Democracy
File: c:/ddc/Angel/BestIntentions/Democracy.html
Date: Mon Sep 10 21:02:30 2007
Wed Jun 11 11:00:27 2008
Sun Jan 17 17:57:21 2010
Mon Aug 06 16:01:40 2018 / 2019
(C) OntoOO/ Dennis de Champeaux
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation
with the average voter.
(Winston Churchill)
Democracy--rule by the people--sounds like a fine thing; we should try
it sometime in America.
(Edward Abbey)
We have guided missiles, but unguided man
(Graffiti in a Santa Cruz beach toilet)
After briefly describing the major features of democracy we dig into the three phenomena in turn. Of course, we need to keep in mind that they developed in parallel and were cross connected.
Dimensions on which versions vary:
-- Direct, indirect, mixed: the people themselves are involved, or
representatives are used, or both (through an occasional referendum)
-- People are those qualified, according to some criterion, or all
people (with the exclusion of those under age)
-- Decision-making is through consensus, or through voting
-- Decision-making is for a specific topic (direct democracy), for a
party, for a representative, for a leader, etc.
A direct democracy works fine in a small community. Switzerland, with 5 million voters, can handle it with national referendums and initiatives two to four times a year, while instruments are also well established at the cantonal and communal level.
California is using referendums occasionally. Problematic, however, is that an initiative overwhelmingly accepted by its voters, can be over ruled overnight by a federal judge who judges the result unconstitutional. Democracy gets complex when a constitution, federal, state and local laws need to be aligned according to ever-fluctuating interpretations.
The constituency of the people that is involved in the political process has typically increased from an elite, via all qualified males to the total adult population. This development in the 20th century has had a major, unforeseen impact, as we will discuss below.
Decision-making through consensus works only in small settings. Majority voting (or higher percentages when called for) takes care of obtaining decisions in larger settings. Agreements on basic rights, not open for discussion, prevents decision-making that would massacre minorities. The basic rights currently established may be ripe for a 'make over', as we will discuss below.
The topics for voting range widely. It can be a very specific proposal with a yes/no choice. It can be -- in an extreme case -- the affirmation of a leader without any alternative, except by abstaining. It can be for a leader with several alternatives, or for a leader of a party, which makes it ambiguous whether one votes for the person, for a party's ideology or for a party's program.
Voting itself has variants. Votes can be tallied directly or indirectly when districts are in between voters and what is being voted for. People accustomed to direct voting remain typically astonished about the 'dirty game' of gerrymandering - redrawing district boundaries to ascertain subsequent victories, while those accustomed to district tallying see gerrymandering as the 'rightful spoils of victory'.
Voting is normally one man - one vote. Alternatives are conceivable as demonstrated by the voting in corporations; the number of shares owned weights voting. Voting in the political realm could be weighted similarly, say based on the amount of taxes paid, but we are not aware of proposals for alternative weightings.
Voting keeps the population engaged in what goes on in the world. The population thereby shares the responsibility for developments.
Most political decisions involve tradeoffs in which not everyone can be a winner. Voting is the brilliant solution to deal with this unfortunate reality. Acceptance of a vote is, however, an acquired ability. Early democracies struggle with human creativity aimed at nefariously influencing voting, while even the people in the US cannot stop bickering about the abortion decision by the Supreme Court decades ago.
We are happy to quote positive claims about democracy from [Democracy]:
Empirical research shows that more democratic nations have little democide; rarely or never make war on one another, and have few civil wars.After all the good news lets have a look at candidate problems.Poor democracies have better education, longer life expectancy, lower infant mortality, access to drinking water, and better health care than poor dictatorships. This is not due to higher levels of foreign assistance or spending a larger percentage of GDP on health and education. Instead, the available resources are managed better. Democracies do not have large-scale famines.
