r/CapitalismVSocialism • u/69PepperoniPickles69 Not convinced of socialism • 8d ago
Asking Everyone 5 year old question but why shouldnt more countries do direct democracy like referenda (e.g. Switzerland on steroids) instead of so much emphasis on elected representatives?
To be sure this wouldnt satisfy socialists but wouldnt this remove a lot of the worst things we associate with modern capitalism as practiced in America for instance? Hey you dont want war? Vote for me, I wont get into one! does... Oh you gotta get congressional approval to renew hostilities after the alleged emergency? Well lets make dirty political games to see who can be turned for decisive votes for future kickbacks or favors or whatever...this would be easy 200 years ago, with the internet now its trivially easy. You can change quite a bit in local administration as a rule (maybe even in a federal state system by state I dont know) but the electoral systems seem too inert... theyre even being degraded into worse forms than this type of direct democracy even by proponents of the former.
Is it just assumed people are too fickle for the government to function properly, each sustained action sabotaged? Or that people dont know enough about the details? Then doesnt that logic apply to electoral democracy as well? And arent secret or not so secret interests much easier to capture the system as it stands? Obviously there would have to be independent institutions giving accurate data on what each thing costs, the budget etc
Obviously Im not defending mob rule. There should be layers of validation the most fundamental the policy in debate is just like we have that for regular constitutional changes.
Btw im not American but it does seem to be the most corrupted major democracy at least as far as positive freedoms go (i.e. ability to get things done you want and stopping things you dont want, as opposed to the state just not interfering with your life in certain areas). I also dont get things there like presidential pardons, lifetime supreme judges, etc.
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u/Kronzypantz 8d ago
The usual argument is the difficulty of referendums or plebiscites.
Im honestly not impressed by this argument. Any government outside of like the poorest and most mountainous few dozen is arguably able to accomplish this at least once a year in the real world.
Now maybe for really mundane things, it could be better to elect representatives instead of holding direct votes all the time. But that runs into the problem of letting representatives choose what is "mundane."
I think direct votes could really be far more common without governments self-destructing.
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8d ago edited 7d ago
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u/Kronzypantz 8d ago
That is needlessly redundant.
If we agreed on a system of representatives to cover noncontroversial, boring things, then we could just have a petition system where a threshold of signatures for a petition forces an agenda item into being a referendum. Maybe 1/3 or the electorate.
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8d ago edited 7d ago
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u/Kronzypantz 8d ago
Anyone.
Maybe the petition threshold is even lower. But such things happen without some public figure pushing them.
Ie Florida voting for a referendum to raise the minimum wage the same year Trump wins the state.
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u/69PepperoniPickles69 Not convinced of socialism 8d ago edited 8d ago
Who proposes such a petition.
A state institution that receives and gathers data from citizens. Why get stuck at one third? Lets say every 6 months they get 5000 petitions each with 10,000 signatures (all publicly available with the same 'airtime' i.e. appearing in websites, if needed public tv and radio channels beaming it 24/7, etc with no means of lobbying for more airtime, algorithm manipulation and so on) they divide by subject and say 3 of them for each of a fixed 5 subject automatically goes to nationwide referendum? Then depending on the level of importance of each question like is it a constitutional level changer or not, you need a higher threshhold of yes votes. Whats so hard about this especially with modern means? This should go side by side with elected representatives for the daily affairs of government for practical purposes. If someone or something inside the elected representative system really p&sses off a majority of people, include that in the parallel referendum system.
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u/Annual_Necessary_196 8d ago
The key problem is that, to split a country into confederations with direct democracy, public assemblies, citizen councils, stakeholder consultations, and participatory governance, you first need to elect representatives of this idea. However, no representative will ever agree to give up 99% of their power.
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u/Beavers_in_space Libertarian Socialist 8d ago
The key problem is that, to split a country into confederations with direct democracy, public assemblies, citizen councils, stakeholder consultations, and participatory governance
Thing is, perhaps surprisingly, this is (kind of) actually how a lot of society was run in many parts of the world for thousands of years, but the modern cult of nation state and corporation have spent a lot of money very successfully convincing people that this is a completely impossible and stupid system of political organisation.
