Majority Rules? [Split from FT Quotes]

[Dardedar]

the people will feel no better if the stick with which they are being beaten is labeled “the people’s stick.”

DAR
Of course they will. Because more than half of them will have voted for where the stick is to be inserted. Some decisions need to be made in a society. Which side of the road to drive on etc. Let the people vote. Let them "express their will." The majority wins and the minority can get stuffed. Some exceptions apply. See Bill of Rights, Consititution, and similar systems in other successful democratic, representative republic, countries who have installed common sense restraints on freedom (note: there are no succesful anarchic arrangements on the planet to look to).
After 51% have voted to drive on the right side of the road, those who continue to drive on the left should have their cars taken. Hogeye of course will insist he is having his freedom infringed if he can't drive on the right side on even days and the left side on odd days and right down the middle on weekends. He should be laughed at until he hurts someone at which point he gets the stick up the butt and stuffed in jail.

D.

Edited by Savonarola, 20060816 1023: Added link to source thread

[Hogeye]

Your position is apparently that decisions must be made by everyone on a winner-take-all basis. In another thread I pointed out various ways that social decisions can be made locally and by consensus, e.g. the market. There have been various societies that approximated anarchism, as you know since we have discussed them here. Some of my favorites are Classical (Thing) Iceland, the American West, and Holy Experiment Pennsylvania.

After 51% have voted to drive on the right side of the road, those who continue to drive on the left should have their cars taken. Hogeye of course will insist he is having his freedom infringed if he can't drive on the right side on even days and the left side on odd days and right down the middle on weekends.

I'll assume you are arguing in good faith and don't understand my position. My position is that allowing 51% to rule the other 49% is tyranny every bit as much as being ruled by one king. As noted, there are other ways "society" can decide which side to drive on. Private property, for example, lets the owner decide, with no one ruling anybody. In a market, a convention would evolve for which side to drive on, just as conventions have evolved in measurement, in the creation of human language, mathematical and scientific notation, and other things. This is a natural process, generally not involving the State at all.

Because more than half of them will have voted for where the stick is to be inserted.

LOL! That's like the famous Mencken quote, "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." But I disagree that most are happy about the results. They continue to support the State, not because they are particularly happy about getting screwed, but because of habit, ignorance, and being too indoctrinated to see a real alternative.

[Dardedar]

Your position is apparently that decisions must be made by everyone on a winner-take-all basis.

DAR
No, not must be. Democracy is the worst of all possible arrangements, covered in warts and all, except for the alternatives.

In another thread I pointed out various ways that social decisions can be made locally and by consensus, e.g. the market.

DAR
There are a lot of times where that works fine and dandy. Many where it does not. Best not to get so wedded to a religion of market rule that you can't be open to seeing the difference anymore.

My position is that allowing 51% to rule the other 49% is tyranny every bit as much as being ruled by one king.

DAR
Got it. Nonsense. One king happy v. all the people, versus. 51% happy and 49% not. Your position only has you off by 49% or so, if the goal is a happy situation for the people.

As noted, there are other ways "society" can decide which side to drive on. Private property, for example, lets the owner decide, with no one ruling anybody.

DAR
So when the really wealthy own everything and run the show, ala Oliver Twist, they aren't ruling anybody? Have we learned nothing from history Mr. Hogeye?

How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?

Oops, gotta run.

[Hogeye]

Hogeye> My position is that allowing 51% to rule the other 49% is tyranny every bit as much as being ruled by one king.

Darrel> Got it. Nonsense. One king happy v. all the people, versus. 51% happy and 49% not. Your position only has you off by 49% or so, if the goal is a happy situation for the people.

I don't buy your assumption that, in a monarchy, the king is the only happy person. All governments, from dictatorship to democracy, rely on the acquiescence (if not active support) of the majority. Reminds me of something Mel Gibson's character in the movie "The Patriot" said: something like why would I want to be ruled by masses of neighbors rather than a far away king? What matters to liberty (and happiness) is the amount of freedom allowed, not whether there are 1 or 1 million tyrants.

We seem to agree that democracy is bad when there are freer alternatives. (I.e. you wrote: "Democracy is the worst of all possible arrangements, covered in warts and all, except for the alternatives," but then you conced that " There are a lot of times where that [the market] works fine and dandy.") Perhaps you're not as knee-jerk statist as you sometimes appear to be. I would ask you two questions:

1) When should majoritarianism (winner-take-all democracy) be preferred to consensus systems (such as the market, property conventions, and informal association)?