Refugee crises almost always occur in non-democracies. Looking at the volume of refugee flows for the last twenty years, the first eighty-seven cases occurred in autocracies. Political institutions are extremely important in determining the prevalence of corruption: democracy, parliamentary systems, political stability, and freedom of the press are all associated with lower corruption. Democracies are more likely to win wars than non-democracies. Democracies are more often associated with a higher average self-reported happiness in a nation.
An indirect democracy requires voting periodically or when a government fails. This entails that the constituents from whom the electorate has to choose must 'sell' themselves. Arguments that appeal to the (long term) common good are a difficult sell. Instead we see proposals to reduce taxes, the introduction of a new entitlement (without mentioning how to fund it), promises to improve public education without being specific about details, proposals to be tough on crime without acknowledging that the population itself is the problem, plans to improve healthcare while not mentioning that its cost structure is already way out of control, etc.
Voting occurs typically every 4-5 years. This duration impacts the time horizon of projects to be considered on the political agendas. A water distribution project including an aqueduct crossing a river in the South of France took a generation to complete - in the time of the Romans. Democracies cannot deal with such projects and, for example, postpone addressing looming bankruptcies - within a few decades - of the Social Security and Medicare entitlements. The rising of oceans due to global warming can, for example, be discussed in abstract but remedial actions are immediately derailed due to short-term concerns about the economy.
The simplest explanation for the population explosion is that people
continued their traditional procreation habits although children
mortality dropped. We can classify countries into three groups
regarding their growth trends (ignoring migration flows):
-- Countries where the growth has leveled off below replacement
level
-- Countries where the growth rate may have decreased but is still
exponential
-- China where the government has intervened to force the growth to
stop (which excludes certain sub-populations so that China's
population is still growing)
Countries where procreation has decreased below the replacement level
are still growing due to migration from countries where the population
is still exploding.
For all countries in the phase of exponential growth there is the question how the population is/ was able to pay for the many more surviving children, because the breakthroughs of technology are not a sufficient explanation for what happened. There are different answers for the different countries.
There are countries where the population cannot keep up with population growth and lacking resources they descend into poverty, famines and occasional civil wars. Generosity of rich nations kicks in when yet another natural disaster strikes, but since population control cannot be imposed as a condition for assistance the decline resumes. Niger is an example.
There are countries that have natural resources that can be sold by a monopolistic government on the world market. The revenues are used to create extensive, 'free' social services and government agencies establish a trickle down economy, which keeps the population employed. Poverty rates depends, among others, on the trickle down effectiveness. Example countries: Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela.
The democratic countries that are now considered to be rich had a different approach when they went through the exponential growth phase. Public education, was the innovation where monies raised by taxes benefited citizens different from those who provided the monies. The acceptance of this nation-wide, systemic altruism - later often labeled solidarity - paved the way for financial transfers to pay for children that the parents could not afford. Tax deduction for having children, actual payouts for having children (the Netherlands), highly subsidized higher education, subsidized healthcare, subsidized housing, subsidized retirement programs, etc. all became necessary to financially support increasing segments of growing populations. Actually, all these assistance programs are still necessary because most of their populations are not self-reliant. In-flowing migrants rely on these assistance programs as well.(2)
The emergence of massive solidarity in the 20th century benefits from an explanation to better assess its consequences. Public education may not have been initiated due to systemic altruism, but for the fear of endemic crime and social chaos as a result of suddenly increasing poverty at the end of the 19th century under laissez-faire business freedom. And there are deeper reasons.
The French revolution created the innovation of equal rights for all citizens. The extend of these rights was at least equal, basic opportunities for pursuing one's goals to obtain whatever. Darwin's evolution theory threw cold water on these basic rights by the notion of "survival of the fittest". Individuals may have all the same rights but they have different abilities to pursue what they are after. That can be perceived as unfair if equal rights is interpreted - even half way - as rights to affluence. The solidarity in our democracies can thus be explained as a means to compensate for the different, 'unfair', capabilities of individuals.
