Democracy vs Authoritarianism

I saved my posts so here they are.

Transparency International measures perceptions of corruption. Perceptions can be anything including negative opinions of what you just described. If Transparency International surveyed you, for example, you could use that incident as a reason for giving the Netherlands a low ranking.

There's a fine line between bad policy and corruption. The difference is that corruption is when politicians and officials make decisions they know are bad because they personally benefit in an illegal way such as kickbacks. Plenty of bad policies have been born from honest yet idiotic leaders who believed they were making the best policy.

Most of the corruption people think about are police shake downs, bribes required to do ordinary things like get a passport or register a business, and kickbacks to decision-makers in government projects. A benefit of democracies is that politicians go to the polls regularly and often, and know their jobs are in peril if there is a scandal. A environment in which people are fearless in criticizing the government through multiple media keeps officials in check, mindful of a scandal that would cost them their jobs. A country where the "chilling effect" has taken hold, and people are afraid to criticize the government, helps corrupt officials sleep easy at night.

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If not perceptions, then what is a better way to measure corruptions? Perceptions are very useful because they come from the people who experience corruption. It's like the reputation of a country. Just like the reputation of a company determines its fate among consumers, so does the reputation of a country among anyone who has a choice of who to do business with, such as multinational companies and migrant workers. As a believer in the free market, I believe that masses of people are usually, but not always, correct in judging good and bad governance. If you don't believe most citizens make good decisions most of the time, you might as well not believe in the free market because consumers are too stupid and manipulated to make good decisions. But we know most people most of the time do make good decisions, otherwise there would be no progress in society or the economy.

plawolf, your analysis of the role of elections and media in deterring corruption is misguided. First of all, a private media exists to sell itself, and nothing sells better than a scandal, regardless of who's involved. Most media outlets in the United States are managed by parent companies who are publicly owned, and the shareholders are a diverse group. The shareholders have no consistent politics, only a consistent desire to maximize profit. Thus, if there is a scandal in the Republican Party, Fox News will definitely want to expose it to help ratings.

Second, media today is extremely fragmented and uncontrolled. While traditional media like newspapers, radio, and television remain the biggest players, they are complemented by thousands of blogs and newspapers from around the world. An American who distrusts American media can easily access English-language news from Europe, Russia, China, Vietnam, Australia, Hong Kong, India, Brazil--virtually every country in the world has an English-language online publication. Private media, like any private company, seeks to maximize profit, and it does that by maximizing reader/viewer/listenership. Some media like HuffingtonPost or Rush Limbaugh cater to a specific audience, and do not seek widespread, mainstream appeal. This arrangement is still useful by creating two media outlets aggressively seeking bad news from the opposition.

In China, it is illegal to criticize the government outside CCP-controlled channels like the Global Times. You cannot hold a street protest against a corrupt local official. You cannot run for office against a corrupt official. The corrupt official's fate is determined solely by higher party officials, not the people affected by the official. What is the decision-making process of higher party officials? Nobody knows because it is all secret. Political campaigns are impressive and daunting in how open they are. Voters in the United States expect to know a lot about candidates, from their finances to their education to their religion. All money donated to American political campaigns is open to the public via websites anyone on this forum can access. You can see exactly who (yes, their names) donated to which candidates for the last 12 years, their profession and location, how much they donated, who else that person donated to, and more. Nothing like that exists in China.

In 2008, the American real estate bubble which largely caused by fiscal and monetary polices collapsed, taking the economy down with it. A financial crisis was mitigated by an enormous aid package to several American banks. Anger at this bailout and the economic policies that created the real estate bubble cost at least a hundred Federal level politicians their jobs in 2008. The party controlling the executive branch changed from the Republicans to Democrats. The election of Barack Obama was a landslide caused largely in part to anger at the Republicans' economic policies.

There's been a lot of political science research that shows a correlation between a bad economy and incumbents losing re-election. When the economy is bad, people are angry and usually blame their state and national political leaders, for better or worse. Elected leaders thus have a big interest in keeping the economy and mood of the country up. Americans were willing to forgive Bill Clinton's sex scandals because the economy was so strong during his presidency. But Jimmy Carter, the incorruptible Southern Baptist, was thrown out in 1980 because the economy was terrible and a series of foreign policy disasters were embarrassing the country. In short, American democracy empowers citizens and the media to hold politicians accountable. China's system falls a bit short in its empowerment of citizens to hold party officials accountable.

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How can we determine that? We all have different opinions of what the government should do, but we can all agree that a police officer should not shake you down for a bribe. What kind of systematic way is there to measure the merits of government decisions? You could use policy outcomes as a measuring tool, but that's messy because outcomes are affected by many factors, not just government decisions.

Transparency International surveys two groups of people: businesspeople who have lived and work in the country being surveyed for at least one year, and a group of international experts. TI is not cold-calling Americans and asking them what they think about China, they are asking people who live and do business in China what they think. The experts make it their job to stay informed by reading multiple newspapers and thinking critically. I think these two groups of people are valid in getting an accurate picture of corruption. An excellent addition to the survey is to ask government officials, "How prevalent in corruption in your department/among your colleagues?" Or something like that. I remember a survey of British academics asking a similar question about plagiarism and a surprisingly high number said yes, my colleagues have plagiarized. That shows a willingness admit problems among one's own colleague anonymously.

In marketing, "perceptions are reality." That means that people act on perceptions, even if they're not true. Businesspeople and citizens make decisions on whether to work, where to invest, and where to raise their children based on perceptions. So even if China is no more corrupt than the United States or the Netherlands as you imply, TI's Corruption Perceptions Index is still useful in explaining and predicting business and immigration trends.

There is a strong relationship between liberal democracy and the free market. Both involve individuals making informed decisions to maximize their welfare. A free market economist believes people can be trusted to make decisions most of the time. Authoritarian governments never trust the people (by "the people" I mean people outside the government or ruling party) to make those decisions, saying the people are too stupid or easily manipulated. Just as most people don't want the government or ruling party telling them what career to choose, where to live, where to invest, or whether to domestic or foreign-produced goods, they also don't want the government choosing their leaders.

The same arguments for a free market can be applied to liberal democracy. The same arguments against free markets are applied by authoritarian governments. In comes down to a belief in individual reason and an empirically-derived distrust of authoritarian governments who say they know better than the people.

This is the beauty of both the free market millions of individuals acting in their own self-interest as long as those acts are mutually voluntary, benefit everyone else. The collective judgement of those millions of individuals (aka the market) selects efficient, useful companies and punishes inefficient companies. This is very similar to Natural Selection in nature, the process by which useful mutations are preserved and passed on to the next generation while harmful mutations are quickly eliminated by the host dies before reproduction.

The same concept of masses of individual acting in their own self-interest to help the greater good applies to democracy. Even in an information-scarce environment, people usually know good policy from bad policy. People have a sense of fairness that gets triggered when they experience corruption or hear about it second hand. Now your response might be, "How on Earth can the lay person evaluate the economics of two competing infrastructure projects?" But what if it's a choice being building the Pyramids and building an irrigation network? What if it's a choice between electing an 18 year old teenager who's the son of the leader as the next leader, or electing someone more experienced? What if it's a choice between keeping all the food in warehouses while people starve, or distribute it to the starving people?

Your response will be probably that those are farcical examples, yet they are examples of authoritarian decision-making in world history (ancient Egypt and the Pyramids, royal succession, China's Great Leap Forward respectively). Taking a vote on those big decisions after a public debate would probably have yielded different results. The fact that people can discern gross stupidity when they see it deters democracies from having to actually vote on such stupidity. Democracies might have trouble making decisions on the finer points of policy, but they avoid the disastrous, superlative examples of idiotic policies authoritarian governments have demonstrated throughout history.

Twentieth century examples of such idiocy and callousness include the USSR's collectivization campaign, Stalin's Great Purges, the Holocaust, Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union, China's Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, North Vietnam's collectivization in the 1950s-70s, Pol Pot's Killing Fields, Argentina's Dirty War, Iraq's invasion of Iran in 1980, China's One Child Policy, and the Algerian generals' cancelling elections that Islamists were favored to win, triggering the Algerian Civil War. Notice how I cite examples of fascist and communist dictatorships to show it's a problem of left and right-wing autocrats. Free and competitive elections deter political leaders from even trying something like the Great Leap Forward. Can you really imagine a democracy in which people go to the polls regularly tolerating years of famine, harassment, torture, and snap arrest because of radical government policies?

Regarding the media, my arguments are 1) private media outlets seek to maximize circulation and thus must be concerned with their reputation, accuracy, and completeness of reporting, and 2) that there is such diversity of media outlets and methods by which information spreads, that no one or two or five companies can control information in a way that manipulates overall public opinion...in a liberal democracy. If Fox News reveals a scandal in the Republican Party but doesn't hammer Democrats enough, then MSNBC or the HuffingtonPost will happily pick up the slack. People may not read more that one paper a day, but they check internet news, they talk to friends and colleagues who've read different sources, they listen to the radio, they visit their favorite blogs, and they watch TV.

So Chinese people are free to gather in Tianammen Square or any public park and denounce the CCP, calling for multi-party elections without the police immediately gathering and pushing them away? Are there any privately-owned newspapers or TV or radio stations that call for multi-party elections?

