An Argument Against Direct Democracy

[lostinacause]

Direct Democracy in Government Decision Making
August 25th, 2005
With the invention of the internet and corresponding technologies the concept of direct democracy has finally become possible for day to day government decisions. Technology has made it possible for individuals to be able to vote on the same decisions that our elected representatives currently vote on. With the influence of special interest groups and corruption in politics this should be welcome. However no developed nation has developed such a policy even though it would satisfy the desire for individuals to have a greater say in how the government is run. One reason why this type of policy may not be taken is because people don’t want to have the responsibility of making the number of decisions that are currently being made by elected representatives. There are a number of logistical challenges that would hinder the effectiveness of direct democracy. Also, most people do not have the ability to make a proper decision in the areas that are complex.

Under a direct democracy system there are a number of issues would have to be decided on. Currently these decisions are being made by politicians who do this as a full time job. Most of these politicians also have various helpers. The average citizen doesn’t have the time to take this responsibility on their own and the quality of decisions being made would suffer. As a result if such a policy ever made it into the public realm it would probably not be adopted as a large number of people don’t want to be bothered with these decisions.

Direct democracy also presents logistical issues; of particular importance are voting procedures and security issues. The voting presents a problem because some how people collectively have to make decisions such as how long to let people gather information before a vote and when the vote is to be taken. This means that with an arising decision people have figure out how long society needs to get the information necessary before most people know what is involved in making the decision. Thus forecasting how long there needs to be before a vote starts and ends would prove difficult. Allowing for error on the side of too much time would prevent other issues from getting addressed while voting on information to soon does not allow adequate time for gathering information about the issue. Elected officials do not have to decide in advanced how long to wait for a specific time and can take the necessary steps to ensure they are properly informed Voting on issues where information shouldn’t be released to the public is also problematic. Issues like war or national security can not be voted on effectively as people will either lack the information or the public would be put at risk. Elected representatives are able to get information such as that of national security without having to release it to everybody.

There are also a number of issues where people lack the education and expertise to make an adequate decision. Knowledge of various areas of economics, public organizational management and sociology are just a few. As decision makers have a greater understanding of these complex decisions they will make better decisions. While many of our elected representatives do not have such expertise they are able to get basic training in that area and then work with experts to develop policy. In a direct democracy consultations with experts would not be feasible and the decisions made on complex issues would be worse. While politicians often make poor choices to favor certain regions or industries, these decisions are often what the people desire.

While direct democracy seems like a great theory, practical complications prevent it from being a viable decision making process for advanced societies to use. Time constraints, logistical issues and the complexity help to explain why direct democracy is no being used as a method for deciding political issues. These issues my further explain problems with organizations that have this method of decision making.

Source: http://possiblylogical.com/blog/
By me

[whatever4]

1. About this

I don't like these arguments, because they fly in the face of self rule.

To believe something like "There are also a number of issues where people lack the education and expertise to make an adequate decision."

That says, basically, that all people should be ruled by those that "know". By our betters? Shall we take a qualifying exam to vote?

No, I'm sorry, but within the confines of the constitution, I believe one person one vote ought to be acceptable. Even now, with a nation full of dummies. Perhaps, if they (we) were able to play more active roles in the decision-making processes...we wouldn't BE so uninformed.

And for all that, perhaps we should pay the price for it, when and if we are too foolish to make wise choices. How else does a society learn?

[Union Thug]

2. Agreed. Self Rule is about the freedom to make mistakes...

To resign ourselves to rule by the "social betters" is to abandon the concept of democracy completely.

[whatever4]

3. As it has perhaps become? I'm not qualified to say. nm

[Toots]

11. It is not a resignation to practice Republican Democracy

Maybe with the onset of the technology age things can change but for us to get together and choose by Democratic vote the person we think has the most brainpower and best charisma that we feel is more capable of making extremely crucial decisions than possibly we ourselves are capable of making. It is very nice to be able to choose Leaders and not live under mob rule. Often times the Majority is proved wrong guided only by mob mentality. A sane and informed Leader is a far better choice IMO. I find little fault with our form of government only in how the votes are counted and certified.

