Democratie als beslissingsprocedure

Een post van mezelf. Kort samengevat; kan misschien nog wel interessant zijn.

When I talk/write about democracy I usually make the 'coordination'-argument, not the moral one. The moral argument goes against government in every form, not specifically democracy. If you argue against democracy on moral grounds (which is perfectly legitimate), you often get the question/response; 'so are you in favour of a dictatorship?'

If you don't have much room: pick your battles! So I would advise to argue that 'democracy' is a bad way of making decisions.

- Democracy (politics) is categorical: it's either obama or mccain who decides; whilst markets tend to be more 'you get what you want and I get what I want'

- In democracy; you vote for people who have to make decisions in a certain process, in markets you buy the _outcome_ of a productive process. Big difference and the second one is easier to check for quality.

- Rational ignorance ('do you know everything? Well, in a market; you don't really have to know!') and rational irrationallity (imagine a lot of people having stupid ideas; democracy makes sure that we all suffer from it, while in a market, they mainly effect themselves)

- majority voting doesn't assess relative importance (imagine 60% wanting x but 40% _REALLY_REALLY_ wanting y and willing to compensate the other ones for it; democracy can't deal with that, while markets can)

- obviously: interest groups (the bigger the price, the more lobbiest)

- democracy only selects the political leaders, not the bureaucracy, who often has discreationary powers

- When you 'vote' for a politician, you vote for everything he stands for (and checking for lies is difficult). Even if you don't agree with him on certain issues, you can't vote for others on other issues; it's always a 'collective' of opinions. (Imagine you having to buy house x, car y, refrigerator z, and foodbundle abc or house t, car u, refrigerator v and foodbundel def; ... wouldn't you prefer choosing some yourself?)

- even if you think regulation is necessary; why do you think that the regulators will regulate good? or is 'any' kind of regulation good? If so; isn't that a dangerous notion? Regulation can mean a lot of different things. Doesn't it, for example, happen that the public cries for regulation but that the regulation is actually in the advantage of the firms who are being regulated? (capture theory)

stuf like that is what I do.