undefined | Better HN

0 pointsWastingMyTime893y ago0 comments

That's why Switzerland is such a poor country and disappeared from the face of the Earth. The people who want you to believe other people are dumb and direct democracy is a bad thing are the ones benefiting the most from the current inbalanced form of government.

I mean if you think the people as a collective entiry are extremely dumb, why would you want any form of democracy or even society at all? Also, I have bad news for you but reallisticly speaking unless you are the unlikely strong outlier the average person is you (and me).

0 comments

simonh3y ago

It clearly isn't impossible for direct democracy to work, but equally there is no guarantee that a measure that gets passed in that way will ever get implemented, or will be implemented in the way intended.

For a start, once the legislation hits reality and needs to be interpreted who decides how it was intended to be implemented? Who chooses which tradeoff should be made when measures conflict with each other? we had problems like this with Brexit in spades. We still have in the from of the relationship between Northern Ireland and the Republic, our leaving the EU free trade zone creates direct conflict with out obligations under the Good Friday agreement. Fortunately we have a government lead by a Brexiteer so I'm sure he'll have all that sorted out in no time.

In 2014 the Swiss passed an initiative to introduce quotas on immigration from the EU, in direct conflict with a treaty between Switzerland and the EU on free movement. It was never implemented.

None of these are the end of the world, but they are problems with the model that need to be taken into account and that direct democracy advocates need to address.

coastflow3y ago

Assume everyone in a population governed by direct democracy is not "dumb." Then, there is still a need for checks against what political scientist Alexis de Tocqueville called the "tyranny of the majority."

From the United States National Endowment of the Humanities [0]: "In America, [Tocqueville] saw and praised a people who enjoyed an unprecedented equality of conditions and political and civil liberty without endangering order or prosperity. But he also saw and criticized the way white majorities supported the institution of slavery and the unjust treatment of free blacks and Native Americans. In fact, the greatest danger Americans faced was inherent in their treatment of unpopular minorities."

"The power of the democratic majority arises from the fact that every individual is assumed to be competent to guide his own life and is politically the equal of every other individual. In this situation, the greatest legitimate power will always be with the majority."

A lack of "intermediary institutions, [makes a country have] “no lasting obstacles” in the way of the opinions, prejudices, interests, and momentary passions of the majority and tends towards an unthinking despotism over unpopular minorities."

[0] https://edsitement.neh.gov/closer-readings/alexis-de-tocquev...

ZeroGravitas3y ago

So Alexis Charles Henri Clérel, comte de Tocquevill, touring the US at a time (1831) when Women, Black people, Jews, White men without property etc. were regularly unable to vote concludes that the big issue of concern is that the democratic majority might pass laws affecting a minority? That seems almost perverse.

Yes, but what if we freed the hostages and then they all went out and kidnapped someone? Then we (we being the previous kidnappers) would be no better off! Probably best not to rush into this new fangled democracy thing.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_voting_rights_in...

He's literally and openly writing a book on how with his guidance a democracy can run a society as 'well' as an aristocracy does.

Bubble_Pop_223y ago

> That's why Switzerland

Switzerland has the population of NYC, the city, not the metro area... and attracts the crème de la crème of a continent made of 740m people.

By the same token we should all swear by autocracy given how well are Singapore, UAE, Macao and Monaco faring.

WastingMyTime89OP3y ago

> Switzerland has the population of NYC, the city, not the metro area... and attracts the crème de la crème of a continent made of 740m people.

Switzerland has a native population with the traditional flaws and usual repartition of a normal population. Your rebuke is the usual one. People like to pretend direct democracy wouldn’t work for their usual pet peeve which generally boils down to them thinking they are much better than their neighbours and when you point to them that their argument is completely disproved by the fact that it already works in an actual rich country they just declare it doesn’t count out of intellectual laziness.

Also yes autocracy can work if you are fine with its main flaws: unequal treatment of the population. China is a better exemple than the countries you suggested looking at.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse