Doubting Democracy
I have my doubts about Democracy, so I will try to introduce here my opinions about it. And of course I am not talking about this fake Democracy that we have now, with representatives that are in the pockets of lobbyists, I am fundamentally questioning the concept of Democracy itself, Direct Democracy itself.
I have had this doubt in the back of my mind for some time, but it’s time to honestly look at it. I am talking about Direct Democracy, the concept that these Anarcho-Communists advocate for, you know:
- Cooperatives
- Direct Democracy at work ( workers owning the means of production)
- consensus based decision making
You know, the ultimate conclusion of the Collectivist-Libertarian, Left-Libertarian or Anarcho-Communist ideologies. Basically the bottom-left quadrant according to my political compass:
There are multiple issues, that all stem from some pre-concieved premises, sometimes utopian and delusional, that might just not be true, yet everyone thinks they are since they have been drilled in our heads by leftist propaganda, but there is a very good chance that they are not. The premises that they are based on are the following:
- People can cooperate with eachother and can reach consensus, even on larger scales
- People are intelligent and rational
- The decisions that the collective will make will be intelligent, rational and efficient
- People are resistant to propaganda and deception, and the group is resistant to subversion by malicious entities
- People will actually engage in the democratic process and not fall into apathy after the “vibe” is over
- Collectivism is natural and evolutionarily beneficial for a species
So if these premises are correct, then Anarcho-Communism is not only possible but it would be the ultimate goal of evolution. However if they are not, then we are in for a big discovery that Democracy is impossible.
Furthermore there is now a movement with Blockchains and the Internet to introduce more democratic institutions, where more people could participate. So the barrier of entry to Democracy becomes zero, and people will actually have the possibility to engage in.
Sort of like how in ancient Athens people gathered in the city and discussed politics there and voted on everything (well not entirely since they had a king mostly, but something like that). Well of course that was tideous, and not very organized and articulate if you have to talk to the masses. A more formal debate and a more civilized discussion platform is better.
And of course that was not possible in the most part of history, since the population only grew and people became more apathetic, but with the Internet, things changed, now Democracy is possible, at least theoretically, since the practical obstacles are now removed.
But this is where most Anarchists are mistaken or fooled by. Just because the barrier of entry is zero, that doesn’t mean that it’s possible, at all. I am talking about whether it’s possible fundamentally, due to the nature of humanity, game theory problems, and the way social interactions work.
It’s time to analyze the situation and draw our conclusions in the end. So let’s take each premise and analyze it:
Cooperation & Scaling
Well cooperation is certainly possible. We do it all the time, whether in our family, friends, or other allied groups. Even in business it’s possible. There is cooperation inside a business, and there is competition between businesses. So cooperation no doubt is possible, plus you already have cooperative institutions. So there is no doubt about that.
Now is it scaleable? My answer is no. Obviously, there is only a limit to how many people can cooperate between one another before they start distrusting “others”. What is the difference between “us” and “them”. Certainly it’s good if people can help out the entire humanity with things like the Lightbulb by Edison or the Steam machine by Watt.
But in practical issues, there will be hostility, I am not talking about military hostility, but just basic conflicts. So the larger a group grows, the more unstable it gets and the higher the risk of conflicts, thus the more coercion you need to apply to keep people in line, but we will get into this later.
Intelligence
The second fallacy is the intelligence problem. The rarest commodity on Earth is human intelligence and wisdom, more precious that diamonds or gold. Only a very few people possess the capability to think rationally, logically and be open minded to innovation and creativity.
The IQ problem is clear, most people are either of average IQ which is about 90. I have an IQ of 140+.
IQ is not a linear measurement too, it’s pegged to a normal distribution function. According to it’s definition 15 IQ points above the mean, which is defined at 100, represents 1 standard deviations.
So my 50 IQ points above the human average means that I am 261x more intelligent than your average guy out there. If I compare myself to these TV binge-watcher zombies, then we are a different species.
Now I don’t particularly believe that IQ is tied to race, the narrative that these white-supremacists push, but it’s definitely true that intra-race, you have a spectrum of many dumb people and a minority of intelligent people, across all races and all cultures and ethnicities.
