Moving beyond democracy

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.
Since i have already tripped myself up by sheer blindness:
The X-axis displays values for the first time frame.
There Russia is clearly ahead of Estonia which is ahead of Belarus.
The Y-axis desplays values for the latter timeframe.
There Estonia is ahead (thus having improved) of Russia and Belarus.
The whole thing would be more obviously intuitive if the graph was square not rectangular (i bet it actually is and the scale is just different to distort it to rectangular, which is, well, quite dumb*).
:)

*Yes it allows for more convenient placement of labeling text (i.e. the country names in this case).
Before i stand accused of ignoring the obvious benefits of this arrangement.
;) :mischief:
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the post heading said, "Moving BEYOND Democracy." But everything being discussed here is just different countries going up and down and around very familiar territory in well-trodden and well-known political paradigms. I see no mention of virtual legislative government forums, pantiscocracy, technocracy/political meritocracy, responsible libertarianism, automated government, or other political ideas that are currently just theoretical for lack of any nation seriously taking them up.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the post heading said, "Moving BEYOND Democracy." But everything being discussed here is just different countries going up and down and around very familiar territory in well-trodden and well-known political paradigms. I see no mention of virtual legislative government forums, pantiscocracy, technocracy/political meritocracy, responsible libertarianism, automated government, or other political ideas that are currently just theoretical for lack of any nation seriously taking them up.

If you play Civilisation, you can just swap your state system, get the immediate properties, and you swap other policies, and you get the immediate properties.

Real life does not only grant you those immediate properties, I think very much that the underlying culture/customs/values/traditions of citizens, civil servants and politicians will always make a hybrid out of that and the formal state system.
Discussing state systems as such, without taking into account how they could and likely will tick in practice, is very theoretical, and imo only good for getting insights in possible mechanisms you already have or can cause.

EDIT:
The (political) makeability of a society is low with high inertia.
And like so often with new laws and regulations, made from a too high belief in makeability, often having counter-productive effects to what you wanted.
 
If you play Civilisation, you can just swap your state system, get the immediate properties, and you swap other policies, and you get the immediate properties.

Real life does not only grant you those immediate properties, I think very much that the underlying culture/customs/values/traditions of citizens, civil servants and politicians will always make a hybrid out of that and the formal state system.
Discussing state systems as such, without taking into account how they could and likely will tick in practice, is very theoretical, and imo only good for getting insights in possible mechanisms you already have or can cause.

EDIT:
The (political) makeability of a society is low with high inertia.
And like so often with new laws and regulations, made from a too high belief in makeability, often having counter-productive effects to what you wanted.
I don't know. There wasn't, for instance, much left of the Imperial, feudal, aristocratic, Orthodox Christian-dominated, strongly agrarian (and glorifying agrarianism), Cossack-admiring, highly conservative government of the Tsars by 1924 when Lenin passed away.
 
As added info to the diagram and article link:
Per country and year measured there is a huge file (100 pages or so) with the results of the questions, you can mine here: http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSDocumentationWV6.jsp

with summary pages like this:

Because of the discussion above, I took a summary screenshot of Belarus, where you can also see that the people younger than 30 are clearly more positive than older people. And I added the Netherlands where you can see that there is not much difference between the generationsn (which fits to the relative uneventful past 70 years here)
(The for example Belarus Mean of 5.78 is 57.8% trust)

Schermopname (1023).png


Schermopname (1024).png
 
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.
As Metatron explained, it was different - while it is possible that level of social trust in USSR was a bit higher than in modern Russia, but the difference between Belorussia and Russia in 80-s seems really weird.
 
I don't know. There wasn't, for instance, much left of the Imperial, feudal, aristocratic, Orthodox Christian-dominated, strongly agrarian (and glorifying agrarianism), Cossack-admiring, highly conservative government of the Tsars by 1924 when Lenin passed away.

Much of that, including our new Tsar Putin, rebounced pretty easy after the collapse of the Soviet empire. ok... here and there other names.
So I guess it did not completely disappear.

But for Russia, with that big revolution, and high violence to force it through,you do have good enough of a point :)
Most other countries, with much less strict and violent changes, moved imo more from hybrid to hybrid.
 
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Democracy works just fine. It isn’t going away anytime soon.

Well, if you say so, it must be true.

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.

Do elaborate.

Aren't Nordic social democracies happiest countries on the planet? Why fix what isn't broken?

That can easily be ascribed by critics to the fact that those societies are homogeneous (and white).

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the post heading said, "Moving BEYOND Democracy." But everything being discussed here is just different countries going up and down and around very familiar territory in well-trodden and well-known political paradigms. I see no mention of virtual legislative government forums, pantiscocracy, technocracy/political meritocracy, responsible libertarianism, automated government, or other political ideas that are currently just theoretical for lack of any nation seriously taking them up.

