QUESTION: Can you have Democracy with a Communist Economic System?

For starters I wouldn’t say that capitalism has failed. I would say that it has failed to be a complete solution. I think we have come to see that it’s part of a bigger solution but, but only a part. It’s a means to an end not an end in itself.

We’re probably starting to have difficulty with the terminology here but I would say that the US is less corrupt than most third world countries and more corrupt than most 1st world countries, but I’m not sure if I’m agreeing or disagreeing with you.

True, and this is why you need checks and balances. This is why a strong democracy that is representative of the people is *usually* the best way to go.

I don't agree with you on this one. I think there would be a different system of alliances but I don’t think there is anything that would make them collapse.

If the system doesn’t allow the people to have a voice then there is a problem with the system, not the people. Ultimately I guess you can say that if the people have the power to change the system then they should do that. In the US your electoral system is such that for the most part only wealth people can run, so for the most part only wealthy people get elected. I think it’s not coincidental that your governments’ policies tend to disproportionately favour the rich and I further don’t think it’s coincidental that almost half of your population has given up on the US as a democracy. They’ve stopped voting. So I guess what the US needs is for the disenfranchised people to band together and start lobbying for some reforms so that your democracy, and thereby your key system of checks and balances, could be regenerated.

 

Not exactly we would still need some system of distributing resources, developing and maintaining infrastructure, and self-defense.

If I remember my Locke correctly I believe this was his POV regarding why even if men were essentially good they would still form government.

My use of the term 'fair' wasn't analogous to 'just' but to 'reasonable'.

 

I think most of the non-voters disenfranchise themselves. The vast majority of the people I know who don't vote freely admit that they are just lazy and apathetic. They don't necesarily harbor any ill will towards the system.

 

One could also make a strong case that many of those who didn't vote found their choice of candidates weren't that appealing.

 

True, but these are not random values. They are part of a natural developmental progression. Think about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, or maybe a better model would be Kohlberg’s stages of moral reasoning. Jean Piaget did pioneering work in this area and there are quite a few other similar models with similar, but not exact, findings.
http://moodle.ed.uiuc.edu/wiked/index.php/Moral_Reasoning

You have identified some of the key general stages:
Tribalism: belonging; safety; order
Legalism: rule of law not man; a broader conception of justice
Pluralism: a recognition that not all laws and traditions are just, so an even broader conception of justice
(There are other higher and lower and intermediate stages so this is my no means complete. The stage that most closely relates to what I’ll call “accumulation of wealth driven capitalism” is an Achiever stage that fits between Legalism and Pluralism. It relates to a person who learns to navigate the rules and laws for their personal benefit. Eventually these people will be confronted with the dilemma, are laws largely arbitrary and is there is a higher moral code? They may either adopt or reject this conclusion and so they will either move to the next level or stay where they are.)

Any society will be made up of people at many different stages because these are learned. They’re not innate. But a society will (typically) be characterized by the values of the broadest influential segment of the population. This is what we are identifying when we say “Americans are like X” and “Canadians are like Y.” But these evolve over time. The US engaged the issues of slavery and later racism and as a nation has come to an understanding that there is a higher moral code with respect to these issues. It may have been legal once to enslave or discriminate, but it wasn’t moral. Note that these transformative events occur within certain spheres of our consciousness. Having realised that it is wrong to enslave African Americans, most people would realise that it’s wrong to enslave whites, or Asians or anyone other group, but they wouldn’t necessarily come to understand that it’s wrong to cheat a vulnerable person in a business deal, for example. Some will later come to understand this as roughly morally equivalent, but it’s typically a separate process that gets you there.

