In no place I've lived would the average person walking into the voting box have spent time studying the history of banking law and policy to make a well-informed rational decision. They'd at most have read the opinions of some journalists or listened to a news reporter, and would make their decision after discussions between similar poorly informed friends/colleagues.
Fierce debates != well-informed debates.
We elect representatives because it's known that the body politic, once it reaches a large size, doesn't have the time to be well-informed on all decisions they'd need to make as a pure democracy. To suggest so exposes a serious need for a second look at the situation.
Representative democracy isn't elective oligarchy.
Actually all of them.
> In no place I've lived would the average person walking into the voting box have spent time studying the history of banking law and policy to make a well-informed rational decision.
Because most people have been mercilessly been beaten into obedience, and the belief that they aren't actually able to think by themselves, that they're inferior to the oligarchs in command (hint: they aren't. The President is no better than me and no better than the garbage man).
In 2005, in France, the "referendum on a European Constitution" lit an immense debate, and there was an incredibly well-formed decision on an enormously obtuse tome of legalese.
You can check that similar debates are common in Switzerland. People actually think about the problem, discuss it, and vote in conscience.
If you think people aren't able to think and decide autonomously for themselves, you are actively opposing democracy.
Ordinary elective oligarchy is the ideology that mostly pass as "democracy" nowadays, but please don't stay abused and go on pretending you like democracy when you don't.
Premise 1: if you continue adding people to the voting pool on an issue, at some point (X) you're going to exceed the number of people who have interest / time / capability to render themselves informed.
When you do, mass media begins to exert a much greater effect on the outcome (as these people are more susceptible to having their opinions swayed).
Premise 2: If you shrink the pool of potential voters, but keep the money involved the same, then corruption increases
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There are of course things you can do legally to fight both of these negative outcomes, but I feel you'll always be fighting the basic tendencies. The solution then isn't direct democracy (where mass media overrides logic) or oligarchy (where corruption rules) but some point in between.
That's why the example of the 2005 French referendum is so important. All of mainstream politics were campaigning for "Yes". All of media, papers, TV, radios were exclusively campaigning for "Yes". However, the "No" vote won by a comfortable margin 55% to 45%, and the campaign for the "No" almost entirely took place on the internet and social networks.
If either traditional/big media or the internet and social networks influenced the vote by pursuading people who didn't do their own research -- that's a fundamental problem.
I don't agree. I've read quite a bit of economics, I read serious newspapers from a range of political viewpoints, and I have a technical degree. All of this merely helps me to appreciate just how ignorant I am, and how complicated the world is.
Imagine that my local council asked its residents how much money this year should be dedicated to renewing the sewerage system, which is a typical example of the small but important decisions that have to be taken on behalf of the public. I don't know the first thing about sewerage engineering. If the council tells me that they recommend $10M then I have literally no idea whether this is the right number, even to an order of magnitude.
The Pointy Haired Boss is a character in the Dilbert cartoons. He doesn't understand the technology Dilbert is working on, but that doesn't stop him from telling Dilbert how to do his job. Direct democracy puts the public in the role of the PHB, and the results would be very similar.
I would be surprised if he would be better than The Garbageman.
On the contrary, the outcome of the referendum was less about the merits of the proposed constitution, and more an expression of growing anti-Establishment social opinion and a demonstration of discontent with the majority parties and President Chirac.
> If you think people aren't able to think and decide autonomously for themselves, you are actively opposing democracy.
If you think people aren't able to determine how to choose reasonable facsimiles of their moral/social/economic position through which to abstract their effect on the daily operation of a state, you are actively opposing democracy.
Being able to choose when and how to make decisions must be a core component of the free exercise of democracy.
Or in 90%+ of the case they just follow the opinion of the federal council.
I suspect you live in a bubble. Have you met many average voters?
Voters do not have much incentive to make informed votes since the expected impact of their vote is very small. As a result, they tend to use their vote for signaling purposes, as a way to reflect the type of person they want to be, rather than based on what they anticipate the consequences of their vote will be.
If voters are so astute and informed, how do you explain that they radically disagree on the consequence of various policies, and that their disagreement can be predicted based on their parent's politics? How do you explain that in polls, voters position align so well with the left-right axis?