So wherever you attempt to setup a Direct Democracy, it will predominantly be filled with average and dumb people.
Now how comes stupid people will outvote smart people? In an engineering task, where precision is a key, and it might be a life and death situation, like designing airplanes and so on. What kind of benefit there is to let the “zombie masses” have their voice there?
Because in a Direct Democracy, you will always get a mediocre solution for everything as the dumb ideas will outweigh smart ideas, thus will probably settle for a compromize, which is just simply not enough.
So Direct Democracy can never be efficient, and more time will be spent arguing with stupid people try to convince them of things that they can’t possibly comprehend due to their low IQ, instead of actually having smart people do things. And this would apply to all industries in every economic sector.
Resistance to Propaganda & Rationality
Well people are not resistant to propaganda. You turn in the TV, it’s propaganda shoved down our throats all day.
Now the propaganda is actually aimed at smart people. Yes it’s aimed at smart people. Dumb people are usually controlled by brute force or distracted with stupid things like sports, or celebrity gossips.
The propaganda is aimed at smart people, that has convinced even the most prominent scientists, with high IQ’s of the Global Warming hoax. Some people were in the conspiracy, others just simply believed it, because they were gullible, despite the fact that the evidence against Global Warming is overwhelming.
So even the most intelligent people can fall pray to deception, simply because people don’t have the time to verify every single thing for themselves. There are intelligence agencies for that job, who’s job should be to verify information, but of course currently they can’t be trusted because they are more busy spying on people than to actually uncover deception.
So if good intelligent people can fall prey to deception, then dumb ignorant fools have no chance. They will either be too stupid to understand things, or they will be like a donkey driven by a carrot on a stick.
Apathy
The other problem is the apathy. This is easily seen in the Bolshevik revolution. People were initially cheerful that they got rid of the Tsar, but their euphoria and democratic participation lasted a few weeks. After that they just didn’t care, and slowly communism got bureaucratized, and of course with a bureaucracy came tyranny as well.
I guarantee you that if your local town would switch to a Direct Democracy model tomorrow and would hold public square meetings every day to decide things, people would stop showing up after a week and it would turn back into a bureaucratic dictatorship run by a mayor and the town council again.
It’s inevitable, people just simply don’t care, and also don’t have time, to decide every single thing. While coercion is bad, from an utilitarian perspective, it’s more efficient.
Natural Evolution
Lastly, but not least, this is the most important criteria amongst all. Is Democracy natural and fit to exist, as in the Darwinian model, or it’s not.
Because at the end of the day, our ideas don’t matter, it seems like there are some rules in this Universe that are above anything else. And if our ideas don’t fit into those rules, then they can’t exist, but a small error in evolution that will quickly be corrected.
A virus doesn’t give a shit about the Non-Aggression principle, yet it’s one of the fittest organisms around. Simply because it’s small and very adaptive and doesn’t care about it’s methods, it just does things to survive.
This doesn’t mean that ends justify the means, I don’t believe in that. But it shows you that even evil things are natural, and if good things are to take over, then it must be in a way to fit into nature’s rules.
What is the most evolutionarily beneficial political position? It certainly can’t be Statism because that leads to Nuclear War, which is the literal extinction of humanity.
And it also can’t be this overconsumption/pollution based agenda either since that causes massive health problems and could poison the gene pool of humans.
So it has to be a very balanced peaceful political ideology, not based on violence, but also one that can actually scale and be efficient.
Now can Direct Democracy be this? Well not really if you look at the previous premises critically.
Conclusion
Thus in my opinion Direct Democracy and Collectivism in and of itself is bad. So the left-bottom quadrant is not a good political position.
Now I haven’t given up entirely on consensus based politics, there is some truth in it, that is why I am a Centrist-Voluntarist, I don’t want to lean to either sides too much, but I certainly know that coercion is not good.
The initial premises are just simply false, so we cannot rely on a harmonious consensus, whereas the human behavior is totally different, and any attempt to imagine such society is utopian delusion pushed by Marxist wishful thinkers.
Sources:
https://pixabay.com
