Do We Have Democracy?
Democracy is based on the Greek words for people and power, a democracy is a society in which the power is in the hands of the people. Most societies on earth claim to be democratic, often because they hold periodic elections to allow the people to choose their rulers, but does that mean that power is in the hands of the people? As soon as the election is over no, the people do not have power, the small number of people the small majority of them chose will hold power until the next election. If the election goes well and the people are informed, the best people will be chosen to rule, (although that is rare), This is at best a meritocracy, (rule of the best) where some have greater liberty than others (see the video: democracy).
And even if the best people for the job are elected, the people are not misinformed by the media, Corporations don’t control the campaign process, school has not created mass apathy, and religion has not taken a voice in state affairs, Even if everything goes right, there is one power that transforms the best meritocracy into an authoritarian society, bureaucracy.
Bureaucracy comes from the French word for desk and the Greek word for power, literally power of the desks, in practice it means that the real power lies not with the elected politicians but the appointed officials who work in government departments, it is their job to implement political decisions, which means in reality nothing happens without their say, because they have the power to say how much something will cost, how many people they will need to do it, how long it will take, etc. and if they don’t want to do something they just say it’s expensive it’ll take too many people off of other projects (or it won’t take many people if it’s a make work situation) and it’ll take a looonngg time, and if the politicians call they’re bluff it’s within their power to make implementing the proposal an expensive, obstructive, and lengthy process.
This has a lot to do with how a bureaucrat measures success, it’s the same way someone in the business world would, money, however unlike a business which makes a profit bureaucrats get budgets. The bigger the department, the bigger the budget, the bigger the pay checks for bureaucrats (because it’s a bigger responsibility). It is in a bureaucracy’s interest to spend as much as possible, that’s why your taxes always seem to be going up.
We do not have Democracy. We have bureaucracies, disguised as meritocracies, calling themselves democracies. If we want Freedom, power must rest with the people, and that means organizing society to be truly democratic.
Part 2
John Locke was famous for his thought on the social contract, the idea that there is contract between the people in a society and those who rule them. Back then such things were rare or didn’t exist, now a day’s we’re familiar with them, they’re called constitutions. Lysander Spooner pointed out the problem with the social contract school long ago, in his famous essay “No Treason” he argued that:
a supposed social contract cannot be used to justify governmental actions such as taxation, because government will initiate force against anyone who does not wish to enter into such a contract. As a result, he maintains that such an agreement is not voluntary and therefore cannot be considered a legitimate contract at all. (not a quote)
So how do we solve this, simple, we don’t base governments on geography, people should be allowed to choose freely who they pay taxes too, where they vote, and what services they receive in return. The first step towards freedom and democracy is to let each person choose the government that is best for them. The second step is to make sure those governments are representative of the people who chose them: By giving them the right to self and elective representation. That is to say anyone may go to the governments and vote on any piece of legislation with their one vote at any time, or because that’s simply impractical person A could sign their one vote over to person B who could then use both their votes, of course person A would have to be able to take their vote away from person B at any time, but otherwise that’s how government would work.
You may have noticed some one would still have to carry out the decisions of a democratic government. We haven’t seen the end of the bureaucrats yet. But by allowing freedom of choice of government, bureaucracies now have the same reason to lower costs and be more efficient that business’ do. The more they can do with less income from taxes, the more citizens will join the government. It’s simple.
*Smart internet people may have noticed an inter-governmental legal system would have to exist if governments weren’t geographically based, because there be a huge deal of interaction between people following different laws from each other, how would wrong doing be determined, how would trails be carried out, etc. videos on this subject are slowly on their way.*
If people are free to choose their governments and control it democratically. Then power will finally rest with the people.
