That would be a political question

[andrewducker]

Taking for (vague) definitions:
A democratic system increases the amount that the will of the people matters.
An effective system is one that puts smart/informed in charge to make things happen.
A system that maximises freedom enshrines certain rights so that they can't be changed even if the people don't like them.

Which would you prefer the system to prioritise?

[Poll #1824202]

At the moment we in the UK obviously have a hotch-potch. Representative democracy means that we elect (theoretically) informed people to one chamber to carry out our wishes, within a framework laid down by human rights legislation. And we also appoint people to a second chamber to make sure the first lot are doing their job well. Given that the democracy for the house of commons is demonstrably rubbish, and the democracy in the House Of Lords is basically lacking, our system clearly priorities effectiveness over democracy, with a side-order of whining that we're forced to obey any human rights legislation at all.

Comments

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

Different in different contexts.

I do love this structure, though. It's not perfect but it's a big step forward from the way that this problem is mostly framed. If more people thought about this question, we'd have a much higher quality of conversation.

The related question that I've been thinking about a lot recently is what should be the priority in guiding policy formation: local practicality (what will solve the real problem that real people have) or adherence to values / principles (whatever they may be). Again clearly this varies with context, and is a both-and rather than an either-or. It's not always a direct trade-off, and each route has advantages and problems. But I think that a clear preference is needed. I've not yet decided where I'm voting.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Quick aside while we're talking politics: Do you happen to know the Governor of Louisiana? Apparently he's tipped to run for the White House in 2016, and I reckon he'd have been at New at the same time you were.

[nmg.livejournal.com]

I'd maximise the combination of all three, obviously.

The exact proportions of the combination would be determined by smart and informed people (after considering the will of the people) and would be enshrined such that they could not subsequently be changed.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

Even if the circumstances changed sufficiently that the proportions no longer maximised the combination?

[iainjcoleman.livejournal.com]

The question is ill-posed, as the variables are not independent.

[andrewducker]

In society variables are very rarely independent. That doesn't mean you can't prefer one of them to others, taking into account their intertwined nature.

[rosamicula.livejournal.com]

I think the question was somewhat unhelpfully phrased. I am also wary of ticking 'freedom' which I think of a list of alienable rights, because it seemed to be implicitly linked to the Europen Human Rights legislation, which is completely ineffective, and which we seemed to be much more reluctant to override or ignore than other member states.

[drplokta]

If freedom includes freedom to elect our representatives, then one cannot maximise freedom without also maximising democracy.

[andrewducker]

Let us assume then, that implicit in the terms of the poll is the idea that that particular freedom is considered separately.

[spacelem.livejournal.com]

I like the idea of freedom. In theory, the system in US was set up by the founding fathers so that the majority could not oppress the minority, and could not vote on their human rights. I like this concept. Sadly the current batch of Republicans really don't care for this state of affairs.

I like the idea of effectiveness. The system is better run when people understand how it works, and can predict the repurcussions of changes (to a degree, some things really are very difficult for anyone to predict).

I like the idea of democracy. Nobody should remain unheard, even if their views are anathema to everyone else's, they should have the right to express those views (unless those views advocate taking human rights away from others -- see freedom).

As for which one is best? I'm not sure. I think effectiveness trumps democracy, but freedom is not necessarily lost or gained simply by shifting funding around, which is pretty much what effectiveness will do. Consequently, I'm going to tentatively choose effectiveness, assuming that it's unlikely to trample over freedom too much.

One aspect of democracy is that people have the right to campaign, protest, write to their MPs etc., and I suspect (with no evidence whatsoever) that exercising these rights is probably worth considerably more than any single vote you might get once every few years.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Utility, of course!

Efficiency and freedom are both terminal values with diminishing marginal utility, so sacrificing one for the other will tend to have lower utility than trying for both incompletely.

Democracy is important only in so far as it tends to increase the other two; undemocratic systems tend be even worse on freedom and fairness than democratic systems, and unfairness is inefficient because resources have diminishing marginal utility.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

What happens when people can't agree on the measures of what is useful?

[artkouros.livejournal.com]

I'm a fan of representative democracy. We just haven't been able to figure out how to make it work yet.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

I voted for effective, but that's only if the smart/informed people are broadly-speaking 'good'. Since you couldn't guarantee this, in practice I'd probably go for democracy as the best compromise.

[andrewducker]

Yeah, democracy is a good way of reminding governments that if they annoy too many people then they'll be replaced with someone less annoying.

[makyo.livejournal.com]

the democracy in the House Of Lords is basically lacking
I'd argue that it's not noticeably more lacking than in the Commons, and at least the Lords contains a high proportion of people who know what they're talking about, as well as being more diverse and representative of the population as a whole. But then I'd also dispute that the current electoral system is democratic in any useful sense anyway.

