Moving beyond democracy

[warpus]

Our federal election cycle is 4 years now, although in practice an election can be called at any time if a vote of non-confidence happens (ie. if the budget is defeated). That's not likely to happen, though, given the Liberals have such a huge majority.

Months of those obnoxious "nice hair" ads (long before the insane 78-day campaign writ was dropped) are what made me basically stop watching TV on any Canadian channel. I suppose this time around it'll be "nice socks."

It's 4 years and not 5? Really? When did that happen?

 

[Lexicus]

But i am not going to give the big talk on how the entirety of the Democratic narrative is bunk on a low energy setup like that.

Look, you use the term social justice Democrats. It must've meant something. If you're under the impression that the Democrats are particularly concerned with social justice, I'm here to tell you you are sadly mistaken.

I didn't say it was the only alternative.

No, just heavily implied it by presenting it as if it was the only alternative.

But, yeah, i'm not sure what your claim is based on.

I don't believe expansion of democracy is ultimately consistent with the rule of capital, which I see being strengthened in myriad ways over the past few decades.

How can you be still completely unable to accept Trump and Brexit as a specific Anglospherian pathology,

Trump and Brexit are merely the tip of the iceberg.

All the other countries who didn't fall to right-wing populism in the last two years, they are just further behind the bend?

Right-wing "populism" has little if anything to do with my point, which is more that I believe we are heading for a kind of globalized kleptocracy in which national governments are largely powerless to enforce any sort of standards on the peregrinating ruling class.

Like in France

Funny you bring up France, doesn't the recently elected President think he's a godlike monarch or something? France is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. "Right-wing populism" was defeated, so the technocrats pat themselves on the back and pretend this is all about Trump and Brexit and the Anglosphere just being full of idiots, meanwhile the dictatorship of capital has become quite obvious in France and democracy is suffering accordingly.

hat American liberals are hugely arrogant idiotic imbeciles who know nothing about the world

And do you think of me as an American liberal? Don't be shy, now...

 

[Gori the Grey]

Oh, you know, EIU's Democracy Index, WJP's Rule of Law index, RSF's Freedom of the Press index, Freedom House's Freedom in the World index etc.

Thank you. I have access to the resources of a university library, so I can get my hands on stuff that isn't easily available on the web.

 

[Hehehe]

Outside of the West, democracy as you know it is probably not the norm.

Often, the trappings of democracy may be present in one form or another, but they're a fig leaf for de jure non-democratic ways with which ruling elites retain power. From sham elections to Electoral Politics with Limited Scopes, the autocrats of today aren't your 20th century dictators - they might speak the language of democracy and by most appearances have solid mandates to rule.

And just as moderates in the West are champions of democratic ideals and tenets such as free speech, moderates in 'flawed democracies' are also adept at marshalling rational arguments for the rightness of their systems. On a side note, I'd really like to see moderates from the two worlds clash, and whether Western moderates would be so willing to "agree to disagree" when their fundamental freedoms are threatened.

But maybe Western moderates would be surprisingly amenable to a compromise, given that there are very successful examples of authoritarian systems at work, such as the rapid rise of China and the prosperity of Singapore. Heck, there are many Western fans (not saying that the writer is a fan like Thomas Friedman, but he does lay out the reasons) of these two examples in particular, public figures and government officials included. Singapore's GDP per capita is in the top ten; recently it has successfully blocked non-ruling party candidates from contesting the Presidential Election. Even though the people may sometimes be unhappy, the ruling party enjoys landslide victories every General Election because the opposition has been effectively destroyed.

Given that non-and-barely-democratic systems are widely admired for their performance, and the fact that genuine democracy isn't even the norm today, there's really no reason to believe in an 'end-of-history' hypothesis where democratic capitalism is the perpetual winner. Perhaps a form of technocratic capitalism will become more in vogue? Plenty of people in the rest of the world live just fine without freedoms taken for granted in the West. So what if you can't choose your leaders? So what if saying the wrong thing can get you arrested? If you can make money and live fairly comfortably, do you need more?

What do you think? Will democracy ultimately prevail? Will it die a slow death, replaced by authoritarian technocracies? Or will there be a long-term division of the world between democratic systems on one side and authoritarian systems on the other?

So why would anyone want to move "beyond democracy"? Perhaps it is true that non-democracies can do well in some aspects, but I would argue that democracies do better. Aren't Nordic social democracies happiest countries on the planet? Why fix what isn't broken?

 

[metatron]

Look, you use the term social justice Democrats. It must've meant something. If you're under the impression that the Democrats are particularly concerned with social justice, I'm here to tell you you are sadly mistaken.

Yes of course it meant something, and - to answer the previous question - in this context most of them are or very few of them are, i.e. most of them are some of the time.
For the purposes of this conversation you may understand my usage of the term as higher octane version of "(identity) panderers".
I agree with you that many of them are not genuine on many (but not all) points of their pandering.

