The best form of government for all

Philosophy Forums Society, Government, and Economics
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the arguments given for the forms of government,
democracy, monarchy, dictatorship, oligarchy, socialism, etc, etc…

Of them, I have argued for democracy… but in thinking about it,
I think part of the reason that democracy has ‘‘issues’’ right now,
is this…we have a conflict between our democracy and our
economic system, capitalism… the two have different
agendas… and that conflict is what is troubling to us today…

the primary goal of capitalism is to make money… as has been
argued before, "Greed is good’’ that in some fashion,
never explained, but in some fashion our private vices
creates a public good… and those private vices is the
accumulation of wealth…by being privately greedy, we
publicly benefit the state/society… again, never actually
explained how this works…

the political side is democracy… now in a democracy,
the people make decisions about its own fate…
we elect representatives, those in both state capitals
and in Washington DC… those representatives are suppose
to speak in our name… do our bidding, we know this is a lie,
but let us overlook this for the moment… one of the essential
points about a democracy, in that unlike a dictatorship or
a monarchy or an oligarchy, we as a people, also need
to be aware of our neighbors… a public act that benefits me,
will also benefit my neighbors… by keeping our roads safe,
I benefit and my neighbors benefit…

Part of keeping a society/state functional and safe, is the
equal treatment of its citizens… justice, the practice of
treating everyone equal, is a key concept within a democratic
society… treat people unequally, and we get anger, discontentment,
bitterness… the trick to keeping a safe and functional state/society,
is the equal treatment of its citizens… to unfairly treat one
segment of the society/state, either treat them better or to treat
them worse is to bring about resentments between classes,
that will eventually bring about public anger… BLM is one
such act of resentment that brought people into the streets…
to treat people equally, is one path toward keeping the state
and society safe and secure…and within a democracy,
this is the path… That

''We the people, in order to form a more perfect union"

We the people, that is not a class or a faction of the state,
that is ‘‘We the people’’ a democracy… where we expect
to be treated equally within the society/state…

but in order to form that more perfect union, we must, must
also treat people equally… that is the power of a democracy…
to maintain the stability of a state/society by the equal treatment
of its citizens…and the members of that democracy
must not, as it does in capitalism, think only about one’s
own needs, but in a democracy, we must also think of the needs
of others… if for no other reason, then to hold to the safety
and security that equality provides us… unequal treatment of
people brings about instability and volatility that threatens the
ability of the state/society to function… and by being a democracy,
we can be better attuned to what allows our society/state to work,
and that is equality, justice…

to keep our system going strong, we must treat all our neighbors
equally… that is fundamentally what justice is… and the
strength of a democracy… we can see what we can do to
bring about justice for our neighbors and then act upon that…
for we are the government, government of the people, for
the people, by the people… the process of change begins
with us in a democracy… in a monarchy or a dictatorship,
the process of change begins with the monarch or the dictator…

if you want a safer, more welcoming neighborhood,
have your neighborhood be equal is the best way…
to have a neighborhood that is unequal in some fashion,
is the path toward a dysfunctional neighborhood…
the unequal treatment within a neighborhood will
create dissatisfaction within a neighborhood…
creating discontent within the neighbors…
that is not the path toward a stronger, safer neighborhood…

the same is true of our blocks, neighborhood, district,
city, state and nation… the same process that creates
either satisfaction or dissatisfaction within a neighborhood,
also works for a state or nationally…

the strength of a democracy is that ‘‘We the People’’
can create harmony and a safe neighborhood for all
the people, not just some of the people… in ways that
a monarch or a dictatorship cannot… for it is in our own
best interest to treat people in the neighborhood equally,
to hold and maintain justice/equality is the best way for
a neighborhood and a city/state/nation to move forward…
and the best way to accomplish that is by the political form
of government that is democracy…

Kropotkin

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Now one of the strengths of democracy is that
the equality of people, doesn’t demand a uniformity
of belief… a democracy can survive and I submit
even prosper with a diverse belief system within
its citizens… much more so than in a monarchy or
in a dictatorship…a democracy can and should easily
prosper within its citizens having a wide variety of beliefs…
including different beliefs in religion, economics, political,
social and philosophical…a democracy does best if,
if its citizens hold onto different value systems… for example,
in religion, a tolerant political system will be far stronger than
an intolerant political system… if we force everyone to pray to
the same god, we create instabilities that can tear that society/state
apart…in a dictatorship or a monarchy, religious beliefs, are
for the most part, uniform in nature… it is within the nature of
a dictatorship or monarchy to install a uniform religious system,
an example of this is the Church of England… or in the Soviet
Union, no state sanction religions… and there has been
a fair amount of strife in countries that have one dominant
religion…but countries with many diverse religions,
tend to be more stable… Western European countries for
example…