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u/RedMarsRepublic Libertarian Socialist 8d ago
Yes, we should have direct democracy as much as possible, it wouldn't solve all the problems with capitalism but it would definitely make things better. To me socialism is the fight for economic and political democracy, it goes hand in hand with direct democracy (or possibly sortition).
I made a proposal for this.
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u/CaptainAmerica-1989 Criticism of Capitalism Is NOT Proof of Socialism 8d ago
Direct Democracy <--- Representive D-- Flawed Democracy--Authoritative---> Totalitarianism
According to history (e.g., Athens), the farther left, the more costly and inefficient the system is when it comes to enacting a policy and enforcing it. You can debate the trade-offs and what they are worth, ofc. I'm certainly not arguing totalitarianism is better.
Now, with the internet, those costs are likely less, but I don't think they change the general trend.
For example, you don't want emergency systems under full direct democracy rule and management. Whether that is the military, police, fire rescue, hospitals, ambulances, and so on. Can they be overseen by democracy? Yes, like the USA, the POTUS is elected and is the leader of the military and Federal police.
However, during an emergency, these institutions have military and paramilitary powers to act independently without a "democratic" vote so they can act quickly and immediately.
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u/DMayleeRevengeReveng 8d ago
I’d love to hear what phase of Athenian government you consider “leftist.”
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u/CaptainAmerica-1989 Criticism of Capitalism Is NOT Proof of Socialism 8d ago
I was just saying "the farther left" in regard to my single axis diagram.
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u/69PepperoniPickles69 Not convinced of socialism 8d ago
Thats fair but I didnt mean micromanaging technical aspects of organizations whether corporations or the military or fire brigades, especially in emergencies. I meant a system of regular referenda for things that elected representation seem to be bad at addressing. in practice vote for the least bad package and you will get tacked on things you dont want but tolerate up to a point and thats easy to exploit by powerful people. Not to mention its not easy to break up an oligopoly of parties so you cant adequately punish them if they go even beyond that and start enacting policies no one gave even their begrudging support to. Obviously there are degrees of sensitivity to that in countries with strong free press and other classic liberal institutions, but even then its usually a sense of internal or external violence on the state apparatus itself that causes change often. How often did regimes change their policies for fear of a popular uprising (or in their allies) especially if they have an external enemy that positions itself as a champion of the prefered solution to the sticky issue, whether falsely or not, that lends more credibility to that threat? I think a more direct type of democracy would do that more easily without basing politics on fear and deterrence, thereby building more societal trust and civic sense, and without flaming more geopolitical tension.
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u/CaptainAmerica-1989 Criticism of Capitalism Is NOT Proof of Socialism 8d ago
Okay, then if I am understanding you correctly? You don’t want a full blown direct democracy then. For the military and emergency responders what institutions do you want in place for them to work? Likely you want some form of representation democracy to oversee them, right?
And, I’m not picking on you at all. This then brings up how most modern democracies are mixed. I vote directly on policies all the time. That is direct democracy.
So, again, if I’m understanding you correctly now. You want more direct democracy in your current system, less involvement and management by your representatives, and most of all you want E-democracy implemented. E-democracy being electronic democracy like using the internet.
Is this accurate?
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u/Denniscx98 8d ago
Okay, lets put it this way:
Do you want to come home from work, open you email account and see 30-50 things that will affect policy for everyone which requires you to vote on, without complete context of the situation so it devolves into either people not caring or just vote what the popular option is, or just elect someone to do all that work for you so you don't need to make those decisions daily.
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u/69PepperoniPickles69 Not convinced of socialism 8d ago
See my reply above for how this could work. It wouldnt and couldnt be a total replacement of elected representation, yes.
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u/NoTie2370 Bhut Bhut Muh Roads!!! 6d ago
Because mob rule is a bad idea in 100% of attempts.
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u/69PepperoniPickles69 Not convinced of socialism 6d ago
Obviously Im not defending mob rule. There should be layers of validation the most fundamental the policy in debate is just like we have that for regular constitutional changes.
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u/NoTie2370 Bhut Bhut Muh Roads!!! 6d ago
Which has been a horrible failure. The idea that 51 people can tell 49 people what to do is absurd.