IMHO there are BIG problems with you governmental system, and I think we’ve seen the fruits of that in the last 4 years. In the last election you had the choice of Kerry or Bush. Before that you had Gore and Bush. You have a system that seems to systematically weed out the competent leaders, and it’s a system that half of your country seems to have given up on by not even bothering to vote. The US is kind of a quasi-democracy/oligarchy at this point, it seems to me, and the result is very weak and immoral leadership that is making some truly horrifying decisions. It’s this kind of disconnect between the people and the leadership that leads to the fall of empires and with Russia, China, and even smaller countries like Iran snubbing the US these days I can’t help but wonder how far down that road we’ve already gone. Not that that is all bad, but I think it is perhaps an early sign of a coming time of profound change for the US.

As I discussed above, the differing values and worldviews aren’t random, and they’re not cultural either although that would certainly be an influence. They are essentially developmental. China would be a good example of an extremely rapid progression through these levels, up to what I’m calling the Achiever stage, over the last century. Think also of the Hegel’s dialectic and Marx’s dialectical materialism. These are theories that seek to explain the changes in the will and values of a societal group that result from the changes in the worldviews of a critical percentage, (up to the tipping point), of its individuals. These aren't random processes.

 

I think whatever they say, the bottom line is that the percentage turnout in the US is much lower than in other democracies, and there is a reason for that. Other places (like Canada) are having some problems too, but historically the US has had very low voter turnout for many decades. People may say that they’re lazy but I suspect that really means that they don’t feel represented by either party and they don’t feel it matters that much to them which one gets in. This is big problem because it leaves your system wide open to be manipulated by those who would seek to use it for their own proposes, and I think that is exactly what has happened.

There is a problem with cynicism in Canada now too but it is largely the result of a few specific uniquely Canadian issues. We don’t tend to view our politicians as elites, however. They are much more just the guy next door and so they are much easier to identify with. The current Premier of Alberta was a journalist, for example. The Premier of Saskatchewan was a church minister. Our current Prime Minister is from a very wealthy family but our past one was from a working class family. There are various reasons for the fact that our politicians are largely representative of our population but a key reason is the limits placed on election spending which allow most citizens with who have generated a little support from the community to run.
http://www.sfu.ca/~aheard/elections/laws.html

 

That's a good point. The US can use some REAL campaign-funding reform. Are there 2 dominant political parties in Canada (like there are in the US)?

I think that may be part of the problem in the US. I don't think the Dems and Repubs have any interest to introduce real campaign reform - doing so may hurt the current status quo. I think the current status quo (with various cycles of majority-white house power) is something both parties are very comfortable with. Sad thing is, without campaign reform, the only viable 3rd-party candidates would probably be super-rich guys.

 

Even in a meritocracy, the most qualified people would rise to the top and become the elite. People will reward leaders yet still hold that ideal for equality. What happens when the public has fallen to the point where they can't think for themselves....

The general pattern in government and corporate structures is that when one branch becomes too large or cumbersome, it'll find ways to prolong its survival. That branch takes a life of its own.

Each branch have their own symptoms that'll mimic human behavior when playing by specific rules, and these entities have played the game so long that it knows how to cheat or coast. Economy controls government because economics has been the main condition for winning or ensuring survival.

The problem to these ideologies, captialism, communism, democracy, etc..., is that they aren't scalable. Human nature corrupts whatever logic that made the theory worthwhile. One person is reasonable. A town hall of a hundred can reach a concensus. Cities with four million citizens are on a different level. The more people there are in a group, the higher premium is placed on leadership and there is a lower rate of concensus of how matters should be carried out. A large population also means that a politician is dependent on her personal wealth or warchest and not whether she has the best issue.

It's very possible, given that our population could double by 2040, that the public will seek authoritarian leadership to reach a sense of stability in an overcrowded world. The creation of a world governing body has been developing for the last 40 years, and the majority seem unconcerned that international agreements are reached without any representation from each country's populace (how it would be put to good use is a different matter). With that much authority in a possible world body, even a charter guaranteeing essential Rights for Humanity would seem shallow.

 

That makes sense to me.