Can Chinese citizens can form their own political party, advertise and promote it, criticize the local officials and CCP, then stand for competitive elections at regular intervals?

plawolf, just so I understand your points of view correctly, are you saying freedom of expression and association in China is equal to or higher than that of the United States and European countries? If not, how does freedom of individual expression and association in China compare to that of the US or Europe?

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Winston Churchill said democracy is the worst form of government except for every other one tried. plawolf's lengthy posts have taken only one affirmative position--that a free market is the most efficient economic system. The rest of his copious writing is attacks on private media and liberal democracies without offering an alternative. It's easy to attack but hard to create and defend one's ideas. I suspect the reason plawolf attacks but fails to offer an alternative is he does not want to reveal himself as an authoritarian apologist.

I invite plawolf to make his exacts thoughts known. Does he want more or less government control of the media in China and the United States? Does he want more or less freedom for individuals to form alternative political parties and vote for them at regular intervals in China? Does he want more or less freedom for individuals to publicly demonstrate against the government in China?

In lieu of his answers, we can intuit what kind of governance system he aspires to. First, plawolf strongly criticizes the susceptibility of a liberal democracy such as the United Sates to corruption, saying that regular elections and open records laws are no check on corruption. In this argument, he implies that authoritarian governments such as China are more resistant than liberal democracies to corruption. Second, plawolf says private media cannot be trusted because they are profit-driven and cater to niche audiences. In this argument, he implies that government-controlled media is more effective than private media at deterring and rooting our corruption. Third, plawolf states that citizens cannot make good voting decisions at the national level, implying that a non-democratic method of choosing leaders is better.

And this goes to the heart of why democracy is a sub-optimal solution to national governance.

what is the optimal form of national governance? You can't say something is sub-optimal unless you know what optimal is.

Businesses never have and never will base their investment decisions on 'perceptions'. They (or at least the good companies) rely on hard facts and numbers. All those internationals are not outsourcing from the US and EU to China and Vietnam because of corruption or the lack of it, they are moving their business and opening new operations because there is business opportunity and profits on offer.

Perceptions are everything you believe. They include all the statistics and data you've researched.

plawolf lays down a devastating attack to my assertion that authoritarian governments justify their rule by saying the citizens are uninformed or otherwise incapable of making good decisions:

All opinion. No facts.

OK, so what justification do authoritarian governments such as China's give for their rule? I guess the monarchs of old played the Divine Right to Rule card, but no one believes that anymore. plawolf, you should agree with me because I am simply restating your entire argument against democracy! plawolf's argument against democracy is that citizens don't have the information they need to make good decisions.

In a democracy, individual voters almost never know what the country needs or wants; he does not have good information or the time to evaluate how past decisions have panned out; all too often the individual voter won't care about the vast majority of the policy choices of politicians because he does not think it affects him, and the individual voter does not have any say on government choices.

I cannot comprehend how you can think to suggest that in democracies voters would get a direct choice on things like infrastructure projects or food distribution decisions. Just look at the millions of starving people in America and tell me voters in democracies can decide to open up the food stores to the starving masses.

Very few democracies give their citizens a direct choice over specific policy--that's called a referendum. The country with the most referendums is Switzerland, and I think we can all agree Switzerland has a pretty good government. Referendums are rare because democracies are representative republics. Citizens elect people they think will make good decisions most of the time, and leave the details to be worked out by those representatives.

The whole democratic system of free media, competitive, regular elections, and open records laws create a system with lots of checks and balances. No one party, company, industry, or agency can become too powerful.

Go look at footage of the protestors against the invasion of Iraq and tell me democracies listen to their voters and can avoid disastrously stupid decisions.

Picking extreme examples from the pages of history doesn't make your case for you, on the contrary, it shows your desperation as you cannot pick examples relevant today.

If I could be bothered, I could list all manner of stupid and disastrous and downright barbaric decisions democracies have made throughout history. Does that make my argument any more less valid?

The fact that you are comparing the 2003 Iraq War, Great Depression, McCarthyism, Prohibition, and Patriot Act with the examples I gave such as the Holocaust, Great Leap Forward, Killing Fields of the Khmer Rouge, and the Cultural Revolution shows a desperation to equate the mistakes of democracies with the mistakes of authoritarian governments. How can you possibly compare the Iraq War with the Holocaust!? How can you possible compare Prohibition of alcohol with the Killing Fields of the Khmer Rouge?

Just to note, Hitler was voted into office democratically, and his popularity was such that he would have won any election by a landslide till the end. It always amuses me the lengths pro-democracy advocates would go to to try and expunge that part of history. If the case for democracy was so strong, surely it can tolerate the full truth or it's existence?

Adolf Hilter and his party never won a majority in the German parliament. He was asked to be chancellor and form a government by President Paul von Hindenberg. Hitler's entire reign was characterized by absolute dictatorship, not democracy. If he had been so confident of winning re-election, why move the country toward dictatorship? Regular competitive elections almost certainly would have prevented Hitler from having the confidence to unleash the Holocaust. Remember, Hitler kept the true purpose of the concentration camps secret from the German population.

In the same vein, it's hard to imagine Chairman Mao implementing the Great Leap Forward if he and the CCP had to publicly defend their policies against a vigorous opposition in a country that went to the polls regularly. Could the Gang of Four have continued their assault on Chinese civilization for a decade if they had regular, competitive elections and public debate? I think we all know the answer to these questions.

You asked if the Chinese people are able to protest against corrupt officials, and the answer is very obviously 'yes'. Moving the goal posts into 'are the Chinese people free to protest for the over-through of their form of government' does not change the fact that the Chinese people can and do protest about corrupt officials all the time.

So if a hundred Chinese people get together in Tienanmen Square or any public square in Beijing tomorrow to accuse Hu Jintao of corruption, they will be left to do as they please? Are you saying the police don't try to move in as fast as possible to break up a protest, and only back off when it gets too much press attention? What happened in 1989 again? What happened after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake when hundreds of mothers tried to rally against the shoddy construction of schools that cost them their only child's life?

I'll lay out some simple, obvious differences between American democracy and Chinese authoritarianism. First, Americans have a choice of politicians when they go to the polls for local, state, and national elections every two years (every six months for local elections). The two main parties fiercely compete and love exposing even the smallest scandal or suspicious arrangement.

Second, Americans have a multitude of private media to get information from in addition to the government. There are thousands of newspapers, TV and radio stations, blogs, Facebook pages, and websites. An American can choose to read China's Global Times, Russia Today, the BBC, or Fox News. They have an incredible choice that most Chinese residents do not have.

Third, money in American politics is open for all to see. Campaign donations are required by law to be open to the public. You can see exactly who is contributed how much money to which politician. The openness of political donations is the key difference between the so-called legalized corruption of democracy and the bribes and kickbacks endemic to most authoritarian governments like China.

Fourth, Americans are free to say almost anything they want in any media they choose, as long as they don't threaten the lives of people. They are allowed to call for an overthrow of the American government, or the arrest of politicians on corruption charges, or accuse the President of treason. Check out Alex Jones on Youtube, a conspiracy theorist to end all conspiracy theorists, who extremely negative views of the American government are an example of what is protected speech in America. Alex Jones has been lambasting the government for fifteen years in Texas via the radio, TV (even public access TV!), Youtube, his website, and mail-order videos. If Alex Jones feels safe hammering the government, other American citizens can feel even safer.

Fifth, Americans are mostly free to demonstrate where ever they want and say what ever they want. The KKK routinely goes to the Texas Capital building and makes a speech attacking blacks, Jews, immigrants, and other minorities. Those views are the opposite of what the government believes yet you have police officers protecting their right to free speech! That kind of right does not exist in contemporary China.

I am surprised that I have to make this list of fairly obvious differences between the American and Chinese governments but plawolf seems determined to convince us that the American and Chinese governments have equal levels of corruption and political freedoms.

I'll conclude by reiterating my invitation to plawolf to describe his ideal form of government. Does he want more or less government control of the media in China and the United States? Does he want more or less freedom for individuals to form alternative political parties and vote for them at regular intervals in China? Does he want more or less freedom for individuals to publicly demonstrate against the government in China? And if not elections to choose national leaders, what method? plawolf has such well-developed critiques of democracy that it makes one wonder if he has an equally well-developed defense of communist authoritarianism.

There is a part of me that thinks that this thread is going to become way to Political and find its way to an early end.
In a sense, you could read it as a victory of Authoritarianism over Democracy, where one or two moderators decide to close it despite the wishes of all other participating or observing members.

However, for the time being it can stand subject to the quality of the conversation being of the highest level. If any other moderator should be concerned at the course of the content in my absence, do not be surprised if they close it.

If I have a measure to apply between the two systems, it is that Democracy; especially in the West, is increasingly simply a part of modern Celebrity culture which concentrates on Style at the Expense of Substance. Have you listened to attempts to discuss policy recently in virtually any Western Democratic country? Its impossible, because you can discuss policy, you have to define policy, but all too often modern leaders will not even admit that a policy exists at all!

Policy is simply replaced by Politics and this is a reflection that Western Leaders have no existence outside the Political World. They read Politics at University, they become Researchers and Policy Wonks on leaving it and work there way via connections to secure safe seats or list positions, to ensure their passage into Parliament.

On that score, the fact that the Chinese Leadership is still drawn from people with lives and experience outside of Politics and Governance is a distinct plus and I see the the fall of Bo Xilai and the Princlings as a positive step in insuring that this remains the case and that it does not start to replicate the worst elements of the Western system.