Actually, China and Singapore were specifically mentioned, and their systems can be considered technocracy/political meritocracy, at least outwardly. And this is the most likely and non-theoretical system that countries can move towards in lieu of liberal democracy, as the OP suggested (just under a different name).
 
That can easily be ascribed by critics to the fact that those societies are homogeneous (and white).
Except for Sweden, which is now all Arabs — when it's not ALSO homogeneously white if course...

(I don't think Sweden actually exists in the global perception anymore. It has already been supplanted by whatever pet-idea one group or another is currently peddling.)
 
In global perception, Arabs are white.
It's European/North American exceptionalist worldview where they aren't.
 
I think the only way to counter what many see as the failings of democracy is to, well, expand democracy. From just the public sphere, to also including the private sphere (in a way abolishing it). All the arguments I hear against workplace democracy would work just as well against democracy in general (everyone would just vote for lower taxes and more gubmint handouts!!!), yet stable democratic states have an extremely good track-record, and states that have moved from extreme unstable situations to better ones have generally done so while constantly increasing government accountability to the will of the people.

The examples of China and Singapore seem to me to me to have some obvious flaws when it comes to the economic reality. Both of them were in extremely good positions to develop economically. Singapore with its position to be a huge trading hub on the straights of Malacca (and the development of the "Asian Tigers" that lead to this could be said to be at least in part that some of them became more democratic), and deciding policy based on simply the development of one lone city rather than a huge interconnected economic area both rural and multiple cities. And then China with its massive potential in its huge population. But I would say even China has become much more accountable to its population simply due to the effects of its modernizing and increasing wealth giving a sort of feedback effect. Not sure on the exact details of Singapores development.

Find ways to counter the power of those with more capital, and ways to increase the ability of the people to make informed judgements on how the land shall be ruled in an equal way from person to person regardless of circumstances and that is the way forward.

Though this is easier said than done, obviously.
 
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1. You seem to believe that the actual companies have power. I think they largely don't. They are largely a plaything of governments. Not even their own ones. You may underappreciate that because your government is not that terribly effective.

His government built the largest intelligence gathering network and got other people to pay for it and produce a profit! Starts with a G. I don't think they are ineffective at all. They are made up of fragmented interest groups, often divided as to how to splut potential new loot, but tremendously effective at defending their common interests when threatened.[/QUOTE]

2. You are implying that this is something that just comes over people like a biblical plague.
I would contend the general notion... hmm... how do i best put this... that American liberals are hugely arrogant idiotic imbeciles who know nothing about the world and are intellectually deficient to the point where they are unable to perform informed citizenship - just as much as American conservatives - and that this state of affairs in not universal accross the developed "west" but exceptional.

Don't underestimate how much they have already exported their culture around the world. All empires do. But you are right in that there is no need to despair: pagues come and go, their preys develop immunity over time.

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.

Things of that nature.
I'm not sure if you can find satisfactory data, since most of these people have hideous web presences or even market their reports.

Better that pulling out "my personal feelings about..." but still unsatisfactory because these people all have agendas too.

All the arguments I hear against workplace democracy would work just as well against democracy in general (everyone would just vote for lower taxes and more gubmint handouts!!!), yet stable democratic states have an extremely good track-record, and states that have moved from extreme unstable situations to better ones have generally done so while constantly increasing government accountability to the will of the people.

Stable democracies allow for power structure changes without civil wars, that is a plus over other forms of government. Interesting that such a thing does not seem to be an advantage in business. I believe that businesses do not require this because there are many other non-damaging ways of carrying out change (like move to different businesses). When businesses become monopolies, we do see power fights aiming at breaking them.
 
His government built the largest intelligence gathering network and got other people to pay for it and produce a profit! Starts with a G. I don't think they are ineffective at all.
Yeah i was alluding to the fact that Lexi et al are angsty about these companies vis a vis their recent elections and are generally concerned that their government has lost regulatory control, while my government b-slaps these companies around like the insolent, small and easily disciplined brats that they are (the companies; my government... too, in other contexts - anyway, you know what i mean :p).
Don't underestimate how much they have already exported their culture around the world. All empires do. But you are right in that there is no need to despair: pagues come and go, their preys develop immunity over time.
Is Portugal in any immediate danger to elect a joke as whatever office you people have?
Is there a near coplete breakdown in public discourse and efficacy of the 4th estate?
Are moral panics in Portugal frequent, recurring, increasingly unhinged and beginning to turn violent?

No?
Then maybe this exporting business is overrated in this case.
Better that pulling out "my personal feelings about..." but still unsatisfactory because these people all have agendas too.
Yeah, sure you can argue that they are unreliable for small changes or comparisons of close data points.
But they reflect large changes somewhat accurately. You know, things like Tunisia flipping from harsh dictatorship to virtually European democracy and then narrative-defyingly staying like that.
(I don't think Sweden actually exists in the global perception anymore. It has already been supplanted by whatever pet-idea one group or another is currently peddling.)
Euro. Refugees. Welcome to my world.
 