Durant's "Lessons of History", [Durant], reminds that the French revolution was not the first event where equality was declared. They note: "... there have been socialistic experiments in a dozen countries and centuries." They proceed describing numerous examples - starting with Sumeria 2100 B.C. - that are better labeled as communistic than socialistic given substantial state control of their economies. Their explanation: "Nature smiles at the union of freedom and equality in our utopias. For freedom and equality are sworn and everlasting enemies, and when one prevails the other dies. Leave men free, and their natural inequalities will multiply almost geometrically ...". Our welfare states are, according to their historical perspective, just yet another experiment of socialism.
The commonality of all nations is that the population explosion produced citizenries that are either impoverished and need international assistance or need extensive assistance from government programs.
The notion of 'unsustainable economy' has no significance for those nations where the population is impoverished. They would be delighted when their status allows them to be invited in the discussion. Still they are part of the problem. Attempts to alleviate their misery is never spearheaded by reducing their out of control population. Addressing their basic inability to live of the (mental) land they possess is off limits. Similarly to individuals who have these days a disproportional sense of entitlement, these countries do not have a self-improving potential.
The countries whose economies depend on the extraction of oil or the like are the most problematic in the sense that there is no way for them to even consider the concept of sustainability: non-sustainability is how they exist for now. When their resource run out, they either collapse, Nauru, or they switch to services, Dubai, hoping that the World will have the discretionary resources to consume their services.
China is a special case with its 1.4B(?) population. It is a relatively poor country, ravaged by wars and 'crazy' social experiments in the 20th century. Still it has stamina rooted in a history of millenniums. It has embarked on catch-up modernization with me-too economic developments. Thereby it replicates rapidly the fallacies of the West, with disastrous implications for the World due to the size of its population.
The democracies in the West have led the way to non-sustainability. They are the owners of the science and technology, which supports a lifestyle for the masses that is the envy of the rest of the World.
Again: who is "we" that knows about the non-sustainability of the World's economies beyond business that use "sustainability" disingenuously in their marketing campaigns? A few eggheads that no one wants to listen to? The constitutions of democracies have no 'awareness' of sustainability of an economy. A politician cannot tell the electorate that several Earths are required to support worldwide the consumption rate of his/her constituents. The consumption rate entails an economic flux whose taxation is required to keep the population afloat. Breaking out of this deadlock is beyond our democracies already for as long as we know.
Is the source of health coverage for:The US Food Stamps program is obviously beneficial. But consider [NYT]:
Almost one in three of Californians under age 65;
One in three of the state's children; and
The majority of people living with AIDS.
Pays for:
Forty-six percent of all births in the state;
Two-thirds of all nursing home residents;
Almost two-thirds of all net patient revenue in California's public hospitals.
The Safety Net Food Stamp Use Soars, and Stigma Fades A program once scorned as a failed welfare scheme now helps feed one in eight Americans and one in four children.How is it possible that 25% of the US children need food assistance in what is often described as the wealthiest nation of the world?
Even stranger is that in California 9.2% childeren have subsidized lunches and 46.7% have free lunches so that the parents of 55.9% of the children cannot feed their children [CDE].
When we would push harder and ask "Why were these children being put in the world when their parents cannot even feed them properly?" moral outrage is the typical response, as if the parents are blamed - instead of the system that justifies their choices.
Note that the statistics quoted above are consistent with the
statistics of the 'economic ability' distribution that we gave in the
Income Distribution Deterioration chapter. The most salient
data:
- The bottom 50% earns only 12% of the nation's income
- The bottom 50% owns a shrinking 5.8% of the nation's assets.