Can't believe they lost my post about the media's function in a democracy. While my position is that democracy is a very good idea when done right, with the media serves as the watch dog for the people and keep the government's false ambition such as war in check, however time and time again, it has been shown that the media itself is not that free, nor do they serve as any serious counter balance to government's stupid ambition. So I'm not against free media, I am against the media that we current have, which it calls itself the "free media" but in reality it is controls are actually far worse than the authoritarian controlled media.

When people often think of democracy, they would think of USA, UK, France, Germany, New Zealand etc... all of them are democratic one way or the other, presidential or parliamentary system etc... and they all share one thing in common, they can be said to be successful, it is able to wisely distribute the resources to benefit the masses, and also provide decent services for it is people that it governs.

However, what many people forget that when you think of democracy, you should also think of nations such as Philpines, Indonesia, India, Haiti, Republic of the Congo, Peru, Bolivia, Brazile etc.. all of which are one way or the other, democratic in choosing it is government and leaderships. However all these nations have very dysfunctional politics and economy, the true power is being hold within the hand of the elites, no matter who is elected, they elites are the ones that are truly in control, and they can use whatever social, economic and media means to maintain power. (One can argue that US is heading towards that direction)

And when you examine the successful democracies closer, most of them are concentrated in Europe or direct descents of the Western power (New Zealand, Aulastria etc..) And by no accidnet, most of these nations are white majority, and most of those nations are within the US sphere of influence. From this I can argue, that their success is not primary due to democracy, but rather due to a shared culture and historical background, and most of them started the whole process of industrialization, democratization way as early as 1700s.

I think most of the nation got rich, have gone through a process of industrial revolution, because working in a factory is the greatest form of income redistribution, because in manufacturing, often wages are the most expensive cost, and the workers themselves often do not need any higher form of education, so the barrier of entry is very low, so they can make enough money to better themselves or their children. I see US, Europe, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan have all gone through this process, and now so is China. After industrialization, then a nation can go ahead and develop a service economy, which in general have much higher pay, but the barrier of entry is a lot higher, because you would need a certain level of education to be able to work in the call center, computer programmer, tax accountant, lawyer etc... This is why I think it is a huge mistake for India to skip industrialization to try to leap from agriculture economy straight to service economy. This would only means the very few who can afford education will get ahead, while those who are stuck in agriculture will stuck there forever, that means the society will eventually have a extreme elite rich class, a few middle class, while vast majority of the population would be stuck in forever poor. And when those European nation was in the process of industrialization, they were not really democratic as you think today, there was wide abuse of labor, abuse of human right, abuse of woman, abuse of children, abuse of minorities, in fact if you want to take their today's standard judging China, compare to their own past, it would put China's current Industrial Revolution's labor and environmental practice to shame. It is only after those nation got rich, they being to be more considerable of people's right, they started to give woman and minorities the right to vote, they begin to regulate the labor laws, food and drug laws etc.... not before, not during the process of industrialization. Also, those nation also started the process of democratization way early from within as early as england's magna carta, and through out time there was gradual changes to the society to this day.

I think in order for a society to work with democracy it must meet a few prerequists first.

1. All the basic need must be meet, food, shelter etc... One cannot bother to vote if they are starving, this is happening in most of Africa and India.

2. The people must not see politics as a game where the winners takes all, one must understand it is ok to give and take, to win and lose. Many society are not ready for this, they often see politics as an extension of other matters such as blood feud and religious conflict, this is what happening in Middle East.

3. Democracy must work in a society where people are somewhat educated and can make conscious decision base on critical thinking, this is missing in many African and South East Asia democracies, and increasingly United States as well.

4. The society itself must respect the right of law, where corruption is not be the accepted norm from all part of the society, this is missing in Latin America, South East Asia.

5. The government must be willing to implemented programs that directly involves the people, and the people in turn must also expecting the government to intervene into their life as well. This is very much missing in India and Africa democracies.

All I see is United State government try to slap on democracy to any nation on earth regardless of their historical and social background, this often end up in epic failures.

I also think there are some areas that authoritarian government have advantage over democracies, I'll post those later.

Democracy with its Greek roots is linked to sophists who were asked to solve problems in communities. Democracy was one of several gouvernment forms considered. Plato's five regimes is a good example for these Greek concepts with the usual emphasis that you needed a kind of mix because otherwise the system goes out of control. The current situation that merges the Roman Res publica with democracy as the only suitable solution to all problems has its roots in the fall of the Ancien Régimes that is usually taken to subsummize a chain of revolts and revolutions since the French revolution. These all had in common that a divine supported monarchical order was upheld by a charitable and moralizing religious organization(Westminster Wisdom: The legacy of Throne and altar religous minorities and confessional states is a good discussion of that issue and why monarchies/dictators tend to be more tolerant towards diverse groups that can be better integrated into their kind of community framework). Now people search for new concepts to integrate themselves into a community that solves their problems with a tolerable degree of miscomfort to endure. As usual, people don't agree on the structure and the less they agree the better it is if Havelock Vetinari guides them. Just take a group of friends and try to order one big party pizza - you will see my point.
Our democracies are more or less not what Plato would consider a democracy because they work much more via indirect representation in the context of nations that far exceeds his poleis (best translated as city states, similar to the Roman civitas, although they did not need a "city") that needed the res publica and the fall of Rome to evolve into something bigger, although countries adjacent to Tehran, Mexico City, London or Paris are almost a kind of hinterland of a super-polis (Singapore is a good example for a modern polis). Furthermore our indirect representation is influenced in their expressed opinion, not only by the voters of the representative, but by many more people with interests in certain decissions. The job of the indirect representative is to formulate policy according to own concepts and often in reply to demands brought forward to him with an eye on keeping his job and not having all achievements undone by a rapid electoral swing. Part of the influence game is more or less bribery, with more civilized people doing much more clever reciprocal transfers.
I'm of the opinion that in order to have a high economic local interconnection with corresponding wealth, you need mutual acceptance and self-adherence to regulations for a community to prosper with least friction while at the same time these regulations must not disturb the well-being and freedom of the individual to a degree that negates them their appropriate share of the community benefits.

Originally Posted by solarz

What does it bode for a democracy when its politicians openly promote fear mongering and ethnic hatred?

First of all, let's get the definitons straight.

The United States is not a democracy (although, sadly, it has drifted further and further towards it). But it was never meant to be a democracy because a democracy at its heart is mob rule and quickly becomes the tyranny of the majority. Like three animals, two wolves and one cow voting on what's for dinner. Democraies, by their very nature are unstable.

The United States is defined in law as a "Republic". You will not find the word "Democracy" in the Constitution, but you will find that all states within the United States are guraunteed under the constitution a Republic form of government.

And the Republic in the United States had some very critical defining characteristics that have allowed it to remain stable thus far:

1) The recognition that certain unalienable rights are a part of the human condition, they come from the Creator as the founders termed it. They do not derive from man, or from government and government's principle role is simply to protect the free exercise of rights without infringing on others.

2) The Republic was endowed with two very critical sorts of sepearation of powers. At the Federal level this meant three co-equal branches. An Executive elected by an electorial college (not by simple voice or democratic vote), a Judiciary that was appointed by the Executive but had to be approved by one branch of the Legislative. And a legislative that is made up of two branches. The House, called "the People's" House which is elected by strict voice vote (democratic) in their respective states and districts within those states fro the people to represent all individuals within those distericts. And a Senate which for most of America's history was not elected by the people, but by the States in the way they best deemed fit, to also represent their entire state at the federal level.

3) This brings us to the second seperation of powers. That between soverign states and the Federal government. The states were meant to weild significant power as they were the entities that came together to create the Federal Government in the 1st place. So, for example, originally and up until the early 20th century, the Senate (which is the longer termed and some feel the stronger branch of the legislature) was nominated by the states themselves...usually by the state legislators back then) and thus the states were able to exert significant power within the Federal government. Same with the Electrorial college. Those electors, in the states, are elected as the states see fit and then they vote for the President. Now, in these days, that usually means whomever wins the popular vote in the states...but it does not have to be that way. Finally, the Constitution restricts the Federal government to some very specific duties, and lists certain rights (in the Bill of Rights) that the Federal government cannot infringe or over-rule...like free speech, freedom of worshiip, the right to a Jury trial of youer peers, the right to be represented, and the trip-line fail safe right for every person to own and bear arms (the 2nd amendment) which was not put in the constitution for "hunting," or "sportsmanship," it was put there as a safeguard against tyranny. Outside of those areas and the specific duties, the COnstituion is very specific that all other activities with respect to governance are left spcifically to the states or to the people themselves.

Sadly, in our day and time, we find the federal government more and more unilaterally strepping into and attempting to regulate and control many of those other areas.

So, the United States has this Republic which is formed to protect all American rights, even the minorities, where a pure Democracy is unable to do so...and sadly, we see more and more pure Democractic policies and tendancies creeping into the US federal government.

The founders of America spoke very strongly against any kind of pure democracy because they knew they were unstable and would fail...and would lead (most probably) to tryanny and totalitarianism.

Anyhow, just my two cents.

I have been very active in this regard, and writing on these issues for the last 20 years. One of my latest "articles" is about our day and time and this election in particular it is called,

America at the Crossroads of History

And speaks to these tendancies towards democracy and more socialism in America currently.