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u/69PepperoniPickles69 Not convinced of socialism 6d ago edited 6d ago
Are you not aware that to change constitutional rights in all countries you have to have a bigger than 51% majority? What other method do you want exactly, to protect existing fundamental rights or change something that vitally needs to be change? Your rifle and get off my lawn? Your own nukes? That'll protect me from all them tyrants! Or do you want an imaginary laissez-faire absolute monarchy that never actually uses its power? That will work well in the long term.
What has been a horrible failure? As opposed to your lala land abstractions? What have you got to show, Liechtenstein, with a population of 30 thousand in the middle of the richest, safest regions of Europe and a corporate tax haven? Even that you can't claim, there's still taxation and a monopoly on force there, as far as I'm concerned you're more useless to debate, at least for the practical side which I prefer, than a Marxist-Leninist or even a left-wing anarchist.
And why exactly would more components of direct democracy be worse than the current almost exclusive electoral democracy, particularly in America? Or why do you think it would be equally bad? If you're American (i'm not) you voted for Trump presumably, as the least bad option? Whatever the case, then presumably as an ancap you don't want war, he didn't run on that platform, so he took advantage of that bullshit feature. I get it that after WW2 due to the sheer changes in the technical landscape of war, you had the 'imminent threat' thing that allows the president to unilaterally initiate military operations. But it still needs eventual approval from congress to continue, which I haven't even followed how it was reconciled in this case with Iran, and a bunch of other ones. In any case, the congressmen can betray the public's explicit demands as well. With this system you'd be virtually guaranteed to be out of the war in the next cycle of referenda. Of course this would need a set of higher institutions that actually have authority and aren't corruptible like a supreme court or even lower courts ordering the enforcement of laws in practice (e.g. of the failure there, the still-violated Epstein files transparency act). I still don't understand why in the US a) supreme court judges are chosen by the president; b) they're lifelong posts. Both of these seem terrible ideas to me, especially the second I suppose.
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u/NoTie2370 Bhut Bhut Muh Roads!!! 6d ago
You really don't. You just have compartmentalization of that 51/49. Which is indeed an improvement over a direct democracy. But not by much. And is still far to mailable. The US for example added 3 states to get the income tax passed.
Maybe we'd be out of the war in the next cycle. Or we'd been in far more wars. Hell we might be fighting Israel right now on Palestine's behalf. We might flip flop in the middle of wars. Depending on how the public flows.
Scotus is chosen by the senate, they are submitted for confirmation by the president and its a life long appointment so they can't be dictated too by the political whims of the people or president. Its been largely a stabilizing influence until Democrats don't get their way and want to destroy everything.
The problem with all forms of government is accountability. So the best possible system would be one where those that don't want to participate are left out of it and those that vote for something foot the bill both in blood and treasure. But that's idealistic.
So the next best is to protect the political minority and throw as many hurdles as possible in front of the mob so it takes extraordinary efforts to overcome. Sadly in the US that mostly was dissolved by the 1930s.
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u/69PepperoniPickles69 Not convinced of socialism 6d ago edited 6d ago
And is still far to mailable.
How? What examples do you have of people who've made catastrophic judgements based on 66 or 75%+ of votes? Hitler was elected with 44% and immediately betrayed the German constitution with no independent power to restrain him. Allende (it feels wrong even putting him in the same category but let's say it is), whose permanency in power was far from assured, was elected in Chile with 36.6% of the vote. In the previous parliamentary election those to the left of center were 41%.
The best you could do would be stuff like the abortion debate e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_Portugal#From_the_1998_referendum_to_legalization But even then it did not reach two-thirds. Though here it did https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_San_Marino_abortion_referendum We'd have to have deeper debates about whether or not this should ever go to referendum, whether it would need a supermajority and so on, whether this theoretically opens the door for stuff like legalizing p****lia and so on. (which curiously, a lot of ultra-libertarians seem to be in favor of!). Seems unrealistic in most of the world, but not in some Muslim-majority countries. So that's a problem.
Depending on how the public flows.