I don't believe expansion of democracy is ultimately consistent with the rule of capital, which I see being strengthened in myriad ways over the past few decades.

Well, it's treacherously easy for us to unnecessarily disagree on that, seeing the different routes out countries and cultures have taken. Like, i would make a distionction between capital and cronyism.

Right-wing "populism" has little if anything to do with my point, which is more that I believe we are heading for a kind of globalized kleptocracy in which national governments are largely powerless to enforce any sort of standards on the peregrinating ruling class.

Hmm... it's curious how the relationships between companies and government can be so diverse at times.
Like, Facebook and Google helped tank your election.
And they are pretty damn afraid of my government. Not yours though.

And do you think of me as an American liberal? Don't be shy, now...

Well, i'm not sure. If i were i wouldn't invest the time making this post.
American liberals, like most groups of people, have a narrative about the world and themselves. In their case this narrative has become largely decoupled from reality and somewhat immune to feedback. That's a phantasy. That is not normal.
American conservatives, curiously, do that too, and yes - as i am sure you want to point out - they started earlier.
I am somewhat certain that you are at least partially affected by that phantasy.
I consider you a person with potential to break out of that and to do so earlier than others.

 

[Hrothbern]

Aren't Nordic social democracies happiest countries on the planet?

When it is about the usual indicators to measure the quality of life in countries, the Nordic democracies score indeed high.
Striking thereby is that the Nordic countries have all a very low masculinity on the Heert Hofstede cultural dimensions, compared to most other countries.

Correlation ofc no causality
But empathy for your fellow citizen does matter.

Trudeau said yesterday:
"Teaching boys to be feminists gives them a sense of justice and empathy and helps them “escape the pressure to be a particular kind of masculine” that is damaging to men and those around them, Trudeau writes. “I want them to be comfortable being themselves, and being feminists – who stand up for what’s right, and who can look themselves in the eye with pride.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ay-on-raising-feminist-sons-all-of-us-benefit

 

[EnglishEdward]

I don't believe expansion of democracy is ultimately consistent with the rule of capital, which I see being strengthened in myriad ways over the past few decades.

This is my view too.

A particular ominous feature is the way that capital has successfully targeted and more or less destroyed all sorts of
mutual alternatives varying from public owned utilities, to saver led building societies and shared risk pension schemes.

 

[tuckerkao]

Democracy works just fine. It isn’t going away anytime soon.

Democracy is much better than Dynasty or Communist, these 2 undesirable rulings still exist somewhere in our world today.

 

[metatron]

When it is about the usual indicators to measure the quality of life in countries, the Nordic democracies score indeed high.
Striking thereby is that the Nordic countries have all a very low masculinity on the Heert Hofstede cultural dimensions, compared to most other countries.

Correlation ofc no causality
But empathy for your fellow citizen does matter.

Nonsense.
As far as Hofstede dimensions are concerned the "nordic secret" if any is a specific combination of power distance and long term orientation.
Being filthy rich, preferably by some bs means also helps.
Switzerland shows up pretty quickly, and Switzerland is one of the most masculin countries with that kind of HDI (higher than Germany and Poland, and that's saying something, lower than Hungary, duh).
Also Israel, not exactly a hofstede-feminine coochtopia.
And what do we see when we scroll further down the list: Ill-gotten wealth from empty land by way of genocide (hello Canadia, hello Australia) and various tax cheater non-countries and oil sheikdoms, heck even Panama features prominently.

The actual causation is rather the other way around: Get rich, by work and decent socialism (Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Switzerland) or by being a thief or a cheat or dumb lucky -> embrace "feminism" for the vapid, classist, racist, sexist decadent frivolity that it is. Or don't because your culture by chance prevents it.

Can we wrap it into some motto?
"Feminism - in case you are too civilised to stuff burgers into other burgers but still want to be that Nero level full of it"

Trudeau said yesterday:
"Teaching boys to be feminists gives them a sense of justice and empathy and helps them “escape the pressure to be a particular kind of masculine” that is damaging to men and those around them, Trudeau writes. “I want them to be comfortable being themselves, and being feminists – who stand up for what’s right, and who can look themselves in the eye with pride.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ay-on-raising-feminist-sons-all-of-us-benefit

Hey, if you wanted to convince me that we needed "feminism" one of the better reasons would be that Trudeau is not regarded as Palin 2.0.

 

[Hrothbern]

Nonsense.
As far as Hofstede dimensions are concerned the "nordic secret" if any is a specific combination of power distance and long term orientation.

