Democracy:Critical views

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Main article: Democracy

Voter irrationality

Economists since Milton Friedman have strongly criticized the efficiency of democracy. They base this on their premise of the irrational voter. Voters are highly uninformed about many political issues, especially relating to economics, and have a strong bias about the few issues on which they are fairly knowledgeable. For example, members of labor unions are most passionate and informed about labor policies. They will organize themselves and lobby the government to adopt policies beneficial to labor unions but not necessarily to the rest of the population. As a result, politicians are unaware of voters' actual desires.

Furthermore, some have argued that voters may not be well educated enough to exercise their democratic right. A population with low intellect may not be capable of making correct decisions. While this view today is increasingly regarded by advocates of democracy as an attempt to maintain or revive traditional hierarchy in order to justify autocratic rule [2], extensions have been made to develop the argument further. One such variant of the argument is that the benefits of a specialised society may be compromised by democracy. As ordinary citizens are encouraged to take part in the political life of the country, they have the power to directly influence the outcome of government policies through the democratic procedures of voting, campaigning and the use of press. The result is that government policies may be more influenced by non-specialist opinions and thereby the effectiveness compromised, especially if a policy is very technically sophisticated and/or the general public inadequately informed. For example, there is no guarantee that those who campaign about the government's economic policies are themselves professional economists or academically competent in this particular discipline, regardless of whether they were well-educated.

Chicago economist, Donald Wittman, has written numerous works attempting to counter these common views of his colleagues. He argues democracy is efficient based on the premise of rational voters, competitive elections, and relatively low political transactions costs. Economist Bryan Caplan argues, while Wittman makes strong arguments for the latter two points, he cannot overcome the insurmountable evidence in favor of voter irrationality. It still remains the Achilles heel of democratic government. The problem is not mere lack of information; it is that voters badly interpret and judge the information they do have.^[1]

Mob rule

Plato's the Republic presents a critical view of democracy through the narration of Socrates: "Democracy, which is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequaled alike."^[2] Assuming that the Republic was intended to be a serious critique of the political thought in Athens, Plato argues that only Kallipolis is a just form of government, believing that a majority is too irrational to make decisions for the entire populace, thus degrading to mob rule.

The Founding Fathers of the United States intended to address this criticism by combining democracy with republicanism. A constitution would limit the powers of what a simple majority can accomplish.^[3] However, anarchists and other critics of large governments find this to be a poor solution, as there is nothing inherent in a constitution that will prevent democratic abuses.

Moral decay

Traditional Asian cultures, in particular that of Confucian and Islamic thought believe that democracy results in the people's distrust and disrespect of governments or religious sanctity. The distrust and disrespect pervades to all parts of society whenever and wherever there is seniority and juniority, for example between a parent and a child, a teacher and a student. This in turn is suggested to be the cause of frequent divorces, teenage crimes, vandalism, hooliganism and low education attainment in Western societies, though it is many times higher than in any Asian societies, in particular the United States. It is argued by islamists that moral decay occurs when there is no longer a respectable leader who sets high moral standards and when a politically free environment creates excessive individuality.

Further, Islamists argue that only an Islamic republic is truly compatible with the will of God.^[4]

Political instability

More recently, democracy is criticised for not offering enough political stability. As governments are frequently elected on and off there tends to be frequent changes in the policies of democratic countries both domestically and internationally. Even if a political party maintains power, vociferous, headline grabbing protests and harsh criticism from the mass media are often enough to force sudden, unexpected political change. Frequent policy changes with regard to business and immigration are likely to deter investment and so hinder economic growth. For this reason, many people have put forward the idea that democracy is undesirable for a developing country in which economic growth and the reduction of poverty are top priority.^[5]

Short-termism

Conflict of interests

Western influence

Slow governmental response

Vote buying

Since World War II, democracy has gained widespread acceptance. This map displays the official self identification made by world governments with regard to democracy, as of March 2008. It shows the de jure status of democracy in the world.      Governments self identified as democratic      Governments not self identified as democratic.

Non-democratic democracies

Some forms of 'democracy' are criticised for not actually being democratic, e.g. the UK/US 'representative democracy' generally elects individuals or groups with virtually unopposable power who have the support of only a minority.

Other countries (as seen in the image) claim to be democracies, without usually being recognized as such, only because this is the current world current.

References

External Links

• Why democracy is wrong