Delagative democracy

Apart from it being completely impractical, unworkable, and utterly corruptible, you mean?

Reply to Barry Etheridge Please explain
EDIT: if you want, I will look up the disadvantages first. There's no point cluttering up the Internet with the same content

Impractical because the politically inactive will always be politically inactive. They'll have no more interest in or make any more effort towards appointing proxies than they do to voting themselves.

Unworkable because a register of voters and the proxies they hold and the votes for which they are eligible would be near impossible to maintain accurately, and a huge drain on resources and time that should be devoted to the actual politics.

Corruptible for much the same reasons as it unworkable and because special interest groups would simply hijack the entire scheme gathering up proxies by fair means or foul to wield in pursuit of ever more self-serving agendas.

Like all ideals it collapses immediately it fails to take into account that the whole thing involves human beings who are not ideal, far from it. And worse still in this case it starts from the premise that democracy is a good thing which it so palpably is not and never will be!

Are you criticising the idea absolutely or in comparison to another idea you consider better?

If in comparison to representative democracy:


Quoting Barry Etheridge

Impractical because the politically inactive will always be politically inactive. They'll have no more interest in or make any more effort towards appointing proxies than they do to voting themselves.

While it may not be an advantage when it comes to some people, there is still the other good thing of allowing people to vote directly.


Quoting Barry Etheridge

Unworkable because a register of voters and the proxies they hold and the votes for which they are eligible would be near impossible to maintain accurately, and a huge drain on resources and time that should be devoted to the actual politics.

I don't see how that would be near impossible to maintain accurately. Can you explain?
I see how that makes it more corruptible though, since the decision making process is more accessible (if you get my meaning).


Quoting Barry Etheridge

Corruptible for much the same reasons as it unworkable and because special interest groups would simply hijack the entire scheme gathering up proxies by fair means or foul to wield in pursuit of ever more self-serving agendas.

Well, people can still withdraw their votes from their proxies. But maybe most people won't be bothered to. In that isn't it still better than RD (with forced proxies).


Quoting Barry Etheridge

Democracy is so palpably is not is a good thing and never will be!

I'm interested: What is democracy worse than and why?

Quoting Ovaloid

I don't see how that would be near impossible to maintain accurately. Can you explain?

Under the current system each individual is registered as a voter for all elections and referendums. The proposed system would require that they be separately listed for every single vote (and incidentally who in this system decides what votes are to be taken - do they take a vote on what they're going to take a vote on?) with their proxy defined for every single issue, multiplying the bureaucracy by an unfathomable number of times. And what happens if an unexpected and previously undefined issue comes up. Must we refresh the list all over again before any vote can be taken? What if a decision is required urgently or even immediately (which brings us neatly on to ...)?

Quoting Ovaloid

What is democracy worse than and why?

In its inability to react to quickly changing circumstances it is perhaps worse than all forms of Government. There is no time to take a vote on the correct response to a nuclear warhead falling toward a major city, or a run on the banks, or widespread flooding, or an explosion at a major oil refinery. The buck has to stop with an executive power in urgent and extreme situations. Remember that it was not Christianity that brought down the Roman Empire nor capitalism the Soviet but the bureaucratic nightmares involved in responding to emerging pressures and threats. Add in a plebiscite and only chaos can possibly ensue.

To the extent that it suppresses, represses, and oppresses minorities it is at least as bad as any other form of Government. The increase in public expressions of racism in Britain after the recent referendum appeared to give a mandate to 'send foreigners home' is a classic example of how quickly people rule becomes mob rule.

To the degree that it promotes the opinion of the least qualified to judge and fails to acknowledge the inescapable truth of the fundamental selfishness and irrationality of human beings (original sin, for want of a better term, though not necessarily in any religious sense) it is undoubtedly the worst. People, ultimately, are the last people you'd ask when seeking rational decisions. It simply isn't the case that 'a million people can't be wrong' nor even a million million (I mean ... Justin Bieber!).

And that's just the highlights!

Were it humanly possible there is little doubt that the best form of Government is benign, informed, ethical dictatorship by an individual or small group who are by all possible standards most fit to rule, exactly as Plato envisaged. Barring that, representative democracy, which is essentially a flawed and fragile version of that ideal (Plato-Lite?) and only barely 'democratic' in reality, is probably the least worst pragmatic option we have yet devised. Full, untramelled democracy? That way madness lies!