Not my point to start a hot debate here...I do not believe that is what SD is for and too much of it would ruin the comradere mmost of us feel wholly apart from any politics.

It may be impossible to avoid in today's climate...so I will back away. But I did want to make sure to make the critical point about Democracy and America because to define America (The United States) as a democracy and go from their with a discussion is starting the discussion on a faulty premise...which, sadly, most people in America tend to do these days.

Originally Posted by Jeff Head

First of all, let's get the definitons straight.

The United States is not a democracy (although, sadly, it has drifted further and further towards it). But it was never meant to be a democracy because a democracy at its heart is mob rule and quickly becomes the tyranny of the majority. Like three animals, two wolves and one cow voting on what's for dinner. Democraies, by their very nature are unstable.

The United States is defined in law as a "Republic". You will not find the word "Democracy" in the Constitution, but you will find that all states within the United States are guraunteed under the constitution a Republic form of government.

And the Republic in the United States had some very critical defining characteristics that have allowed it to remain stable thus far:

1) The recognition that certain unalienable rights are a part of the human condition, they come from the Creator as the founders termed it. They do not derive from man, or from government and government's principle role is simply to protect the free exercise of rights without infringing on others.

2) The Republic was endowed with two very critical sorts of sepearation of powers. At the Federal level this meant three co-equal branches. An Executive elected by an electorial college (not by simple voice or democratic vote), a Judiciary that was appointed by the Executive but had to be approved by one branch of the Legislative. And a legislative that is made up of two branches. The House, called "the People's" House which is elected by strict voice vote (democratic) in their respective states and districts within those states fro the people to represent all individuals within those distericts. And a Senate which for most of America's history was not elected by the people, but by the States in the way they best deemed fit, to also represent their entire state at the federal level.

3) This brings us to the second seperation of powers. That between soverign states and the Federal government. The states were meant to weild significant power as they were the entities that came together to create the Federal Government in the 1st place. So, for example, originally and up until the early 20th century, the Senate (which is the longer termed and some feel the stronger branch of the legislature) was nominated by the states themselves...usually by the state legislators back then) and thus the states were able to exert significant power within the Federal government. Same with the Electrorial college. Those electors, in the states, are elected as the states see fit and then they vote for the President. Now, in these days, that usually means whomever wins the popular vote in the states...but it does not have to be that way. Finally, the Constitution restricts the Federal government to some very specific duties, and lists certain rights (in the Bill of Rights) that the Federal government cannot infringe or over-rule...like free speech, freedom of worshiip, the right to a Jury trial of youer peers, the right to be represented, and the trip-line fail safe right for every person to own and bear arms (the 2nd amendment) which was not put in the constitution for "hunting," or "sportsmanship," it was put there as a safeguard against tyranny. Outside of those areas and the specific duties, the COnstituion is very specific that all other activities with respect to governance are left spcifically to the states or to the people themselves.

Sadly, in our day and time, we find the federal government more and more unilaterally strepping into and attempting to regulate and control many of those other areas.

So, the United States has this Republic which is formed to protect all American rights, even the minorities, where a pure Democracy is unable to do so...and sadly, we see more and more pure Democractic policies and tendancies creeping into the US federal government.

The founders of America spoke very strongly against any kind of pure democracy because they knew they were unstable and would fail...and would lead (most probably) to tryanny and totalitarianism.

Anyhow, just my two cents.

I have been very active in this regard, and writing on these issues for the last 20 years. One of my latest "articles" is about our day and time and this election in particular it is called,

America at the Crossroads of History

And speaks to these tendancies towards democracy and more socialism in America currently.

Not my point to start a hot debate here...I do not believe that is what SD is for and too much of it would ruin the comradere mmost of us feel wholly apart from any politics.

It may be impossible to avoid in today's climate...so I will back away. But I did want to make sure to make the critical point about Democracy and America because to define America (The United States) as a democracy and go from their with a discussion is starting the discussion on a faulty premise...which, sadly, most people in America tend to do these days.

Good points, but we were debating about democracies in generals, and yes I agree the founding fathers were absolutely brilliant in setting up the system which is able to last until this day. However with that being said, the vision of the founding fathers of the nation is very different from today. First of all, they made a huge mistake by not tackling this slavery issue, which unforgettably lead to the civil war.

And because of the civil war, itself, although I believe it is mainly fought to free the slaves, but unfortunately it has changed the system itself, it have given the federal government much more power then inertial envisioned. I mean try to remember the last time you were paying taxes, how much did you paid to the federal vs how much did you pay to the states?

Here is another problem, although the bill of rights and other constitution measures was written within the constitution, it still does not stop from people acting the ways base on how they feel, for example even after the slaves were freed, they were widely discriminated up even to the point where the government was able to legalize Jim Crow law, or the many legalized discrimination laws again the earlier Chinese and other minorities. Yes I believe we have come a long way since then, that people are much more tolerant and political correct now, but the point is, all those very liberal human right promises in the Constitution was not able to stop whatever was inside the heart of the man at the present time. And I believe it is very possible that in the future if some event were to happen which stir up deep emotions in majority of people's heart, they would have no problem side step the Constitution and come up with another law the legalize whatever or whoever they want to prosecute, I mean as late as WW2, we put all Japanese into camps.

And lastly I believe you, I think it is extremely possible that we are on our path towards dictatorship, in following the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire, wide disparity of income distribution will push the nation into haves and have not very soon, also I believe the politics in this nation is going to be more and more dysfunctional, it will be very hard for either party to get things done anymore, while all they do is make promises and divide the people. In the end it is very possible that for a individual to use his popularity to try to gain the ultimate power for himself, even if he really have good intentions to solve the problem for the people, but unfortunately he will open up a new precedent for many other individual to try to rise up to take over control.

Originally Posted by Geographer

Winston Churchill said democracy is the worst form of government except for every other one tried. plawolf's lengthy posts have taken only one affirmative position--that a free market is the most efficient economic system. The rest of his copious writing is attacks on private media and liberal democracies without offering an alternative. It's easy to attack but hard to create and defend one's ideas. I suspect the reason plawolf attacks but fails to offer an alternative is he does not want to reveal himself as an authoritarian apologist.

I invite plawolf to make his exacts thoughts known.

On the contrary, plawolf has made it clear that there is a disconnection between free markets and democracies in your arguments, with majority of his post providing his premises. Are you not attacking right now rather than defend your ideas? It is easy to assume others to have the same intention as yourself, but do try to prevent yourself from making baseless accusations.

Originally Posted by Geographer

Does he want more or less government control of the media in China and the United States? Does he want more or less freedom for individuals to form alternative political parties and vote for them at regular intervals in China? Does he want more or less freedom for individuals to publicly demonstrate against the government in China?

How does any of these question have any relevance in showing a link between free market and democracies?!

Originally Posted by Geographer

In lieu of his answers, we can intuit what kind of governance system he aspires to. First, plawolf strongly criticizes the susceptibility of a liberal democracy such as the United Sates to corruption, saying that regular elections and open records laws are no check on corruption. In this argument, he implies that authoritarian governments such as China are more resistant than liberal democracies to corruption.

This is an attempt at strawman argument. He made no such implication. "He strongly criticizes" and "he implies" are not equate to one another, where the first is his own statement while the latter is entirely your own interpretation.

Originally Posted by Geographer

Second, plawolf says private media cannot be trusted because they are profit-driven and cater to niche audiences. In this argument, he implies that government-controlled media is more effective than private media at deterring and rooting our corruption.

Another attempt at strawman argument.

Originally Posted by Geographer

Third, plawolf states that citizens cannot make good voting decisions at the national level, implying that a non-democratic method of choosing leaders is better.

Yet more attempt at strawman argument.

Originally Posted by Geographer

what is the optimal form of national governance? You can't say something is sub-optimal unless you know what optimal is.

This critique can be applied to your own arguments, where you insist liberal democracy is better than authoritarianism. Yet, you cannot say one system is better when you do not even have a definition for the word "optimal".

Originally Posted by Geographer

Perceptions are everything you believe. They include all the statistics and data you've researched.

plawolf lays down a devastating attack to my assertion that authoritarian governments justify their rule by saying the citizens are uninformed or otherwise incapable of making good decisions:

OK, so what justification do authoritarian governments such as China's give for their rule? I guess the monarchs of old played the Divine Right to Rule card, but no one believes that anymore. plawolf, you should agree with me because I am simply restating your entire argument against democracy! plawolf's argument against democracy is that citizens don't have the information they need to make good decisions.

How is any government justification of its own rule has any relevance to your point that citizens are very well informed and capable of making good decisions? Is such from of question not a form at attack rather than defend of your ideas?

Originally Posted by Geographer

Very few democracies give their citizens a direct choice over specific policy--that's called a referendum. The country with the most referendums is Switzerland, and I think we can all agree Switzerland has a pretty good government. Referendums are rare because democracies are representative republics. Citizens elect people they think will make good decisions most of the time, and leave the details to be worked out by those representatives.

And we also have representative republics that are corrupted. To cite one example, Mexico, which is ranked 100 on the CPI. Philippines is on 129, while India is at 95. All three governments are democracies yet more corrupt than China. Clearly, this shows the abilities for citizens to elect leaders has very little to do with corruption.