[cascadiance]

4. Based on this logic... Managers that don't understand their workers jobs

... shouldn't be able to tell them what to do, since they would "get in the way" of the worker doing things right.

I don't expect the populace to know the details of what politicians are doing, but just as it is the responsibility of a worker to communicate to their boss in a way that the boss can understand what they are doing for their boss (and therefore their company), it is also the duty of poltiicians to explain the way they do their work to us (their boss) and how what they are doing is good for our country (aka the company). We as their bosses have the right to direct them towards different paths of action for the good of the country (company). Hopefully we are well educated enough (and hopefully they keep us well informed enough) to help us making good decisions.

Now in the case of the worker, they get paid by the company to do work for the company, and that is why the manager can count on them doing the right thing for the company, since the company pays their salary. The problem with government now is that with the way we have special interests financing politicians moreso than our government, then they have contradicting agendas. It would be like employees getting paid to do other things that are at conflict with their priorities at work. Perhaps it is a side business, perhaps it is being paid to be a spy from their competitor. But in those instances, the employee doesn't work most effectively for the company, and in many instances that employee gets fired.

This is why we need to get "clean elections" campaign reform instituted so that we can get back to the government (us) paying their salary, so that their priorities are about serving us, not someone/thing else.

[lostinacause]

5. The only case that it would mean that we should "be ruled by our betters"

is if that option and the option of a direct democracy were two mutually exclusive choices for governance. As we can see various levels of accountability and choice through different systems of governance this is not the case. Thus choice and efficiency must be maximized where we most efficiently meet our goals. Pure choice will not do this optimally this for the reasons I have suggested. Looking to non profit organizations this becomes clear very quickly as you start to see collective organizational failure when decision making is spread through too many people. The result of the other extreme is shown by some of the dictators we have seen and their inability to address the concerns of the population.

[lostinacause]

6. Looking back I should also ask the question:

Why would you want a system that makes everyone worse off?

(The libertarians generally have a similar policy towards government intervention)

[whatever4]

8. I don't want "a system that makes everyone worse off" either,

And I'm not sure how you want me to answer that. You may interpret Libertarian ideas as leading to "everyone worse off", but that is certainly not any basis for their theories or a prediction of theirs. It might be your prediction, but that's not much of a point of discussion.

Most of it us look at our ideals as being more realistic, and more humane, rather than being cruelly indifferent. It's easy to say "we should this" and "we should that", in government, to protect and control and ensure fairness all around, but it's all useless if you forget that, primarily, people take care of themselves, their families, and their selfish interests first. And that it's not a bad thing to do so.

We all have the right to be selfish, as far as it doesn't infringe upon the rights of others, and further, not all people want the same things, and our rights should NOT depend on what we own personally. People are all naturally selfish, otherwise we wouldn't need rules in the first place.

But most people choose to follow rules, behave in a moral manner, and most people even believe in paying taxes. They don't believe in being over taxed, but they reject any idea of "no taxes" almost uniformly, across the board. Reps and Dems alike. So it's not as if the idea of people taking care of themselves and each other is so outlandish; we believe already.

I have to say, if you can't believe that's true, that most people choose to do the right thing the vast majority of the time, you cannot possibly believe self-rule is a good idea at all, and I have no argument for that.

[lostinacause]

9. Sorry, I should elaborate.

Most libertarians I have debated and discussed politics and intervention are under the impression that less regulation and intervention is good. There is an economic concept called Pareto optimality and it says that a Pareto optimal situation is where one cannot be made better off without somebody being worse off. Certain combinations of regulation systems, such as infrastructure and pollution controls, can make all parties better off if transfers happen to balance the effect. So based on this they will support substandard policy. It's not that I am against choice and control of ones life, my beliefs both social and economic run under the assumption that choice lets us meet our desires and that some choice is ideal. Economically I understand that other things such as equality, efficiency and opportunity must be pursued as well. Socially issues such as safety have to be balanced with choice.

[whatever4]

7. Not up to the fight

Those are all great and valid points, and thanks for the responses. I think I'm probably out of my depth, and would likely discredit my cause rather than defend it, as far as Libertarianism.