The situation in Canada is a little complicated. For a long time we had 3 main parties, the right wing Progressive Conservatives, the centrist Liberals, and the left wing social democratic party the New Democratic Party. During the early Quebec separation issues a party arose there that crossed ideological lines to a certain extent but was focused on representing the interests of Quebec in the federal parliament. They only exist in Quebec but they have most of the seats there. These days they are more of a soft separatist party as most Quebecers don’t want to separate anymore but they have grown to like having their own party represent them in Ottawa. They are called the Bloc Quebecois. We then had a PC Prime Minister, Brian Mulroney, who became so unpopular he effectively killed the century old PC party. They went from the governing party to 2 seats in one election. To fill the void a western based conservative party called the Reform Party rose up, but they never gained much traction in eastern Canada. The old PC party was making a bit of a come back there but they were dead in the west. The two decided to merge rather than split the right wing vote and they formed the Conservative Reform Alliance Party, or CRAP for short. No, I’m not kidding. This was their official name for a few weeks until they clued in. The eventually became just the Alliance party and then just he Conservative, but they are only just now getting some traction in central or eastern Canada because they are still dominated by old western Reformers.

So, to make a long story short, we have 4 main parties now. The break down in seats is here:
http://www.sfu.ca/~aheard/elections/2004-results.html

 

wnes, just curious, but may I ask how old you are? (Note, I'm seriously curious and this is not meant as a derogatory question.)

 

curious why you are curious about my age?

... am trying to find an answer in that demographics poll in Hangout ...

... found one ... think I am slightly younger than basso ...

 

I think the parliamentary system actually has more to do with that that limits on campaign spending.

 

I don't believe international agreements are reached without representations in democracies. The people still get to elect the political leaders who ratified those agreements and could also vote people out and have the next Admin. pull out of those agreemenst like we did with the ABM treaty.

 

Well, the Constitution gives the Fed the power to make treaties, but it's murky who appoints our representatives to Non-Governing Organizations such as the World Bank, the WTO, or the IMF. The populace of most nations assume that's a prerogative given to the Executive wing, but the agreements these NGOs hash out affects issues further than a general political affiliation. The results could overturn any federal policy.

There are benefits for streamlining the process such as a supposed quicker concensus building by retaining professional diplomats, but it's debatable whether the consensus these members hash out is with the public welfare's in mind. After all, they aren't accountable to them.

 

It’s the spending limits that mean the average guy can afford to run. That doesn’t have anything to do with the parliamentary system. It’s just a straight bottom line consideration. Who can afford to run?

 

Excellent post

fair and just are very different terms and I wasn't sure if you had the distinction in mind.

and I would only add that instead of distributing resources I would use freedom of commerce. Since distribution could imply regulation.

Infrastructure would require association and contract which could be economic as well as governmental.

And since men aren't essentially good, governments always form- broken trust and lawlessness is at the heart of motivation for central government.

If people could conform to a equitable, just and truthful rule of law that was based upon the respect of ownership, responsibility and mutual good will without partiality or predjudice government could be very very small.

 

Excellent post.

Men lust for power. Human nature does not allow for leadership who are separated from their own self interest.

A government founded on personal responsibility, liberty and freedom requires human nature to yield to noble concepts. Keeping your word, facing the consequences of your mistakes and earning your keep. It works for a little while, but sooner or later man's own self interest drives him to deceive, avoid consequences and look for shortcuts.

A global government means a global control- classes

rulers and servants- freedoms, responsibility and liberty are the casualties.

 

Grizzled --

the problems you mentioned for the United States are shared around the world. men are men. their desires are the same. their values are often different. i've never heard anyone...from any country or region...say, "yeah, the very best of our society are rising to the top as our political leaders."

in addition...we tend to see leadership as weak or immoral when we disagree with it. did you think that when Clinton was in office? when Carter was in office? right now we have a president who offends the rest of the world...or at least a good part of it. it is no surprise to me that you would see "fundamental" problems right now. but that doesn't mean the system is entirely broken. but note that i'm not arguing it's not broken, at some point.

government is a necessary evil. but it is still evil. it's the "world" that Christ talks of, which is better translated to mean "man's systems." we're all flawed...and our governments scream that.