Originally Posted by Geographer

The whole democratic system of free media, competitive, regular elections, and open records laws create a system with lots of checks and balances. No one party, company, industry, or agency can become too powerful.

This is all based on theories and is no better than claiming communism can provide utopia. There is a saying in Chinese that roughly goes "there are policies from the top and there are counter strategies from the bottom", which is to say that no matter how good intention a policy is, it will always get abused by people.

Originally Posted by Geographer

The fact that you are comparing the 2003 Iraq War, Great Depression, McCarthyism, Prohibition, and Patriot Act with the examples I gave such as the Holocaust, Great Leap Forward, Killing Fields of the Khmer Rouge, and the Cultural Revolution shows a desperation to equate the mistakes of democracies with the mistakes of authoritarian governments. How can you possibly compare the Iraq War with the Holocaust!? How can you possible compare Prohibition of alcohol with the Killing Fields of the Khmer Rouge?

The fact that 2003 Iraq War, Great Depression, McCarthyism, Prohibition, and Patriot Act exist already illustrates the point that democracies are not infallible in making bad decisions. Whether they are worst than the Holocaust is completely irrelevant. Furthermore, Cultural Revolution is a good example how bad things can get when the uninformed mass is given a lot of power.

Originally Posted by Geographer

Adolf Hilter and his party never won a majority in the German parliament. He was asked to be chancellor and form a government by President Paul von Hindenberg. Hitler's entire reign was characterized by absolute dictatorship, not democracy. If he had been so confident of winning re-election, why move the country toward dictatorship? Regular competitive elections almost certainly would have prevented Hitler from having the confidence to unleash the Holocaust. Remember, Hitler kept the true purpose of the concentration camps secret from the German population.

Would regular competitive elections certainly stopped Hitler or would they turn out to show that the mass is behind Hitler? There is no way to know. Conjecture is not a valid counter argument.

Originally Posted by Geographer

In the same vein, it's hard to imagine Chairman Mao implementing the Great Leap Forward if he and the CCP had to publicly defend their policies against a vigorous opposition in a country that went to the polls regularly. Could the Gang of Four have continued their assault on Chinese civilization for a decade if they had regular, competitive elections and public debate? I think we all know the answer to these questions.

One could argue that elections could have stopped the implementation of Great Leap Forward, but so could one argue that elections would have made no difference because the mass is uninformed and acting like cult members with Mao as the leader. Again, pure conjecture with no way of knowing the outcomes.

Originally Posted by Geographer

So if a hundred Chinese people get together in Tienanmen Square or any public square in Beijing tomorrow to accuse Hu Jintao of corruption, they will be left to do as they please?

If a hundred Chinese people get together in Tienanmen Square or any public square in Beijing tomorrow to accuse Hu Jintao of corruption, that is a form of protest. Thus, your own scenario contradicts with your assertion that people cannot hold protests in China.

Originally Posted by Geographer

Are you saying the police don't try to move in as fast as possible to break up a protest, and only back off when it gets too much press attention?

What do the police break up again? Oh right, a protest. So protests do and can happen in China.

Originally Posted by Geographer

What happened in 1989 again? What happened after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake when hundreds of mothers tried to rally against the shoddy construction of schools that cost them their only child's life?

Large number of people gathered and protested, again contradicting your assertion that people cannot hold protests in China.

Originally Posted by Geographer

I'll lay out some simple, obvious differences between American democracy and Chinese authoritarianism. First, Americans have a choice of politicians when they go to the polls for local, state, and national elections every two years (every six months for local elections). The two main parties fiercely compete and love exposing even the smallest scandal or suspicious arrangement.

Actually, for this aspect, let us point out the most obvious similarity. In the case of US, the two parties are guaranteed power in the government anyway, and these two parties picked people to run for positions. In the case of China, CCP is guaranteed power within the government, and picks its members and individuals sanctioned by the party to run for positions. In both cases, people are selected to govern from a group of people that already have monopoly on power.

Originally Posted by Geographer

Second, Americans have a multitude of private media to get information from in addition to the government. There are thousands of newspapers, TV and radio stations, blogs, Facebook pages, and websites. An American can choose to read China's Global Times, Russia Today, the BBC, or Fox News. They have an incredible choice that most Chinese residents do not have.

Global Times, Russia Today, BBC and Fox News are just four, not thousands of media sources. In this single picture we already have twenty-eight media outlets, trumping your example of four. Of course, there are more; ignoring the obvious state-run newspaper, we have: A Liar's Digest, 21st Century Business Herald, Beijing Daily Messenger, Beijing Entertainment News, Beijing Evening News, Beijing Globe, Beijing Morning News, Beijing News, Beijing Portal, Beijing Ribao, Beijing Times, Beijing Today, Beijing Youth Daily, Central Railway News, Changsha Evening News, Chengdu Economic Daily, China High Tech, China Jilin, China Youth Daily, Chongqing Evening News, Chongqing Globe, Chongqing News, Chongqing Today, Chutian Metro Daily, Common Talk, Dahe Newspaper, Dalian Daily, Dalian Evening News, Dazhong Ribao, Freezing Point, Fujian Ribao, Gansu Daily, Guangxi Daily, Guangzhou Daily, Guangzhou Metro Daily, Guangzhou Morning Post, Guizhou Business Daily, Guizhou Daily, Guizhou Provincial, Hainan Daily, Harbin Daily, Hebei Youth Daily, Hohhot Evening Post, Hohhot Morning Post, Huaxi City Daily, Hubei News, Hulunbeir Daily, Hunan Daily, Information Daily, Information Times, Inner Mongolia Daily, Jiangnan newspaper, Jiangxi Daily, Jilin News, Jin Wanbao, Jinan Ribao, Jinan Times, Lasa Evening News, Legal Mirror, Liaoning Daily, Liaoning Farmer, Luoyang Daily, Nanguo Metropolis Daily, North Morning News, Northern Family Daily, Northern News Daily, Oriental Morning Post, Panyu Daily, Peninsula City News, Peninsula Morning News, Qapqal News, Qianjiang Evening News, Qianjiang Evening News, Qilu Evening News, Qingdao Daily, Qingdao Globe, Qingdao News, Sanqin Daily, Sanxiang Metro News, Shaanxi Daily, Shanghai Morning Post, Shanghai Post, Shanghai Star, Shanghai Xinmin Evening News, Shanxi Daily, Shenyang Wanbao, Shenzhen Daily, Shenzhen Dushi News, Shenzhen Economic Daily, Shenzhen Evening News, Shenzhen Special Zone Daily, Shenzhen Youth News, Sichuan Daily, Southern Daily, Southern Metropolis Daily, Southern Weekly, Spring City Evening Post, Tianjin Ribao, Tibet Broadcast, Tibet Daily, Times Business Daily, Today New, Trust Post, Wen Hui Bao, Wenhui Book Review, Wuhan Evening News, Wuxi Daily, Xiaoxiang Morning News, Xin Kuai Bao, Xinjiang Daily, Xinjiang Economic Daily, Xinjiang Newspaper, Xinmin Evening News, Evening News, Yangtse Evening Post, Yangzhou Ribao, Yanzhao Evening Post, Yanzhao Metropolis Daily, Yeski, Yunnan Daily, Zhejiang Daily, and Zhongshan Daily. These are just newspapers. RenRen is China's equivalent to facebook, and microblog is equivalent to twitter. There are also websites such as sina and tianya where people get their information from in contrast to your ambiguous "websites".

So you are wrong and Chinese do have wide variety of choices, just like in the US. If anything, your lack of knowledge about the incredible choices that China residents have strengthens plawolf's case about the lack of diversity in reporting within the US.

Originally Posted by Geographer

Third, money in American politics is open for all to see. Campaign donations are required by law to be open to the public. You can see exactly who is contributed how much money to which politician. The openness of political donations is the key difference between the so-called legalized corruption of democracy and the bribes and kickbacks endemic to most authoritarian governments like China.

If bribes and kickbacks are made transparent with pretty names like "campaign donations", China would appear pretty clean too as there won't be anymore bribes and kickbacks. However, rebranding corruption does not equate to elimination of corruption. In this regards, the two countries are very similar where exchanges of money and interest take place.

Originally Posted by Geographer

Fourth, Americans are free to say almost anything they want in any media they choose, as long as they don't threaten the lives of people. They are allowed to call for an overthrow of the American government, or the arrest of politicians on corruption charges, or accuse the President of treason. Check out Alex Jones on Youtube, a conspiracy theorist to end all conspiracy theorists, who extremely negative views of the American government are an example of what is protected speech in America. Alex Jones has been lambasting the government for fifteen years in Texas via the radio, TV (even public access TV!), Youtube, his website, and mail-order videos. If Alex Jones feels safe hammering the government, other American citizens can feel even safer.

You cannot be more wrong to say China is different. Of course people are allowed to call for an overthrow of the American government. Chinese population also attacks the Chinese government all the time, on notable forums such as sina and tianya. There are radicals that call for overthrow of Chinese government as well. Just like in the US, calling for overthrow is one thing while participating in one would be treason. Outside of an individual, there are newspapers that are critical to the government that have legitimate circulation within China. Your lack of knowledge of such facts further strengthens plawolf's statements on the lack of diversity in US media and Western media in general, as well as how the mass is uninformed.