Where this especially works is where no one religion has a
domination on all the others… when one religion or one
political party or one economic party, has domination over
the others, there is strife and discontent…
the many diverse religions keep one party from gaining control
over the religious aspect of the country… think of it as the
religious version of the political checks and balances…
when no one religion is dominant, the entire religious
balance is more stable… this equality prevents one
religion from dominating the rest… thus help preventing
religious discontentment…thus in America for example,
the attempt to force everyone into holding ‘‘Christian’’
ideals, is the path to strife and public enmity of one religious
model against another…

the truth of the matter is that by having many diverse
religions in America, we promote stability and order, far
better than if we were to promote one and one religion only…

but that forces us into making sure that we give equal protections
to every single religion, regardless of how we dislike any one
given religion…

to force us to have a uniformity of beliefs, damages the
stability of any given state, but we can still engage in
equality, but not in uniformity of beliefs…
by being equal, we can say that you can act in the religion of
your choice, without any state/public interference…
religious choice is allowed to any who wished to make that
choice… and even encouraged, but we cannot allow any
one religion to become dominant or to rule all the others…
most religious clashes are not believers vs unbelievers,
but between believers and believers…

The path to force people in America into believing in a certain
sect of Christianity, is the path to violence and political
insecurity… the path to a more stable America lies
in allowing people the right to hold whatever religious
beliefs that they hold to…it is far safer to have 1000 religious
sects, then one big powerful one…

thus equality/justice is better than any type of uniformity of
beliefs…

Kropotkin

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Regarding democracy, what’s your opinion on minors, say 12 years old and above, voting?

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as 12 year olds are considered children, at least in the US,
I would say no… 18 is the legal age of being an adult
and that is sufficient for me… We don’t trust anyone under
18 to own a gun or to engage with contracts nor can they gamble in
a casino, so the answer is clearly no…

Kropotkin

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Till we find an alternative system of governance, democracy can’t be wished away. Nevertheless a debate can be initiated to strengthen the democracy and weeding out frustrations from the public minds .
Well being an Indian and having watched democracy for last 50 years I can talk about Indian scenario only . Though I have visited US and Canada over half a dozen times , I couldn’t understand the thers dynamics .
In India the main problem looks to be the sheer size of parliamentary size of constituencies with average voters ranging between 2 to 3 millions. A single member representing such a vast and diverse population can hardly do Justice to democratic aspirations of the people and resolution of their issues.

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Bhaskar Bhusari:
Till we find an alternative system of governance, democracy can’t be wished away. Nevertheless a debate can be initiated to strengthen the democracy and weeding out frustrations from the public minds .
Well being an Indian and having watched democracy for last 50 years I can talk about Indian scenario only . Though I have visited US and Canada over half a dozen times , I couldn’t understand the thers dynamics .
In India the main problem looks to be the sheer size of parliamentary size of constituencies with average voters ranging between 2 to 3 millions. A single member representing such a vast and diverse population can hardly do Justice to democratic aspirations of the people and resolution of their issues.

K: thank you for your reply… every country has their own issues
in regards to the government in place… I think even in a country
as large as yours, that democracy is still the best option…
I cannot speak for India, but American democracy has been
bought and sold by big business and wealthy individuals…
and that has brought about the failure of
democracy in the last couple of decades, in America anyway…

the key is to remove money from the government… not in terms of
lowering the amount of money a government gets from taxes, but in
terms of money that flows to the officials of the state, from the US
Supreme Court, which has been clearly bought and paid for, to
congressmen and Senators also, bought and paid for,
and even to the military which make multibillion dollar
decisions every single day and is heavily courted by
big business and wealthy individuals… high ranking military
officers take in millions in bribes and often do so with impunity…

The American experiment of democracy lies on the threshold of
dying because of the vast amount of money coming in and subverting
the basic idea of democracy, which is the people make the decisions
and everyone else follows that… the point of the government
is to implement the will of the people… nothing more…
and the government having been bought and sold has lost sight
of this… at least in America…

Kropotkin

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With this topic under discussion, in continuation of my previous writing I would like to map the frustrations with regard to democratic form of governments:

  1. Voting percentage is dismally low , mostly around 50 % , giving a feeling that winning candidates hardly represent majority and literally a minority government ! How to make people vote without being coercive ! :slightly_smiling_face: In India the voting percentages increased substantially reaching over 60% to in few states as high as over 80 % . Thanks to Modi saheb , whenever he is in electoral field , voting percentage increase drastically, both for and against in his favour .
  2. At times the winning margin is so narrow that the losers don’t reconcile with their defeats and create doubts about very efficacy of the system of elections and fair play by the people in charge ! @Peter_Kropotkin , Rest of the world saw with surprise that even Great American Democracy is no exception to such a vagary of election system . When winning margins are so low there is a persistent frustration till next elections and opposition is hardly in mood to cooperate with Government of the day, even for public good.
  3. Money and Muscle power remains a matter of concern for all right thinking people. Thanks to increase in number of voters , money power is loosing it’s lustre but candidates with criminal case pending against them and yet contesting the elections remains a matter of concern . Not only the electoral but judicial reforms are must to address this issue.