2) Would you agree that democracy on a small scale is generally preferrable to democracy on a large scale? In terms of happiness, one winner-take-all vote results in less (or at worst equal) satisfaction of the people than a partition into, say, 10 or 50 voting divisions. E.g. The nine states that have legalized medical cannabis would have a happier population if the central govt didn't arrest and harass them due to the federal prohibition.

So when the really wealthy own everything and run the show, ala Oliver Twist, they aren't ruling anybody? Have we learned nothing from history Mr. Hogeye?

Perhaps you need to learn history from history books rather than fiction novels. Contrary to Marx's thesis, there has been no tendency to monopoly. In fact, since Marx's and Dicken's day, rather than the workers being starved out and wages gone to subsistence levels, workers' standard of living has increased tremendously, many are homeowners, and all sorts of people are in various forms of business - even you. The transition problems of moving from feudalism to industrial capitalism were over more than a century ago in Europe. (Although they still remain to some degree in e.g. Latin America.)

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

The improvements Hogeye cited are thanks to the government supporting organized labor (under Democrats - under Repubs the gov't doesn't support unions). Agreements between small groups only work when they have an authority/arbiter big enough to enforce the rules. I prefer an elected authority. W has stated that a dictatorship is fine, as long as he was the dictator. Ditto absolute monarchy - modern monarchies tend to be parlimentarian, with the laws made by elected representatives and the monarch being pretty much a high-class ambassador - it's fine for the monarch. Momma used to say, "your freedom ends where my nose begins" - but that only works when there is law, and law enforcement, to make it so. Most people obey laws, but would act quite differently if there were no laws, just voluntary agreements (note the early WWII requests for volutary reduction of gasoline usage - some did, most didn't - but when it became law, most did and a very few didn't). Nonaggression pacts don't work because somebody always breaks them. (Stalin and Hitler signed one in 1939. Hitler invaded Russia in 1941.) Laws, like locks, keep honest people honest. I may or may not trust my government to honestly and equally enforce the law - but I most definitely do NOT trust your PDA to equally enforce anything for anybody not a member of it.

[Dardedar]

I don't buy your assumption that, in a monarchy, the king is the only happy person.

DAR
Right, that's worst case. You can have a very bad King (Kim Jong) or a good one who chooses to be responsive to "the will of the people." At least with representative democracy there is a built in check to have the will of the people followed more closely.

1) When should majoritarianism (winner-take-all democracy) be preferred to consensus systems (such as the market, property conventions, and informal association)?

DAR
The question is loaded. I don't prefer winner take all democracy. I think the US would be much better served with a parlimentary system which would spread the power out among 4 or 5 parties at least. But there are problems with that too. To answer the question, I am a pragmatist. When democracy works better to make humans and the planet thrive, it should be used. If the market can do better, let it.

2) Would you agree that democracy on a small scale is generally preferrable to democracy on a large scale?

DAR
It would be far too simplistic to just say yes. We have stratified democracy from the school board level, community, city, county, state and up. And with good reason. A city board is hardly equipped to consider such issues of whether we need a strategic oil reserve or the details of where it should be located. Local small scale democracy is not equipped to deal with a Global warming level of disaster or this one, which is also pending:

***
Billions Face Water Shortages: Agency
By James Grube
Reuters

Wednesday 16 August 2006

Canberra - A third of the world is facing water shortages because of poor management of water resources and soaring water usage, driven mainly by agriculture, the International Water Management Institute said on Wednesday.
Water scarcity around the world was increasing faster than expected, with agriculture accounting for 80 percent of global water consumption, the world authority on fresh water management told a development conference in Canberra.
Globally, water usage had increased by six times in the past 100 years and would double again by 2050, driven mainly by irrigation and demands by agriculture, said Frank Rijsberman, the institute's director-general.
***
LINK

So a different level of democracy is called for to accomplish different goals. A large scale federal presidential/congressional level democracy is necessary if you are going to conduct the workings of a country with 300 million people, on a planet filled with other countries.
You can wish it wasn't so, and wish we could just have a patchwork of thousands of PDA's but that reminds me of the Jehovah's Witness pollyanna I was fed as a kid. If everyone in the world was a JW, then there wouldn't be any wars.

One problem, that isn't going to happen, and then the world would be filled with moronic robots. Which is worse? Close call.

