> I think anyone who says democracy is good and the will of the people should be respected is implicitly saying that is not true. Implicitly saying voters are individual agents and not a mob.
Both are true. We are individual agents and a mob.
Democracy, as we all know, is the worst political system except for all the others. At scale people on average behave about average and make decisions perfectly aligned with their systemic incentives and available information.
You (and me) are not immune to propaganda.
Strong recommend watching/readingupon Manufacturing Consent and Chomsky’s life work in general.
> Democracy, as we all know, is the worst political system except for all the others.
Honestly it would be about time we stop repeating this Churchill's quote as if it's one of the ten commandments. The man wasn't certainly a god and humans are often mistaken.
The actual meaning of democracy is the "power of the people". Nowhere that implies a western-like electoral system.
I'd argue in your average western democracy the people have very little power, with lots of symbolic processes to reinforce the illusion.
> The actual meaning of democracy is the "power of the people". Nowhere that implies a western-like electoral system.
Correct. “we” used to do it simply by killing the leaders that were disliked. Elections are a bit friendlier than that :)
You might enjoy this Zizek video on the border between the west and the balkans: https://youtu.be/bwDrHqNZ9lo . I think he captures the sentiment well.
> I'd argue in your average western democracy the people have very little power, with lots of symbolic processes to reinforce the illusion.
This was Chomsky’s whole point in Manufacturing Consent.
I think then we can agree that if the people hold very little power, what we have today in the west is definitely not democracy.
A study[0] came to the conclusion that the US is in fact closer to an oligarchy, and I'd extend that to most other so-called democratic countries. The interests of a few always trump the interests of the many.
In this context, that Churchill's quote seems out of place and mostly serves the purpose of shutting down the discussion.
In Russia? Worse in terms of popular participation in the decisional process, but it still works because the majority of people believe (rightly or not) that their interests are protected by Putin. So for all they care, as long as Putin does his job right, it is for all purposes a democracy in its true meaning. Much unlike us, where most of the electorate feels that governments work against their interests and the quality of life stagnates or worsens, life conditions in Russia have improved greatly since the fall of the USSR.
In China? I'd say they have it better than us. Anyone can join the CPC/government and work their way up the decisional apparatus based on an actually meritocratic process, anyone can participate in administrative decisions through consultations. It's what they call "whole-process people's democracy". Do some research on this if you haven't, you'll find out that Chinese people are much more involved in the decisional process at all its stages than we are.
I'll tell you the truth, I sincerely believe that the only true marker of democracy is for the conditions of the people to keep improving constantly, even for the poorest. That is the realization of the power of the people, the only way in which their interests are actively pursued.
Everything else is just fluff that we added on top to make the term better fit us and exclude our adversaries. Democracy can be direct, representative, authoritarian, it doesn't matter so much to me as long as it makes our lives better.
I find this hard to believe. Isn't Western society/democracy ostensibly setup to allow meritocratic advancement as well? Yet I think it's fairly well-established at this point it very much does not work that way in reality. So what is it about Chinese government/society that makes them impervious to the same factors that make meritocratic systems so difficult in the West? Greed, nepotism, and hunger for power to name but a few.
Well for one corruption is punished heavily in China, even with death penalty. Just recently an official has been executed for a $412 million corruption case. So of course there's going to be corruption and greed like anywhere else, the difference is how the system reacts to it. In comparison I believe the hardest bribery sentence in the USA is 13 years of imprisonment.
Another interesting thing is that for their poverty alleviation project, when an official is assigned to a province they have specific targets to achieve. As long as they don't achieve the targets, the official can't be promoted or transferred[0]. Meaning if they ever want to get a better job or earn more they have to actually reduce poverty.
I have a hard time taking Chomsky seriously after he felt his need to make his uninformed opinions on Russia's aggression and AI public.
Was Chomsky ever an expert? Maybe, I wouldn't know because I haven't read what he built his legacy upon. But that he wrote so poorly on two topics he has little experience with does him no favors.
Chomsky is a Linguistics Professor, he has no formal training in media or political theory. So yes, he is not an expert, and funnily enough he's the kind of leftist who straight up admits he is biased and selectively picks facts to support this arguments.
> Was Chomsky ever an expert? Maybe, I wouldn't know because I haven't read what he built his legacy upon.
My entire life anything I hear from him has been misinformed and anything I hear about him is "Chomsky disproven". I have to imagine whatever he was known for happened before I was born - which I've never been exposed to. Granted I've never sought it out either.
To me he feels like an academic Kardashian: Famous for being famous, and it's not really clear how it started.
Both are true. We are individual agents and a mob.
Democracy, as we all know, is the worst political system except for all the others. At scale people on average behave about average and make decisions perfectly aligned with their systemic incentives and available information.
You (and me) are not immune to propaganda.
Strong recommend watching/readingupon Manufacturing Consent and Chomsky’s life work in general.