For me, simplistically all this comes down to making law fair for everyone. We all know there aren't any local deities around to enforce fairness, and that fairness can be seen as a ridiculously arbitrary thing. And we believe in self rule, that everyone should have a say in who is chosen to decide and enforce the law, because everyone has equal rights under the law. We don't want any slaves. Everyone has the right to be represented.

I simply cannot see how you can go from fair representation to "There are also a number of issues where people lack the education and expertise to make an adequate decision." And I don't mean to keep hammering at that quote, but for me, it really is key. That's a problem statement to me, because we just don't have ANY fair way of letting an entity or a system determine the "issues where people lack", and right now, in our pathetically uneducated nation, it's even more of a problem.

Who says who's uninformed? A simple majority, a poll, a test, law of averages, what?? And IF they aren't informed, if they're so ignorant of a subject that they can scarcely vote on it, how can they be representing themselves then? And also, how can it be such a serious issue then? Are we talking about a small segment of the population, or are we talking about the average Joe high school grad? Are secrets being kept, or is the information used in the judging just so terribly complicated that a mere mortal cannot understand it without a PHD? Is crime invisible? Is terrorism? Not with mass communication it isn't; we hear about bombs and attacks every day.

All this discussion seems to indicate that everyone voting would be a bad thing. One person, one vote, bad decisions. But it seems like a theory to me; when has it ever happened? What comparisons are there to be made for it, of unbalanced outcomes and terrible results...and please note, by terrible result, I mean an outcome that took down the nation and it's system...not just mistakes which were later corrected.

The problems we face right now, they MOST certainly have absolutely nothing to do with too much voting by dummies. The decisions of this administration frequently went against every measured opinion. Issues were skewed by this Administration; they even infiltrated the media to do it, straight out of too many science fiction story plots. They have thwarted our will, and abused their power to keep the truth and further abuse their power. With THOSE problems, it builds like a snowball, as far as I can see it. I see that has having potential to bring down a nation and it's system. It had nothing to do with voting by dummies. In fact, they went out of their way to eliminate the bottom of the ladder economic votes, in many places around the country. Those are the dummies, right? The uninformed individuals? Or perhaps just half of them, the half that voted in the unfavorable manner? Were those voters uninformed? With that in mind, I see any doled out, managed voting concept as simply too dangerous.

Yeah I know it's kinda what we already have now. But even with the system we have now, they had to break it and cheat to win. If the votes had been counted fairly in the election, Bush wouldn't have lost. Else they would never have spent the time and money to steal it.

So, to sum up a hopefully valid point, with the attitude of thinking "There are also a number of issues where people lack the education and expertise to make an adequate decision." is some kind of problem, I don't see any justification for that, or for using it as a concern when crafting improvements to our current system. It wouldn't help any of the problems we have right now; they're the exact opposite of "one person one vote" causing bad results, because we are NOT represented right now, and did NOT elect this president.

I don't see too much voting by ignorant people as having ever been a problem. It certainly has nothing to do with where we are now.

But I AM familiar with voting being restricted, prohibited or stolen as having been a large problem, and not in the distant past, but in the recent elections. So I really hate hearing arguments that innocently point in that direction, because in all reality, "superior voters" has already happened.

And it IS why we are where we are now.

[lostinacause]

10. In my mind the problem is not the voting being done by ignorant people,

though they do seem to be the ones who choose leaders. (Unlike myself many of the more informed voters do not change vote.) The problem is if all people had a very direct role in decision making. Even with a strong background in economics I don't have a clue what the effect of raising the prime rate by a quarter of a percent would have. I would much rather something like that be done by someone who knows the consequences of that action. I also don't have a clue what the best way is to regulate drugs to keep them safe yet still make in viable for drugs to come on to the market and be safe. In both cases I have an idea of what I want. With monetary policy I want it to reduce the risk of a depression. With the regulation I want drugs to come on to the market quickly but I want to know how risky it is to take new drugs.

I’m sure I’m like most people in this way. If people vote responsibly, which for the most part Americans (and Canadians) do poorly, then it is possible to manage these goals to get policy directed at solving these problems. This is what I believe the role of government is; to make it so a greater degree of opportunities are available then in its absence and ideally to maximize opportunities with respect to peoples goals.