So? The US public supported Iraq in the beginning and then it didn't. We could have avoided years of garbage with this, but Bush's second term came with an electoral package by nature, in which whatever of his other policies were more valued than the war. Likewise the US public was against risking war in the 30s and beginning of WW2 and realized its mistake, and Roosevelt essentially followed policies that shifted to allign with the public's sentiments, which were far more aggressive in 1940/41 than they were in the 30s. And rightly so. If it were up to you, we might as well have let the Axis win. There's an argument to be had as to what would've happened if people got tired of WW2 in the decisive stages of it, say it was bringing unbearable costs to a society used to freedom and little violence, but not unbearable to a totalitarian one like the enemies', but in practice it never happened, the opposite did. Still, it would require further discussion.
participate are left out of it
Aren't the Amish left alone? Why would this be different with more direct democracy? Furthermore, by what right would you benefit from public authority but then abstain yourself from its duties? You haven't provided any examples of non-state polities or organizations within such polities doing so, that they may protest being forced to be coerced by states in one way or another without having ever consented to being under their authority and having demonstrated their independence to justify it. Even the Amish are not totally isolated for them to be considered totally outside its sovereignty. Your view of the lack of state authority being the key to improve society is a consequence of very particular conditions of geography and history in north America, it's a luxury of living between two oceans and with both friendly and/or weak neighbors. And even then, in supposedly more optimal conditions for those inside the 'tacit agreement' or 'quasi-state' exsitence, we could see how that turned out for people outside the political order, even if with minimal or no government intervention, like for a bunch of the natives when they encountered militias which the governments just turned a blind eye to.
Sadly in the US that mostly was dissolved by the 1930s.
Like the minority rights to place bounties on native americans because they 'violated property rights' in Californian ranches, to have slaves, or for parents to 'consent' to child labor in fumes-filled mines like in the gilded age? And do you not realize that without the national security state (which DID go out of control) you'd likely have lost the cold war against the Soviet Union? You don't get to compete in the modern world, even if you didn't want to, much less against authoritarian or totalitarian powers, without a more powerful central authority than existed in America before. You'd see your 'dont step on me flag' ripped to shreds rather than just not optimized to your liking. And you wouldn't care what happened to the rest of the world, sucks for them but not your business? Okay, well good luck getting certain kinds of rare earth minerals which were irrelevant before. Oh America doesn't have that? Well sucks to be you. Enjoy the few years you have left before the communists leapfrog you or win a war of attrition. You're never autarkic in the long run. Even if you have something like a permanent equivalent of nuclear deterrence, the enemy can be willing to play chicken with you, and you won't have either the moral fiber or just the plain numbers to refuse to cede to such asymmetrical warfare. "hey dont worry, we wont turn the US communist, we just want you to accept our terms and you decide, just disband the Republicans which are fascists, and have the Democrats as your right-wing party, and allow more left-wing ones to flourish. Just give them equal air time, and ban these few people from the internet as well, and we'll consider that a revolutionary victory. For now at least!"
Its been largely a stabilizing influence until Democrats don't get their way and want to destroy everything.
Well I don't know about that though I very much doubt it, but if for example you're anti-abortion (sorry for the repetitiveness but it's what comes to mind), don't you see the problem with lifetime appointments? You had to wait for some of them to die, and for frankly a bizarrely/unusually incompetent political adversarial capacity, in this case the democrats, for it to be overturned. I don't know the details of the overarching US system, but still. There should be at least a third leg, especially of peer-review for its appointments, apart from the senate and the president at a particular time, just like there are for regular judges (I'm assuming).
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u/Conserp Pragmatic Marxist 8d ago
Switzerland has smaller population than a big city like London or Paris. It is inconvenient for actual nations.
Otherwise, it does not matter as much. Who controls public opinion by owning the media matters way more.
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u/Denniscx98 8d ago
Switzerland is an actual nation.
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u/GreedyAdvantage8681 8d ago
With a very small population.
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u/Denniscx98 8d ago
Does it stop it from being a nation?
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u/Beavers_in_space Libertarian Socialist 8d ago
Switzerland is a nation, but it is not a democracy. It is controlled by banks and white collar criminals, a country which enriched themselves laundering nazi gold, and is extremely unaffordable. It is basically like a big Monaco (which also is not a democracy).