Even more questionable is the question what humanity as a species has gained from the increase from 1.6B in 1900 to over 7+B of the world population, while its quality has decreased. Murray claims in [Murray] that Mathematics reached its peak in the 18th century, hard Sciences around 1800, technology in the mid 19th century. Per capita calculations will bend his curves down further in the 20th century.(3)
After moral outrage has subsided, we still need to ponder why humanity
(except partially China) after a century has not found a way to
constrain freedom of procreation to:
- block exponential growths
- prevent procreation beyond one's 'fair share', and
- obtain reasonable assurance that the society does not become
(financially) responsible for children
Of course, we are not the first questioning the unconditional generosity that is not compatible with survival of the fittest, the process operating during the preceding billion years, which has produced humanity (and all other living species) as we know it. Dawkins warned already in the early 70-ties [Dawkins]:
But the welfare state is a very unnatural thing. In nature, parents who have more children than they can support do not have many grand children, and their genes are not passed on to future generations. ... Contraception is sometimes attacked as 'unnatural'. So it is very unnatural. The trouble is, so is the welfare state. ... But you cannot have an unnatural welfare state, unless you also have unnatural birth-control, otherwise the end result will be misery even greater than that which obtains in nature.This warning has not been heeded and the world population passed the sustainability level at 4B people in 1980 [Meadows].
While this may be seen as a funny anecdote, it illustrates painfully that politicians are, in a democracy, unable to retract an originally sympathetic and rational arrangement, which became an entitlement, caused a black market, created corruption, and became absurd (while owners of rental properties have never been compensated for their 'solidarity' and to add insult to injury it takes still at least three years of litigation to evict renters under very limited circumstances).
The dot-com economic boom had not yet collapsed. The preceding
attacks on the World Trade Center had been ignored as crank events.
The nation was wallowing in economic prosperity due to a peace
dividend, the end of the Cold War. However, the country had (and has)
structural problems:
- Growing dependence on foreign oil, while nuclear technology was
blocked due the never ending stalemate in Nevada about the storage of
nuclear waste; high labor productivity, but at the expense of low
energy efficiency; inefficient infrastructure in the sense that its
low density does not allow for public transportation;
- Growing dependence on foreign knowledge workers in the high tech
sector due to the inability of the education sector to produce
sufficiently many native engineers (half of the Silicon Valley
workforce is foreign born);
- Growing problems with social security because its pay-as-you-go
feature has not been transformed into a pension system and its
insolvency is getting closer and closer every year;
- Growing problems with the Medicare expenditures, due to lack of
guidelines, and cost controls, out of control administrative overhead
and the looming insolvency due to the baby-boomer bulge;
- Growing number of illegal immigrants. A 1986 law legalized 2.8M
illegal aliens. They kept entering the country at a rate of
500,000/year. While it is claimed that they pay their fair share of
taxes, on average they have only a seventh grade education and thus
they have joined those that take more out of the system than what they
contribute;
- Urban sprawl, ecological destruction, and the other usual problems
discussed by 'eggheads' were (and are) also part of the structural
problems.
To be fair, one candidate brought up the 'unfortunate' topic of the environment. He lost the election. The other topics were too difficult/ sensitive/ unpopular to be part of the discussion and thus the electorate ended up with a 50-50 stalemate.
(1) Why tax millionaires? Shouldn't everyone pay for mental health? Why not tax people who earn $900,000 or $500,000?California is the land of fruits & nuts, as the saying goes. The demand for mental health services continuous to outstrip the new funding; see [breakdown].
(2) Proposition 63 will create a counter cyclical tax. Mental health services funding will fall in economic recessions, when the mentally ill are the most likely to be unable to pay for mental health services.
(3) Is a 1 percent tax the right amount? Maybe the system could really use an increase of $2 billion per year.
(4) Taxes like this set a bad precedent. They create a bad business climate and may drive millionaires from the state.
(5) Creating special taxes to meet the needs of one disadvantaged population sets a bad precedent for bypassing the legislature in establishing statewide priorities and adequate funding. What group will be next to launch its own initiative and create its own tax? This is the first step on the slippery slope toward a 1 percent tax for every pet project.
(6) There is some feeling that direct democracy could be dangerous. Propositions get onto the ballot in part because funds are used to gather and pay for the needed signatures.
(7) There is little assurance that funds will be spent wisely.