Originally Posted by Geographer

Fifth, Americans are mostly free to demonstrate where ever they want and say what ever they want. The KKK routinely goes to the Texas Capital building and makes a speech attacking blacks, Jews, immigrants, and other minorities. Those views are the opposite of what the government believes yet you have police officers protecting their right to free speech! That kind of right does not exist in contemporary China.

Chinese are mostly free to demonstrate where they want and say what they want as well. The protestors don't receive pepper spray directly in the face when sitting peacefully on the ground, and don't get yelled at with "do not resist" while being pinned on the ground getting stomped in the face. Those kind of rights do not exist in contemporary US; they may have previously but not anymore.

Originally Posted by Geographer

I am surprised that I have to make this list of fairly obvious differences between the American and Chinese governments but plawolf seems determined to convince us that the American and Chinese governments have equal levels of corruption and political freedoms.

I'll conclude by reiterating my invitation to plawolf to describe his ideal form of government. Does he want more or less government control of the media in China and the United States? Does he want more or less freedom for individuals to form alternative political parties and vote for them at regular intervals in China? Does he want more or less freedom for individuals to publicly demonstrate against the government in China? And if not elections to choose national leaders, what method? plawolf has such well-developed critiques of democracy that it makes one wonder if he has an equally well-developed defense of communist authoritarianism.

What relevancy do these questions have with regards to:

• connection between free market and democracy?
• relation between democracy and corruption?
• (in)ability of the mass to be informed and make sound decisions?
• optimal form of governance?
• diversity in Western media?

So far, I have seen very little relevance.

It is easy for people in the West to be misinformed about other ideas and become apologists for democracy. This is especially true since indoctrination starts at a young age and last until death. It is difficult is to achieve a level of objectivity and break away from indoctrination, so as to be able to recognize the inconsistencies within democracy.

Engineer, Great reply, I agree with most of your posts, but I don't want this whole thing to be so one sided, so I'm going to argue that there are some areas that democratic government have advantages over authoritarian governments.

1. I think democratic government are more accountable for it is people on the local scale, when everyone knows everyone in town, it is less likely for a official to abuse his power if he was elected.

2. Modern democratic nation make horrible empires, they can invade nations, overthrow governments and support other authoritarian governments. But in doing this, they must fool it is own people, this might be easy to do in the beginning, but once things turn bad, it will be impossible for them to sustain the PR campaign. So I think modern America's structure is very much like ancient Rome, but it is foreign policy is actually very similar to ancient Egypt. Rome was able to expand it is territory by force, but ancient Egypt was also a superpower, but it never expanded beyond Egypt itself.

One can argue that in today's age, direct invasion and colonization is out of the question for any country. But I still think with the level of US military power, it would have done so much worse than now.

3. Democratic nations usually have stronger tradition of rule of law, even though I know it is often get abused by the people or the power elites, nonetheless, it still install a strong tradition into people's mind to make them feel that the ultimate source of the power is from the book, which in theory everyone is equal.

That's all I can think of, I know for every example I listed, there are a list of nations that are democratic and violates those points. But rather than looking at India or Philippines, what do you think about the successful democratic nations such as US and Europe? Is it really democracy that make them successful so far? Or is there something else? Maybe some kind of cultural phenomenon?

If you want to get to the meat of this, I think you need to hone down on the subjects of "empowerment and accountability" in a very detailed way. I rather suspect that under scrutiny, the veneer's of both systems will not be quite as expected or advertised.

Who wants to take a lead?

I would suggest everyone to read what Jeff posted.

America is not a democracy, it's a republic, the fact that it's being commonly referred to as a democracy is indicative of a decline.
The fact is, some people are better decision makers than others, allowing everything to be decided by popular opinion would mean constantly making sub-optimal decisions.

Leaders are supposed to see farther than their nose, and act for the good of the nation, that will inevitably mean making unpopular decisions. By restricting them with democracy, we force the government to find alternative ways to lead the people, which often results in secrecy.

I think of the different forms of governments as different ways to find the best leaders, so far every single type of government shows steady decline, barring occasional bumps and kinks, of the quality of successful candidates. Like I mentioned above, Democracy tends to select leaders who cannot lead, but on the other hand Authoritarian governments often breed corruption. Some members have suggest that Authoritarian governments tends to make mistakes such as The Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, but I would like to point out that they were widely supported by the uneducated, which was by far the majority at the time. While I do feel Authoritarian governments is more brash in the execution of its policies and tend to make more mistakes, it also learns from its mistakes in a more constructive way than Democracies. Take a look at the Japan nuclear disaster, while it is a tragic event, shutting off all the reactors based on popular opinion is a stupid idea that's only going to bite them in the future.

The Republican system is an attempted compromise between the two, it has served America well for the last 2 centuries. Where I disagree with Jeff, is that I feel the 2nd amendment is the cause of the slide towards democracy. While it's conception as a safeguard against Tyranny is a noble idea, it is an outdated concept that's highly unpractical in today's world. Being members of a military forum, I feel we all understand that a mob with semi-automatic weapons is hardly a match against trained soldiers with modern weaponry, should any such scenario occur the best hope the people have is for the military to take their side. The only thing achieved by the 2nd amendment is making people feel empowered and giving them the "my way or the highway" attitude towards the government, and the government is caving in.

I personally feel that government and economy is intertwined, that one cannot be truly successful without the other. It is my opinion that a successful government will also have to find ways to redistribute the wealth, via a smaller income tax but a much greater tax on accumulated wealth, but that's a rant for another day.

Just my 2 cents.

Originally Posted by SampanViking

If you want to get to the meat of this, I think you need to hone down on the subjects of "empowerment and accountability" in a very detailed way. I rather suspect that under scrutiny, the veneer's of both systems will not be quite as expected or advertised.

Who wants to take a lead?

There was connection between interests paid, political system and religious orientation that led the republican so called democratic systems to military victory since the 80 Years War of the Dutch against the Spanish.
People are willing to pay for communal ambitions if they perceive the system as running to their benefit. That can, but must not include control over the money spent. But, at the core these republics had a strong timocratic rule with the timocracy investing their money into war debts and controlling the political organs sufficiently to fend off any attempt at bankruptcy. Monarchies, who were competing, had by this time got rid of representative gouvernment bodies' influence - absolutism as a kind of authoritarianism - and did frequently bankrupt in order to get rid of their debt (that was in a very personalized system for buying favours of population exploitation one way or another, while the republican system were more institutionalized), while at the same time incurring higher interests for their future debts. The problem in warfighting for the republican systems was to endure an as protracted and expensive conflict as possible, because they could outspend their opponents.
The relation between timocracy and consent of the people, often including some degree of voting rights, and interests on debts, especially war debts, did remain evident till the Second World War. Germany found a way out by robbing and mistreating most of Europe and their internal "enemies" for the benefit of their nationals during the entire war and fend of the same degree of symptoms of misery of the First World War. Japan had in the pre-war time an increase in voting rights while at the same time investing heavily in their navy for an astonishing size despite their marginal industrial base in comparison to the other naval powers - as a consequence they had to ask their populance for an ever increasing share of their money for that national project. But these approaches still paled in face of the financial capabilities of the UK and the USA who did have the ability to invest into a massive war effort with the backing of their timocracy controlling interests and the consent of their populance with some voting rights to pay for them and thus give a greater share of their wealth for the war effort.
A third attempt to create something new, rather than the interplay of timocratic and public consent, was socialism. Via revolution the party became the timocracy that controlled the flow of money and the backing assets. For the populance, there were two important narratives. We create a better society and want to spread it to all people in the world and we are the ones fending of the brutal enemies - so pay for our great military. The last part could be backed by massive investments into the control of the cultural memory with lots and lots of war films about the Great Patriotic War. The problem were the errosion of consent due to lacking ability of conspicious consumption as seen in the West, low per head productivity and lack of ability to express some degree of counterculture that is very important for human mating.
China seeems to have or be solving all of these issues except for their limits on countercultural expression as seen from a Western perspective. This could turn them into a systemic challenge.
The problem in the West is a divergence of cooperation between timocracy and tax paying populance, visible in the widening scissor. If the timocracy does not feel they receive their due backing for their goals by the population, they start to extract "their" wealth and thus alter the balance of power and influence in order to achieve their aims against an increasingly financially emasculated populance. This trend persists in all Western countries after the Cold War and it will not be solved until we reach a new consensus that will alter our political system (more republic, less "democracy").

As for safeguarding rights as Jeff highlighted, I'd prefer military education rather than guns. Guns are expensive and of little value if you don't hunt to make a living. The people least fortunate in a system will be least likely to invest into luxuries such as guns and first try unarmed expressions of discontent before a mutual circle of violence starts. In each of these circles, it's easier to get your hands on weapons than on military education.
The problem in each system is how much enticement you give people to become achievers and how much backing for the inevitable pitfalls. Many societies can't agree on that and in ancient Greece this would have been a case to call for mediators that had over 700 poleis political systems to derive knowledge from. In our system, we continue infighting for victory at the polls with predictable rolling course.

Another example we should discuss is Ghana, an African country with very high stability and democratic institutions. My former roommate was from this country. THey do have their own concepts about what they should be allowed and forbidden to do and will fiercely defend their rights. On the other hand they do have a business problem because of lack of mutual trust, starting from advance payments for work that doesn't get done to employes going out of their way to make their own money as soon as their employer does not supervise them. At decolonialization they were one of the best developed countries in Africa and they did master the issue of civil rights pretty well, but they did not yet sufficiently master a framework of accepted mutual contracts for business. This lack creates an economic hindrance to a system with more mutual wealth and because of the poverty they don't move along on the mutual thrust axis, but try to maximise short term personal gains. Eventually, they will overcome these issues as they have a great history of wealth and trade in West Africa.

