Re:Ellen Pao Is Stepping Down as Reddit’s Chief
by seanflyon on Sunday July 12, 2015 @03:54PM
(#9874697)
Yes democracy has its problems as well, that's the entire point of that famous quip. Which countries would you most want to live in and how many of them are democracies Nazi Germany accomplished some impressive things, but they were the exact opposite of good government. A clear majority of countries are either actual democracies or pretend to be, because of a near worldwide consensus that democracy is the best option we have.
Re:Ellen Pao Is Stepping Down as Reddit’s Chief
by dredmorbius on Sunday July 12, 2015 @10:00PM
(#9875956)
So: when did "democracy" become an overt policy goal? And how?
(There's a story there. It's interesting.)
There are numerous states that have functioned quite well that _weren't_ (or aren't) democracies.
Nazi Germany was, in fact, a democracy. Hitler stood for election in Germany's presidential elections of 1932. While he didn't win a majority of the July vote (none of the _six_ candidates did), he was appointed chancellor following a series of inconclusive elections.
A concern of mine is whether democracy brings wealth, or wealth democracy. Causality's arrow is sticky.
Democracies have been known for only a few brief periods of human existence. They emerged for a few hundred years, in a very limited sense, in one city-state within Greece, 2500 years ago. And then disappeared until just over 200 years ago, with some spread since.
Fewer than half the people on Earth today live in democracies (though it's close: 48%), only 12.5% live in full democracies. Far more live in autocratic regimes than any other of the forms measured by the Democracy Index: 37.6%.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index
The fastest growing economy in the world is solidly autocratic: China. Despite the claims of the benefits of both democracy and capitalism, many critical advances have come from countries which lacked one or both institutions: Nazi Germany developed jet aircraft and missiles, Communist Russia was the first to orbit satellites and put man in space.
I'm not opposed to democracy. But it seems it's got a few challenges as well.