When California's personal income tax revenues took a sudden jump last year ... it turned out to be mostly due to a payment by one very high-income taxpayer. ...A few billionaires deciding to relocate out of state would have a substantial impact. This cannot be right.
it underscores a tax system that makes it increasingly difficult for the state to balance its books because of its utter dependence on a relatively handful of high-income taxpayers. ...
Finally, their incomes are in large measure dependent on how well the stock market is doing.
However, we are bewildered - instead of disturbed - when we realized that the statistical data shows that a great majority of the population is not economically self-sufficient. Thus, while there is no need to quibble whether Walters refused to draw a politically sensitive conclusion, the more pressing problem is that we need a population where a great majority contributes economically instead of being subsidized.
Lets push harder on this topic. The principle of balances of power is well appreciated. We have also constitutions that describe basic rights that, for example, prevent a majority to pass a law to exterminate a minority. Governments have the right to collect taxes. They can create and abolish taxes. There is, however, no principle that limits taxability. This fundamental omission allows politicians to 'throw money at problems' instead of dealing with root causes. The emergence of huge transfer functions in welfare state governments to deal with slow increasing economic dependency of now majorities is the prime example of this omission.
This is yet another example that a fundamental upgrade of our democracies is required. The balances of power devised over two hundred years ago are 'leaking' and need to be rethought.
Democracy as we know it - see the section above - has failed to deal with the three big problems as well as with the smaller ones. There is nothing in our constitutions about civil obligations, the need for self sufficiency, economic sustainability, responsibility for indefinite future generations, preserving bio-diversity, etc., etc.
These omissions allow our politicians, and the political parties, to pander during elections with new entitlements, lower taxes and more environmental plunder that exploit our infantile, self-centered, short term, reckless stances.
Combine this with an economy guided by a GDP metric, which gives a rosy delusion of what we are up to and what our collective assets are.
Dumping democracy is not an option. The alternatives have terrible track records. Upgrades are, however necessary. The Finale chapter is devoted to that challenge.
-- What is truly shocking is that 20% of personal income in the US now is transfer payments - money handed out by the government. And that number is rising.(1a) Charles Murray used the term "custodial democracy" already in [Murray0].
-- How does that compare to Europe?
-- It is about the same and also rising.
(2) The experiment with communism in the USSR must have paved the way subsequently for solidarity as well.
(3) The declines discussed in [Murray] began indeed long before the population started the exponential growth around 1900. Still the population growth (and thus the 'volume' increase of raw IQ) has not helped the human cultural achievement rates, but brought it further down.
[CDE] A spreadsheet for 2010 school lunches in California. http://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/sh/cw/documents/frpm2009.xls
[Dawkins] Dawkins, R., The Selfish Gene, Oxford University Press, 1976 & 1989 & 2005.
[Democracy] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy
[Durant] Durant, W. & A. Durant, "The Lessons of History", Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 1968.
[Meadows] Meadows, D., J. Randers, & D. Meadows, Limits to Growth, The 30-Year Update, Chelsea Green Publishing Co., 2004.
[MediCal] http://www.chcf.org/documents/policy/MediCalFactsAndFigures2007.pdf
[Murray0] Murray, C., "The Coming of Custodial Democracy", Commentary 86, no 3, vol 24, 1986 September.
[Murray] Murray, C., Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950, HarperCollins, ISBN 0-06-019247-X, 2003.
[NYT] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/us/29foodstamps.html?hp[proposition63] Scheffler, R. M. & N. Adams, "Millionaires And Mental Health: Proposition 63 In California", Health Affairs, 2005 May, http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/hlthaff.w5.212/DC1
[Walters] Walters, D,, "California too reliant on rich taxpayers", in San Jose Mercury News, page 15A, 2007 Jan 5.
[Wittgenstein] Wittgenstein, L., Philosophical Investigations, Blackwell Publishers, ISBN 0-631-23127-7, 2001.