A possible reason for this problem is often seen in the effects of slavery that prevailed for inner-African use and foreign export. There are stories of outstanding stories of bravery of fighters sacrificing themselves to allow others of their community to escape, but it seems that the darker side of the story was treason that allowed people to gain wealth at the expense of people they knew very well. While colonialism finally did wipe out the slaver empires, they did not end the mutual treachery and robbery, but had lots of natives supporting as irregular marauders a small core of professional soldiers (often from somewhere else in Africa).
Be that as it may, despite ending the slavery, the Europeans and former American slaves in Liberia installed another system of extraction backed up by many more irregulars who knew the turf than by regular forces. My point is that people who know the turf and get rich by arms and not by work do rely heavily on treason for extracting wealth. They are an ongoing phenomena and in my opinion shaped a mindset of the capability of quick gains with little effort. "Seven Samurai" and the spin off "The Glorious Seven" nicely highlight this complex relationship.

Concerning the slaver empires, they had taken slaves to trade for armament and work for the soldiers who focused on their outstanding military capabilities. The reports of the European invaders are quite clear, the African empire opponents are superbly organized, know their soldiering to the bone, but are badly equipped and supplied from a European POV. Everyone who did not participate in that system was military inadequate due to the massiv flow of arms with few exceptions that could build up another source of income for armament. Africans like to put much blame on this slavery issue for which Europe and the Muslim world, as well as India were responsible and they explain the current lack of social trust by this experience. If you look at the wealth of the former slave holders, as a populance they didn't get far, but these slaves played an important role doing the deadly pioneer work and were often marginalized in numbers by later massive inflow of different immigrants, using the infrastructure erected by the enforced labour. Argentinia and the US North West Coast are examples of such regions (slight irony, the slaves buried in New York cemetery were healthier than their masters who poisoned themselves with beautiful lead colored dinner sets).

The United States is a democracy and a republic. Liberal democracy may not be mentioned in the Constitution but it's a term political scientists use to describe the United States' political system. Key characteristics of a liberal democracy include regular, competitive multi-party elections, a free press (meaning the governments exercises very little control over the media), freedom of speech, assembly, and association, and a strong civil society.

The fact is, some people are better decision makers than others, allowing everything to be decided by popular opinion would mean constantly making sub-optimal decisions.

No one's proposing that every government decision be decided by popular opinion. No one in the history of political science has ever proposed that. If you're trying to tar my defense of democracy by saying it's mob rule, then you've clearly misunderstand what I and everyone else who studies government means by democracy.

Now on to the main points. The grand arc of this debate has seen me defend the virtues of liberal democracy and plawolf, jackliu, Engineer, and others attack those virtues. plawolf specifically said democracy was a "sub-optimal" form of governance at the national level. But you can't tear down one form of government without proposing an alternative, even if that alternative is an extreme libertarian dream of no government. However, most libertarians still believe in the necessity of some government to protect citizens from other governments. So that leaves the question how will you organize the national government?

plawolf, jackliu and others have heaped scorn on the idea of a free media. When I say free media, I mean the government exercises almost no control over the media's content, and the media is by-and-large owned by non-state entities. Lack of government control gives birth to an explosion of media viewpoints and citizens are free to choose which media to consume. If plawolf, jackliu and others scorn this system, what is their alternative?

This debate started over Transparency International's allegation that China had major corruption problems. TI's Corruption Perception Index showed North America and Western Europe, plus Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Australia with low corruption levels compared to China. plawolf responded with two attacks. First, he attacked TI's methodology, saying the people surveyed were biased Westerners who didn't understand Chinese culture. Second he said that North America, Western Europe, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Australia all had significant corruption problems but it was legalized corruption in the form of campaign contributions.

Nevermind the fact that TI surveyed Chinese businesspeople who live and work in China, I stated that the alleged corruption of campaign contributions is manifestly different from the kind of corruption people who live and work in China complain about. I also said that the United States' political system (the liberal democracy I know best, that's why I cite it) with their free media, regular multi-party elections, and open records laws make it more resistant to corruption than China's authoritarian system.

From then on it was an avalanche of criticism of the tenants of liberal democracy. That's fine, I welcome debate. But plawolf and others have failed to honestly compare China's political system with liberal democracies. Here's a bizarre example by Engineer:

What do the police break up again? Oh right, a protest. So protests do and can happen in China.

Engineer is using the fact that Chinese police regularly break up protests to prove that Chinese have the right to protest! Then Engineers uses the military suppression of democracy protests in 1989 in Tiananmen Square to demonstrate the Chinese right to protest:

Large number of people gathered and protested, again contradicting your assertion that people cannot hold protests in China.

Notice how Engineer fails to explain what happened after they gathered and protested--the tanks rolled in and the hospitals filled up. I wish I was making this up but the truth as preached by Engineer is truly strange.

Engineer further tries to convince us that media choice in China is equal to that of the United States by listening 28 Chinese news outlets. That's a hard sell considering Americans have access to the online edition of every single one of the newspapers he cites, PLUS Facebook, uncensored Google, and virtually everything the Chinese government filters online and via SMS. Let's go a step further: what are the laws regarding media in China? Who can own and operate a newspaper? Can foreigners open a newspaper in the mainland? How restrictive are the laws and their enforcement regarding content? How many foreign books, movies, video games, and songs are banned?

If bribes and kickbacks are made transparent with pretty names like "campaign donations", China would appear pretty clean too as there won't be anymore bribes and kickbacks. However, rebranding corruption does not equate to elimination of corruption. In this regards, the two countries are very similar where exchanges of money and interest take place.

Engineer misses my point: in the United States campaign contributions are a matter of public record and easily accessible online. It's not "rebranding corruption", it is exposing the alleged corruption so voters can make informed decisions. Does China do the same thing?

I would like to know who honestly believes freedom of expression, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of association in China are equal to or greater than that of the United States. Be a man and take a stand. I'm willing to take a stand and say liberal democracy and capitalism are the optimal political and economic systems. And while you're taking a stand, how about propose some alternatives to free media and multi-party elections that plawolf, jackliu, and others have skewered?

A lot of people hide behind ideals and values. It doesn't mean they actually practice it. They just hide behind it. That suggests they think they don't have the ability to lie. Which is in itself is hiding behind a lie. Just like those that are vocal critics of China. The majority just hate China so they couldn't really care about the rights and freedoms of the Chinese people. That's a contradiction. They're just hiding their hatred behind something that can't be criticized so they can justify their hate. You can say you believe in freedom... for yourself. Just because you believe in freedom for yourself, it doesn't mean you believe in freedom for all yet they hold it out in front of them like they do. It's nothing to be admired if you just believe in them for yourself or people who think just like you. Then there are those that are just good salesmen to lure people into utopia with promises that sound great but just turn out to be a bait and switch into something else. In other threads I've stated examples of how some people don't practice what they preach. So just to argue who has is better is about as worthless as expecting to be judged by words and not actions.

Originally Posted by Geographer

The United States is a democracy and a republic. Liberal democracy may not be mentioned in the Constitution but it's a term political scientists use to describe the United States' political system. Key characteristics of a liberal democracy include regular, competitive multi-party elections, a free press (meaning the governments exercises very little control over the media), freedom of speech, assembly, and association, and a strong civil society.

No one's proposing that every government decision be decided by popular opinion. No one in the history of political science has ever proposed that. If you're trying to tar my defense of democracy by saying it's mob rule, then you've clearly misunderstand what I and everyone else who studies government means by democracy.

Now on to the main points. The grand arc of this debate has seen me defend the virtues of liberal democracy and plawolf, jackliu, Engineer, and others attack those virtues. plawolf specifically said democracy was a "sub-optimal" form of governance at the national level. But you can't tear down one form of government without proposing an alternative, even if that alternative is an extreme libertarian dream of no government. However, most libertarians still believe in the necessity of some government to protect citizens from other governments. So that leaves the question how will you organize the national government?

plawolf, jackliu and others have heaped scorn on the idea of a free media. When I say free media, I mean the government exercises almost no control over the media's content, and the media is by-and-large owned by non-state entities. Lack of government control gives birth to an explosion of media viewpoints and citizens are free to choose which media to consume. If plawolf, jackliu and others scorn this system, what is their alternative?

This debate started over Transparency International's allegation that China had major corruption problems. TI's Corruption Perception Index showed North America and Western Europe, plus Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Australia with low corruption levels compared to China. plawolf responded with two attacks. First, he attacked TI's methodology, saying the people surveyed were biased Westerners who didn't understand Chinese culture. Second he said that North America, Western Europe, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Australia all had significant corruption problems but it was legalized corruption in the form of campaign contributions.

Nevermind the fact that TI surveyed Chinese businesspeople who live and work in China, I stated that the alleged corruption of campaign contributions is manifestly different from the kind of corruption people who live and work in China complain about. I also said that the United States' political system (the liberal democracy I know best, that's why I cite it) with their free media, regular multi-party elections, and open records laws make it more resistant to corruption than China's authoritarian system.