We aren't just talking about values here, but about a non subjective assessment of the consequences of policies. How odd that it would cluster in this way!
True. This is called learned helplessness. But people can also learn autonomy, emancipation instead, given the possibility to make an impact.
I'm not pretending that people are "astute and informed", they aren't; but they're definitely able to become so.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_immigration_referendum,_...
What about the Swiss referendum on an absolute ban on the construction of minarets? (note: not a ban on building mosques)
Switzerland, like many other European countries, has planning laws that decide on the architectural appropriateness of a building in its surrounding environment on a case-by-case basis. But this referendum, passed by a majority of the Swiss population, placed a complete ban on a minaret ever being built again in Switzerland. That was a completely democratic decision by the people of Switzerland. But was it based on informed debate? Or reactionary and emotional appeals? [1]
[1]http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/files/2010/11/ch-1.jpg
It is the responsibility of those advocating for a position in favour/against fractional reserves to inform voters and debate in front of them. Experts who can't or refuse to communicate to laypersons on matters than concern the latter are near useless.
It's kind of funny, because when I looked up the word oligarchy, I noticed that Wikipedia had an entry for the US:
Do they study laws, ethics, psychology, sociology, or criminology before making laws? The average voter on any issue is not educated. Why should any issue be given special consideration for this? And if this is an issue with every issue, then the issue is with democracy itself.
It is getting really absourd. Next year we have a vote about if we should enforce a vote back from 2010.
Participatory democracy is the lesser evil from what we know so far, and it's not absurd that only the people interested in the subject at hand go to the voting booth.
Maybe just a representative democracy like the rest of Europe.
The problem is that representation in politics is not transitive. B might represent A and C might represent B, but this does not mean that C represents A.
In my experience, most people simply vote for the opinion shouted loudest
and the one their relatives/friends vote. Only a very few investigates
the topic independently, but their votes are lost in the noise. I would
not trust decisions, that require specific knowledge and that can't be
explained in layman terms, to the masses.
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Personally I don't trust politicians as much anymore these days to make choices in the benefit of the people. Most often the politicians' votes seem more aligned with business interests compared to the people interests, especially in large powerful constructs like the EU. I've also seen politicians make plenty bad choices in my country.
My opinion is that we should get more referenda in the future. The innovation of internet makes it possible to do this very cheap.
How long does it take for someone to be competent to vote on monetary policy?
It's ridiculous to expect a voter to spend that amount of time on every issue.
It's ridiculous to believe that citizens have no business in important matters. If you're not deciding, you're not acting, and your voice doesn't matter at all.
I do not feel competent to take part in a decision about the reserve requirement.
I guess you could set up a system where you delegate your vote to a third party on an issue-by-issue basis. An interesting thought experiment, but quite a few things to work out. My guess is, at the end, it would be similar to the system we have.
For a interesting thought, what about matters of brain development and ability to reason? Why should voters get to decide on matters such as when we are considered adults or when consenting to contracts or sex is possible. For nuclear or medical expertise, there is at least expertise. For matters of brain development, the science is still very young and limited. Or even on a greater extent, why should a voter be given power in matters that require ethical expertise? Matters that require legal expertise?
Actually, if you don't trust democracy, labeling topics for a referendum as tragic or awful goes without saying.
http://volokh.com/2010/05/24/public-opinion-anti-discriminat...
http://ropercenter.cornell.edu/voting-rights-act/
The idea that the "republic" part of the system protects minorities despite vast opposition from the majority sounds nice, but it's not supported by reality.
That's like saying that it's an animated film, not a comedy. The republic is a form of government and democracy is a way to involve the people in deciding who governs them. Some republics are democracies, some democracies are republics.
> The problem with a democracy is the majority rules.
When the minority rules, like in a plutocracy, you've got a bigger problem.
How one can reach such conclusion is beyond me. People will discuss the question, and democratically decide. You'd be surprise the fierce debates that erupts among citizens when a serious question is on the table, and how everyone makes oneself enlightened before vote. This is what actual democracy is. This is how it should work everywhere for any serious issue.
Designating a cherry-picked representative who carries exactly zero obligation to hold his promises is NOT democracy, but elective oligarchy. Almost all countries calling themselves democracies certainly don't deserve the name.