Factors cause democracies to weaken

DOME Factors that Cause Democracies to Weaken Young Voices in the European Democracies

Rize / Turkey

The Factors There are a lot of factors that cause democracy to weaken . Ten most important ones are ; -

Aprioristic Equality Populism Tribal Mentality Corruption Entitlements

12.02.2016

- Mob Rule - State Secrets - Complex Accountability - Democracy Is Unsustainable - It Can’t Really Work

Tevfik Ä°leri Anadolu Lisesi

2

Aprioristic Equality One of the foundations of democracy is the assumption that all votes are equal.

It assumes that all opinions are worth the same.

Even if you think that all people are created equal, it is obvious that their environments are very different—and as a result, so is their character. By assuming that all opinions are equal you are also assuming that most people are able to reach a rational, informed decision after seriously exploring all pros and cons.

Populism A common criticism of democracy is that in the end it devolves into a popularity contest. Polls don’t decide who is right—that’s simply decided by whoever is most willing to say what people like to hear.

Populist leaders focus on emotion before reason and “common sense” over more academic wisdom, which often produces bad ideas that will be defended with the stubbornness of a mule, regardless of whether they are good or bad.

Tribal Mentality Mankind has not evolved much since the Stone Age. Yes, we have tamed the forces of nature and discovered a lot of things—Internet business is amazing. But human nature remains the same, more or less. We still think in tribal terms, “my people vs. your people”. Call it class struggle, xenophobia, nationalism.

In a democracy, tribal mentality is very dangerous, because it will make you vote “for your team” instead of voting according to issues.

That means that whoever leads “your team” can rest assured that they have your vote, and instead of focusing on your interests, they can proceed to deal with their own.

Corruption This is not a specific flaw of democracy but a very specific kind of corruption: machine politics, a political organization in which the bosses dole out rewards in exchange for the vote.

It can be as simple as paying money to someone in exchange for their vote, or giving someone a job in the office of the politician who commands the machine.

Entitlements Another side-effect of democracy is that if the government starts providing a service or a pay to someone, they begin to feel entitled to it. So if someone tries to stop providing it, they just made a large number of deadly foes.

When Margaret Thatcher cut coal subsidies, for example, coal miners felt that their jobs had been threatened and became bitter enemies of Thatcher and her ilk.

Mob Rule An unrestricted democracy means that the majority decides over the minority. This leaves the minority relatively powerless—and the smaller it is, the less power it wields.

This actually makes a system less democratic, since it interferes with the principle of “people’s power.”

Complex Accountability When a dictatorship falls, it is fairly easy to hold someone accountable for any crimes committed by the State. It is certainly easier than in a democracy, since in that case, officials have been elected by the people.

If those officials have committed a crime in opposition to their official platform and without the knowledge of the public, it is simply their own fault and the people who voted for them are innocent.

State Secrets All states have dirty skeletons in the cupboard. In a dictatorship they are just discreetly hidden, sometimes in plain sight. In a democracy, which tends to rely on moral superiority, this is difficult to carry out and its efficiency runs against their transparency.

A perfectly democratic system would be transparent, and as such, no covert operations could be effectively carried out.

Democracy is Unsustainable In many democratic countries, your vote only measures up against other votes in your district. So if your district runs a majority system and you vote for a losing runner, then your vote was useless.

You can use a proportional system, but that doesn’t solve the problem: the issue still remains that large numbers of people can effectively “waste their vote.�

It Can’t Really Work That pure democracy cannot work is not a personal opinion—it is a mathematical result of Arrow’s impossibility theorem. According to this theorem, so long as there are more than two candidates, there is no possible voting system that can ensure the satisfaction of the whole people in a country.

If these criteria is left unsatisfied, it effectively means that democracy—at least in its purest form—cannot work.

Thank

You!

Tevfik İleri Anadolu Lisesi Rize / Turkey