Nonsense
Long term and Power distance are pretty much the same between North-Western and Cental European countries, (UK excluded),
(Austria at a much lower Power distance of 10 on the 1-100 scale).
But Masculinity in these countries at 40-60, Austria at 80 and Nordic below 20

 

[metatron]

Nonsense
Long term and Power distance are pretty much the same between North-Western and Cental European countries, (UK excluded),
(Austria at Power distance of 10 on the 1-100 scale).
But Masculinity in these countries at 40-60, Austria at 80 and Nordic below 20

I see you know your stuff.
The point remains: Between the countries with the shared low-ish PD and the mid-to-high-ish LT (a.k.a. the actual causes of civilised society) commonly known as central and notrthern Europe, there is virtually no statistically significant difference in terms of "happiness" (as per the commonly accepted indices) if you divide by good old HDI.
Wealth. Duh. Not Feminonsense.

 

[Hrothbern]

This is also an interesting diagram to look at the Quality of a society and state system with "social trust" as indicator.

From: http://www.behaviouralinsights.co.u...st-people-have-never-heard-of-and-its-moving/

China, not a democracy, scores very high.
One could argue that Chinese are indoctrinated to trust.
But I think that the extreme high long term orientation and the steady improvement over already a couple of generations does play a big role, underpinning stability and lack of threats.

 

[Hrothbern]

I see you know your stuff.
The point remains: Between the countries with the shared low-ish PD and the mid-to-high-ish LT (a.k.a. the actual causes of civilised society) commonly known as central and notrthern Europe, there is virtually no statistically significant difference in terms of "happiness" (as per the commonly accepted indices) if you divide by good old HDI.
Wealth. Duh. Not Feminonsense.

Yeah
It is much more complicated than just that masculinity.

The example I gave with Trudeau was also to show my reluctance towards "easy" solutions, copied from somewhere else (the grass on the other side of the river looks always greener).

 

[metatron]

This is also an interesting diagram to look at the Quality of a society and state system with "social trust" as indicator.

View attachment 478662

From: http://www.behaviouralinsights.co.u...st-people-have-never-heard-of-and-its-moving/

China, not a democracy, scores very high.
One could argue that Chinese are indoctrinated to trust.
But I think that the extreme high long term orientation and the steady improvement over already a couple of generations does play a big role, underpinning stability and lack of threats.

Two things:

1. This is delightfully interesting, but don't we have this in... you know... this century.
2. Australia, as allways (except soccer): Best part of the Anglossphere.

Oh, sorry, yes i see (i thought 81->91). Very unintuitive though.
I'm sorry anyway.

 

[luiz]

This is also an interesting diagram to look at the Quality of a society and state system with "social trust" as indicator.

View attachment 478662

From: http://www.behaviouralinsights.co.u...st-people-have-never-heard-of-and-its-moving/

China, not a democracy, scores very high.
One could argue that Chinese are indoctrinated to trust.
But I think that the extreme high long term orientation and the steady improvement over already a couple of generations does play a big role, underpinning stability and lack of threats.

Haha gotta love Brazilian cynicism. That's the one defining characteristic of our nation I'd say. Trust no one. Nobody has noble intentions.

 

[Hrothbern]

Very unintuitive though.

Yeah, not very intuitive, always the issue if you want to show "too" many in one slide
In a presentation I would first show the average of 1981-1991, then 2005-2014, and then in this dynamic diagram together, to keep the audience with me.

But I still like the diagram very much because it does show the recent development in the context of the ranking and vice versa.

 

[EnglishEdward]

An interesting diagram.

I have the feeling that although the Chinese communist party abandoned communism as an economic ideal,
its legacy lingers on in that they are still perceived as having the interests of their peoples at heart.

For Great Britain, the main fall occurred in the 1990s and we’ve broadly flat-lined since,
the last World Values Surveys data point frustratingly being 2007.

I rather suspect that social trust has continued to drop overall in the UK.

 

[tuckerkao]

A lot will depend on your definitions. What do you mean by democracy? Open and fair elections? Rule of law? There are significant examples in Asia: Japan, India, S Korea, Taiwan, Israel, also S Africa. The bulk of the others are police states of one form or another, eg Russia, China, most of the middle east and Africa.

J

That's why certain nations like Russia and China usually stand together on voting in most of the United Nation resolutions.

United States, Japan and South Korea share the same military responses when encountering North Korea(a tyranny communist nation).

 

[red_elk]

The diagram is interesting, but the only thing it shows is that social trust depends largely on culture rather than government system. And that western-style liberal democracy is not something unique and superior in that sense.
Also, not sure how they got different figures for Belarus, Estonia and Russia in 1981-1991

 

[Yeekim]

Also, not sure how they got different figures for Belarus, Estonia and Russia in 1981-1991

I may be wrong, but as I understand the graph, being above the diagonal line means your trust has increased since when it was first measured (in 1981-1991) and when it was last measured (in 2005-2014) and being below it means it has since decreased.
So Estonia, Belarus and Russia being in different places does not necessarily mean our starting figure was different, although it does not rule that out either.