From then on it was an avalanche of criticism of the tenants of liberal democracy. That's fine, I welcome debate. But plawolf and others have failed to honestly compare China's political system with liberal democracies. Here's a bizarre example by Engineer:

Engineer is using the fact that Chinese police regularly break up protests to prove that Chinese have the right to protest! Then Engineers uses the military suppression of democracy protests in 1989 in Tiananmen Square to demonstrate the Chinese right to protest:

Notice how Engineer fails to explain what happened after they gathered and protested--the tanks rolled in and the hospitals filled up. I wish I was making this up but the truth as preached by Engineer is truly strange.

Engineer further tries to convince us that media choice in China is equal to that of the United States by listening 28 Chinese news outlets. That's a hard sell considering Americans have access to the online edition of every single one of the newspapers he cites, PLUS Facebook, uncensored Google, and virtually everything the Chinese government filters online and via SMS. Let's go a step further: what are the laws regarding media in China? Who can own and operate a newspaper? Can foreigners open a newspaper in the mainland? How restrictive are the laws and their enforcement regarding content? How many foreign books, movies, video games, and songs are banned?


Engineer misses my point: in the United States campaign contributions are a matter of public record and easily accessible online. It's not "rebranding corruption", it is exposing the alleged corruption so voters can make informed decisions. Does China do the same thing?

I would like to know who honestly believes freedom of expression, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of association in China are equal to or greater than that of the United States. Be a man and take a stand. I'm willing to take a stand and say liberal democracy and capitalism are the optimal political and economic systems. And while you're taking a stand, how about propose some alternatives to free media and multi-party elections that plawolf, jackliu, and others have skewered?

Alright, I'll bite, it seems that you want to argue that democracy is the best form of government because it has media freedom, freedom of expression, freedom of protest, in which at the same time, you would like to argue that those thing are absent in China.

However I have responded to you that the free media that you think we have are not really free, in fact it is more tightly controlled than Chinese media, and it is actually doing a better job in brainwash the people. I have given you many example of that and since you did not refute me on this, so I assume you have nothing else to counter it, then in that case, shouldn't you stop flaunting that the western model is superior when it come to media.

Then Engineer refuted you on the claim that Western society are all free while China is all repressive, by giving example of people protesting in China, and criticizing the government on the internet and openly and getting away with it. While at the same time, you can find plenty example of Western government using repressive means to suppress it is own people. While you can argue that China government suppress it is people more than US government, but the fact is both nation do the same thing means no one system is clearly better than the other in this area.

And lastly you challenge us to come up with something better than democratic government, since we have fully deconstructed your claim that Western model is superior on the factors that you have listed. I'll also like to challenge you to explain to me why are democratic nations such as India, Mexico, Brazil, Indonesia, Philippines, winch are democratic in model, but are failing horribly?

I already said when you are looking at successful democracies, you can see a clear pattern, nations primary of white caucasian demographics, nation that have a history of colonizing other races of peoples, and nations that were among the first in the world started the industrial revolution and achieve wealth. I am not going to make any conclusion on this, but the close correlation cannot be discounted, so take what you will.

And lastly let me answer your challenge, let me theorize a system in which it can work better than democratic models.

First all, I want to say, just because you see the successful record of western democracy working for the 20th century and early 21 century, does not mean it will continue to work in the future, because I think the upcoming challenge of the 21th century might very well finally show the problem of those nations, challenge of climate change, concentration of wealth, budget balance, religious conflict etc... I see more and more western nations are getting bog down in their own politics, for example this European financial crisis, all you see is meeting after meeting while things rarely get resolves, or how the financial elites in the US increasing gaining control of the nation. It is not something so far to imagine that US politic can devolve into Philippines style government, where the true power and policy maker of the nation are dominated by a few super rich corporation/family, while they sponsor both parties for election and that no matter who gets elected they still won't do jack squat for the people. Or where the local and special interest have so much entrenched power to keep the status qua, so that any badly needed necessary change are never be implanted, as the result, the nation is stuck in a death spiral that drag it down more and more.

In this case, I think an authoritarian government that is governing by a few man of proven track record will be far more effective, one can argue this is actually what the ccp politburo standing committee is structure is like. Currently all 9 man of the committee are chosen based on their past achievements, they all have good track record in their past work on building economy and improving people's standard of living. In fact, you can argue that the committee is somewhat like a corporation, and corporation are generally much more efficient than government.

Under this structure of government, it is able to make easy rapid changes in the challenge of the 21st century, they don't need all the bureaucratic bullshit and open hundreds of hearing to make sure things are get done, they can issue an order and make sure it is carried out. There are already examples of this, just few years ago China had almost no renewable energy, but now they are the largest renewable energy producer in the world, because the government deem it as one of the national strategic goals. depict having less than half of US's GDP, China is investing more money into renewable energy as well.

Another example is three gorges dam, this is one of the most conversational issues in the west, it is often hold up as the example of the evil Chinese authoritarian government that does things without any concern for the people, how it displaced 1.3 million people, but guess what? Have you heard of any news about the dam recently? Nope, remember the 1998 flood in China? Where it killed a few thousand people and caused tens of billions of damage? The dam has prevented 3 of those floods would have been on a far more destructive scale, did you hear about that in the media? of course you don't, or when was the last time that you heard "Three Gorges reduces coal consumption by 31 million tonnes per year, avoiding 100 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions,[61] millions of tonnes of dust, one million tonnes of sulfur dioxide, 370,000 tonnes of nitric oxide, 10,000 tonnes of carbon monoxide"? (wikipedia) Of course you don't, because it does not fit the popular narrative that the evil Chines government are doing evil things to it is own people.

And this dam has only been fully completed less than a decade, imagine as climate change get worse in the future, how much more death and damage the dam is going to prevent? And let me ask you thing, if China had the US's democratic system, would have dam have been build? Answer is HELL NO, you would have hundreds of protests, special public hearing, anti dam commercial on TV that shows sad eye baby and grandpas. And all the while, flood after flood will wrack down destruction upon tens of million people down stream.

This is just one of the example of faster decision making from a more centralized government that uses scientific means to calculate the cost and benefit of the project, and when it is deem worthy, they would just go ahead implement it. And yes, all those 1.3 million displaced individuals are living in new homes.

And yes, I have no double in my mind whatsoever that this process gets abused, that people's home get confiscated and giving to the business interest etc... But overall when you look at China's infrastructure development, the successful example far out weight the failures, the benefit it have bring, far outweighs the cost. And I think as the world's population explodes in the future along with climate change, there will be more severe challenge for the government to handle and make crucial decisions, I just don't see the democratic system is up to the task.

Another problem with democratic system is that is that it can be so easily brought off by the special interest groups. I mean just look at Israel, only a fool would think the relationship is beneficial to US. But yet, how can you explain that both parties are trying their hardest to kiss Israel's ass at every turn possible, it is obvious that they have strong influence over the government, and for anyone that even questions this dysfunctional relationship are automatically get label as anti-Semite. I mean, I want my nation to do what is best for itself, not for the best interest of another nation, how is wanting that antisemitism? but yet it is.

Or let's take a look at other special interest, the prison special interest groups, I swear to you there is a cynical relation between locking people up and getting federal funding, many of those people in jail are for non violent crimes and does not belong there, there are many other ways they can be publish, for example community services, fine etc... but yet, for every person get locked up for one year, they receive about 60,000 from fro the government per year. And many of the prison are run by private corporations, they more they lock up, the higher their stock goes. People often think China is a policy state, but the fact is US's prison population is by far the #1 in the world, by absolute number and by per capita.

Don't even let me get started on the wall street and banking special interest's influence on the government. they practically have a revolving door policy, the CEO of investment bankers regularly get appointed to government positions, after their term are up, they became CEO or board member of banks, the perfect example is the CEO of Goldman Sachs Henry Paulson who later became the nation's Secretary of the Treasury, he later use this power to give out hundreds of billions of dollar of tax payer's money to bail out his good old buddies from BOA, JPM Chase, AIG, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup etc... Or how there are literary thousands of lobbyist at our government lobbying their interests.

And there are many others, the military industrial complex special interest, the agriculture special interest, the fossil energy special interests... the list goes on and on, they work for what is the best for their interest, and often what best for them, is not what is best for the nation or the people.

The situation is much better in China, because the decision makers are few, they can look at what is real problem, what is needed to be done and decide what is to be done. They don't need to go through another few thousand law makers whom are in the pocket of the lobbyist to influence the outcome.

And lastly, the Chinese leadership is far easier to make changes in policy, look at Deng's economic reform, one can look back and see how easy it was, how it was a logical step for him to do this or that and ended up today, but the truth is, he still faced a lot of opposition at the time from the hardliners, but since there are only few decision makers, they were able to be convinced. One can argue teat Tiananmen was one of the by product of the reform that went too fast. And now look at India, I'm sure the top leadership is no fool, he knows the problem, he knows what must be done, but he can't do it, because there are too many people that are benefiting from the status qua, even if that means at the expense of people.

I will say this, in a democracy, it is very unlikely for the government to make really bad decisions, such as Mao's great leap forward. But at the same time, democratic nation will have hard time to change course as well. Democratic nation are great for the people when the world is stable, when there are few factors that are changing. However I think in the next few decades, there will be chaos, status quo will no long be cutting it anymore, this is where I strongly think the Chinese model will have stronger advantages.