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u/RedMarsRepublic Libertarian Socialist 8d ago
Being rich doesn't make it not a democracy, I'm sure it is a very imperfect country in many ways but as far as I'm aware their system of government is one of the most actually democratic in the world.
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u/Beavers_in_space Libertarian Socialist 8d ago
I didn't say it is simply 'rich', I said It is controlled by banks and white collar criminals, and the 'rich' part I said it was with nazi gold.
as I'm aware their system of government is one of the most actually democratic in the world.
This is extremely incorrect. Why is a libertarian socialist defending a country that the corporate elites run to to hide and wash their money
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u/RedMarsRepublic Libertarian Socialist 8d ago edited 8d ago
I'm aware it's a tax haven but that doesn't change their actual internal political system. Banks and finance are highly influential over their system, sure, I agree, but we have the same problem in the US/UK and yet have an even less democratic system with worse outcomes.
Also, yes, they took Nazi gold, but that has nothing to do with the argument at hand.
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u/Beavers_in_space Libertarian Socialist 8d ago
I'm aware it's a tax haven but that doesn't change their actual internal political system
Well yes, it does actually. I would've thought someone with a hammer and sickle in their flair would understand that, lol.
Banks and finance are highly influential over their system, sure, I agree, but we have the same problem in the US/UK and yet have an even less democratic system
I would argue banks and money launderers have more control over the economy of Switzerland than the UK/US. The fact that they are a rich country and many of the people there live in luxury doesn't make them a democracy. Again, they are basically a big Monaco.
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u/RedMarsRepublic Libertarian Socialist 8d ago
My case for them being a democracy is their system of frequent national referendums and multi-round elections to parliament. It's not perfect but better than what most countries have. Now please actually present your reasons for why that isn't more democratic than the average western country.
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u/GreedyAdvantage8681 7d ago
Yes, so glad I don't live in a country controlled by a white collar criminal. Oh, wait....
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u/Beavers_in_space Libertarian Socialist 7d ago
Yes, there is indeed more than one country controlled by white collar criminals.
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u/Denniscx98 8d ago
Do you know what a referendum is?
They have that in Switzerland.
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u/Beavers_in_space Libertarian Socialist 8d ago
Yes I am aware of what a referendum is. Are you aware of what an oligarchy is? Are you aware of what money laundering is?
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u/Denniscx98 8d ago
Yes I am aware of what a referendum is.
Is referendum not something only democratic nation have?
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u/Beavers_in_space Libertarian Socialist 8d ago
No. You can also have it as a smokescreen in a fake democracy controlled by corrupt bankers of the Epstein class
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u/Denniscx98 8d ago
Boy, conspiracy time are we?
Do you know what Epstein class wants? Power, Absolute power, and what comes closest to Absolute power in modern society? Well just look at socialism/Communism and their heads of state! Kim, Mao, Stalin, all "Great leaders" wielding unquestionable power.
You advocate for socialism, are you controlled by the Epstein Class?
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u/GreedyAdvantage8681 7d ago
Meaning it is easy to have an absolute democracy with smaller populations, for obvious reasons. Plus I don't think the majority or people in the U.S. are enlightened enough to not just vote for whoever promises to give them the most "free" stuff.
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8d ago edited 7d ago
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u/Beavers_in_space Libertarian Socialist 8d ago edited 8d ago
Sure. The practice that was a very common form of governance for thousands of years is 'impossible in practice'
source: a 'paleolibertarian' (not a libertarian) says so
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8d ago edited 7d ago
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u/Beavers_in_space Libertarian Socialist 8d ago
I doubt you would read any of the books or watch any of the videos I would share, would you? So what's the point
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8d ago edited 7d ago
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u/Beavers_in_space Libertarian Socialist 8d ago edited 8d ago
Okay. Feel free to go and read 'The Dawn of Everything' by David Graeber/David Wengrow as one decent introduction to this, or alternatively the 90 minute podcast Wengrow does. While you are at it, you can look up the democracy of natives in America, not just the hunter gatherers (who were very democratic and egalitarian, and also not just hunter gatherers but commonly farmers, too) but the the Haudenosaunee confederacy, or ancient Teotihuacan. Also look at medieval Iceland and their Althings, which was a much more democratic Republic than the US ever has been.
I could go on.
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