes.

The argument seems to rely on a premise that people have a 'true' will, distinct from that they merely think they want. And you appear to be judging systems based on how close they get to that 'true' goal. I disagree in that I'm not convinced that this true will exists. And I don't think the metric is a good way to measure democracy.

Problem with the metric is that we could imagine some Oracle that would answer the question, "What party would I vote for if I had full-information and arbitrary time for contemplation?"

We run an election. The Green-Party wins the majority of human votes. The Yellow-Party wins the majority of Oracle's simulated votes. A system which chooses the Yellow-Party might be a better outcome. It might be a better representation of what people's preferences would be if they were different. But I don't think we can call it 'more democratic'.

Firstly, I agree that in the oracle situation, its better if the green party is elected as opposed to the yellow party.

I think how well a democratic country represents the policies people want is an excellent way to measure how well that system accomplishes democracy. If 80% of people support policy Y, and then the government does not support it, that's a bad sign, and a mark against the effectiveness of that democracy.

I don't think my argument relies on someone having a "true" will as opposed to a "thought" will. If someone thinks that policy Y is a good policy, then someone's true will is that policy Y is a good policy.

# ¿ Apr 29, 2014 04:34

Rob Filter: Jan 19, 2009

poliander posted:

Love the topic mate.
On it, several things to consider. Democracy in its current state has nothing to do with will of the people. Rather it is the pissing contest of interest groups. Who gives more money to elect their candidate to in turn push that particular agenda.
It is just the way it goes. Capitalism just works as you said as intended within that paradigm in my opinion.
Today we assume that we should be making decisions. as a collective in order to make the decision in the interest of majority if not entirety of the nation. However that just does not work in a system where entire policy hinges on finding best ways to sway public opinion. So often it has nothing to do with merit, or actual issues or anything like that, but rather who can sell air better.

Does capitalism has a big role in perpetuating current form of democracy? Sure, in my opinion it does by providing monetary sway and power to a very limited group of people who are willing to use it for political gains that in turn translate into real power.

However i can not see any of this changing even if you agree it is all wrong. And the reason for it is that it is hard to come up with an alternative really .

Democracy is an idea; American democracy is a specific implementation of that idea. It is either better or worse than other implementations of democracy. Its certainly possible to change how democratic a country is by changing the countries laws.

As an example of another implementation of democracy, Australia has a preferential voting systems, where you number candidates from 1 to n. In this system, a candidate needs 50% of the vote to win. If no candidate has 50% of the vote, the candidate with the lowest number of votes is removed from the contest, and the people who voted for that candidates have their votes flow on to their next number. Repeat until a candidate has 50%. This allows you to vote for a third party without your vote being "thrown away" if your pick isn't in the top two candidates.

# ¿ Apr 29, 2014 07:45

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