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Is Portugal in any immediate danger to elect a joke as whatever office you people have?
Is there a near coplete breakdown in public discourse and efficacy of the 4th estate?
Are moral panics in Portugal frequent, recurring, increasingly unhinged and beginning to turn violent?

No?
Then maybe this exporting business is overrated in this case.

I have noticed some imported trends that worried me.

We imported the drug culture of the 60s/70s (via the UK and colonies, complicated to explain here), with a delay (it hit in the 70s/80s), and flirted with repressing it out of existence the US way. Found it was better to do damage control, dodged that bullet.
We imported the speech over racism, ghettos and whatever from the US cinema, TV and music culture in the 90s. It hit the second generation of african immigrants looking for some kind of distinct "identity", but evaporated in a few years. It didn't fit local realities.
We had a group of wealthy corrupt businessman trying to import the think-tank and paid-media US model of politics more recently, including a local watered down Breitbart website called "Observador". They found plenty of presstitutes to do their bidding and write "news" and opinion pieces to sell economic-liberal and conservative-religious ideas. But found they had little echo and their political candidates got defeated time and again (and hopefully that will continue to be so).
And we have a The Guardian imitation looking for "racism" everywhere, inventing moral outrages according to the "correct" liberal ideas, and exposing how the "extreme left" that dislikes the current economic arrangements should not be taken seriously because they are always loony and unrealistic. And we have the tabloid imitations, or course, plenty.

So, our elites and would be elites do try to import this stuff. But you are right, they all seem to have petered out. The world is not flat. Fortunately!
 
Even though most democracies are flawed, it's the best system of governance we've figured out so far, that doesn't completely ignore the needs of the citizenry.

I don't know if it necessarily is the best we've figured out. The main problem with democracy is that it operates terribly slow due to the need to build some sort of consensus on an issue before taking action. That makes democracy great during times of relative peace and stability, but becomes more of a hindrance than a help during times of crisis or when faced with adversaries that don't have the ball-and-chain of building consensus to weigh them down. We are seeing this now with multi-national corporations coming up with new ways to exploit consumers and employees years before democratic government can even formulate some kind of response. And by the time they do formulate a response, the corporations have already moved on to something new.
 
No, governments dragged their feet because they decided to delay, not because they couldn't act. I'm thinking about reactions to Uber or to Airbnb, companies operating in an obviously illegal ways in many countries. It was a matter of just applying existing laws.

Justice is beholden to political considerations when the "upper level" (big money) of our societies is involved. They are weary of acting to oppose any big player until they get political signals to act. That is not a byproduct of democracy, that is a byproduct of capitalism.

Actually, It's an essential requirement of capitalism. Capitalism as the politically manipulated upper level where big money plays and reaps high profits, opposite to the rules bound market economy of the little people (with its actual competition and little profits).

Democracies are not fated to be corrupt in this way. Historically some that have been have had politicians rise who cracked down on those businesses, broke them apart, shut them down, even jailed the criminals. In the US the last big banking crisis and scandals before the 2008 one ended with dozens of banks busted and hundreds of bankers arrested. The more recent impunity is a result of today's political status quo, that can change.
 
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Yeah i was alluding to the fact that Lexi et al are angsty about these companies vis a vis their recent elections

Lexi finds attempts (mostly by uncritical Clinton-supporting types) to blame the 2016 election results on fake news on facebook laughable. Lexi is "angsty" about these companies for reasons that are much more far-reaching than the results of one election.
 
Lexi finds attempts (mostly by uncritical Clinton-supporting types) to blame the 2016 election results on fake news on facebook laughable. Lexi is "angsty" about these companies for reasons that are much more far-reaching than the results of one election.
Fair enough.
Now if only you weren't so inconvenienced by the circumstance that while there is a movement against the power of Google, apparently 98% of the members of that movement are... what's the term you would use... Klansmen*.
That's very unfortunate.

*British Klansmen, Jewish American Klansmen, gay Jewish American Klansmen, black female Klansmen, Asian mixed race female Klansmen and a boatload of Canadian Klansmen - transsexual or otherwise, but hey white America is in decline so what do you expect.
 
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

Ah, so feminism is the secret to happiness? An interesting point of view. As for Heert Hofstede, I guess I'll have to check out his research.

Do elaborate.
To be honest, I'm too lazy to dig up statistics here, but I daresay that when measured by whatever positive metric, you'll find democracies at the top of the list.

That can easily be ascribed by critics to the fact that those societies are homogeneous (and white).
Homogeneous and white? I thought that was a bad thing? That diversity is the way to go?
 
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