In terms of happiness, one winner-take-all vote results in less (or at worst equal) satisfaction of the people than a partition into, say, 10 or 50 voting divisions.

DAR
That is, until 20 of those divisions install slavery, lynching of minorities, female genital mutilation or a Christian State along the lines of the Old Testament (with executions of homosexuals etc). There are people living in Fayetteville who yearn for a Christian nation like this in the same way you wish for anarchy. Here is an email exchange I had with one in 1995:

“Yeah, I'm a CR. And I do believe that if a person is caught in adultery, they should be stoned. Active, practicing homosexuals should be stoned. And non-Christians should be evangelized to, but not allowed to practice their faith openly. If they did practice their non-Christian faith openly, they should be punished by execution for worshipping false gods.
As far as the heretics go, I want the civil government to have the power and the will to execute heretics and blasphemers. It's what God's law calls for - and its the only viable model for civil government.
I do not advocate beating homosexuals. I advocate stoning *practicing* homosexuals. There is a difference. The prior is a violation of God's Law. The latter is a faithful application of God's Law. Witches should also be put to death, as you have said correctly.”
--Sam Krishna. Christian Reconstructionalist, Fayetteville AR (10/95)

E.g. The nine states that have legalized medical cannabis would have a happier population if the central govt didn't arrest and harass them due to the federal prohibition.

DAR
You have cherry picked one issue in which a calculated Drug War based on fear and ignorance has derailed the federal government from having a good policy. It's unfortunate and it will change. Right now you just need to get in line and follow the will of the people.

D.

ps The email exchange I had with the above person (Mr. Krishna) was not private. He posted this to Farrell Till's errancy list which at that time had about 200 people on it.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

DAR, I wonder if your CR realizes that 1) stoning wasn't necessarily fatal in biblical application (Paul boasted of having been stoned several times & in context he didn't mean on canabis) & 2) killing witches is just a subset of killing non-jews/christians, as witchcraft is a polytheist, naturalistic religion.

Hogeye's insistance on cherry-picking and then extrapolating to the whole is the problem with rational discussing with him, and most extremists I've dealt with of whatever persuasion.

[Hogeye]

Barbara still doesn't recognize the difference between a legal system and a government. What she writes about law being a good thing is absolutely correct. Where she goes wrong is assuming the necessity for monopoly law.

Hogeye> 1) When should majoritarianism (winner-take-all democracy) be preferred to consensus systems (such as the market, property conventions, and informal association)?

Darrel> When democracy works better to make humans and the planet thrive, it should be used. If the market can do better, let it.

So you judge the various decision-making tools on a utilitarian basis. Fair enough. I think that the market is beats the hell out of majoritarianism wrt utility. Not that that is my primary criterion; I'm more concerned with individual rights. E.g. Even if most of the world would get intense psychic satisfaction from killing all the redheads, I would not approve. To me, utilitarianism (and other considerations) should be subject to the side constraints of rights.

Hogeye> 2) Would you agree that democracy on a small scale is generally preferrable to democracy on a large scale?

Darrel> Local small scale democracy is not equipped to deal with a Global warming level of disaster or this one, which is also pending: Billions Face Water Shortages.

But what about federation, the bottom-up approach, rather than top-down majoritarianism to solve such problems? And what about better definition of property rights, a totally decentralized solution? It seems to me you are assuming that majoritarianism is the only means to solve these problems, when that is far from clear. For example for water shortages, why should US-level majoritarianism be preferred to the logical watershed level? And why wouldn't private ownership of water resources solve it, as it has resolved the scarcity problem in land, beer, computers, and cars?

That is, until 20 of those divisions install slavery, lynching of minorities, female genital mutilation or a Christian State...

But even worse would be the centralized State installing such. You can either put all your eggs in one basket, and hope the central State never gets it wrong, or you can have 50 experiments, where at least people can vote with their feet. The latter seems more rational to me. It would be poetic justice for supporters of Roe v Wade if the central govt outlawed abortion; after all, they made the issue a winner take all thing. If Mr. Krisna gets his way in the US, it will be naive authoritarian centralizers like you largely to blame.

The drug prohibition thing (what you call cherry-picking) proves that can happen. The PATRIOT Act shows how it can happen wrt privacy and searches. The occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq demonstrate centralized "solutions" in foreign policy. What does the central government have to do before you acknowledge that the universal authoritarian "solution" is very poor compared to decentralization and pluralism.