I think (and this will probably not surprise you from similar conversations we've had in the past, especially regarding Lords reform) that I'd probably prioritise effectiveness and freedom over democracy: as long as the government is doing things in an effective manner for the collective good and isn't oppressing the citizens (by means of stuff like large biometric databases, detention without trial, etc) then I don't mind so much if I don't actually get much of a say in who's in charge or exactly what they're doing. I only need to stick my personal oar in when the people in charge are infringing on freedom and/or making a general pig's ear of the whole thing. Which, sadly, has been the case for at least the last four decades and shows no sign of improving any time soon.

(Where this all falls down is that we currently have an undemocratic government cobbled together from a bunch of also-rans with no expertise, competence or life experience outside a narrow party-political arena, who are infringing civil liberties left, right and centre, and who are being pretty ineffective at sorting out the various problems that face the country right now.)

[andrewducker]

we currently have an undemocratic government cobbled together from a bunch of also-rans with no expertise, competence or life experience outside a narrow party-political arena, who are infringing civil liberties left, right and centre, and who are being pretty ineffective at sorting out the various problems that face the country right now

So, the same as every government for the last 50 years?

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

I think freedom should give people the right to healthcare, education, justice etc and therefore requires a certain level of effectiveness. I'm a big fan of representative democracy - the will of the mob should not override the right to justice though. I couldn't honestly pick democracy first given I don't think we should have the death penalty back even if a majority of the public do/did want it.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I think a system that truly worked would maximise all of these.

I don’t think there are *necessarily* trade-offs between the three dimensions. I don’t think that more democracy necessarily means reduced effectiveness.

Defective production is worse than no production at all.

So if you have a system that delivers people who are effective at getting things done (maximising effectiveness) but what they get done is not what is wanted (democratic) then that’s a fail. You might as well have had idiots running things because they would have failed to do unwanted things.

More subtly, a system that maximise democracy (or the tyranny of the mob) but which doesn’t safeguard some fundamental positions for all means that no one can rely on having the basic ability to participate in democracy.

Generally, I see the three elements as being more often re-enforcing than in opposition.

Also, I think there are some other dimensions that are important. Chief amongst these is the issue of subsidiarity.

[andrewducker]

I don’t think that more democracy necessarily means reduced effectiveness.

http://www.livescience.com/18706-people-smart-democracy.html

[fanf]

"Effectiveness" is over-rated. An effective government is able to implement knee-jerk legislation and minimise scrutiny and so forth.

Democracy is problematic to the extent that it is vulnerable to mob rule, or filtered through biased proxies such as opinion polls, or unduly influenced by the media.

Freedom is good, but it's about more than just rights. I'm dubious about the idea of immutable rights since what we actually want is a progressive ratchet, especially if you mean "maximise".

Should "justice" be on the list?

[andrewducker]

Define justice.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

SEWIWEIC:

I would prefer my political system to minimize harm.

Specifically, to pay attention to the original negative formulation of the golden rule: "do not do unto others that which you would consider unpleasant were it done unto you".

(Not the evangelical goody-goody version, "do unto others as you would be done by", which is a license to interfere for what you consider to be the recipient's best interests, even if they're violently opposed.)

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

That's roughly what I was going to say, except that I was going to put it as the purpose of democracy is to minimize disaster.

Imho, democracy minimizes the chance of getting horrible leaders, and limits the amount of damage they can do.

[gwendally.livejournal.com]

I would prefer to maximize ALL, aiming for a balance in all three areas.

[steer.livejournal.com]

A system that maximises freedom enshrines certain rights so that they can't be changed even if the people don't like them.

I don't think this is meaningful as an objective. It's a nice idea in theory but in practice it is impossible. A sufficiently supported government can act illegally.

I also don't think it's useful as an objective. What we see as a free right in one generation may be seen as horribly oppressive in the next. Not so many generations back the Americans might have constitutionally protected the right for white people to own slaves. I strongly suspect that one generations "unquestionable moral good" might become "bad" with the passage of time.

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

I want to rule with an iron fist.

[steer.livejournal.com]

I prefer a balance between democracy and effectiveness. The swiss model of direct democracy is an interesting one. I would worry though that with "too much" democracy might come a lack of coherence. I think our current model of electing one of several parties who allege to push a certain (allegedly) coherent platform is a pretty good one.

Total democracy where (for example) every item on a budget was voted individually would be a disaster IMHO. I've also noted a horrible tendency that when people get decisions on taxation they tend to always vote for the lowest possible even if this leads to ruin. Some council in the UK had a vote in the last five years on which of three possible council tax policies to have but strongly noted that the smallest one would involve school children not getting new books, libraries shutting etc etc... that one got in.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I suspect that for this level of direct democracy applied to budgets to work you need to run it a few times so that people get that, actually, it does mean school kids not having books and that, yes, this does include your own kids.

[apostle-of-eris.livejournal.com]

false di(tri?)chotomy
The three "alternatives" are too interlinked to realisticly prioritize.

[khbrown.livejournal.com]

A negative utilitarian system as per Popper, where we eliminate and minimise avoidable suffering. Also a system where not only MPs but also Lords can be removed if they fail and where criticism is encouraged.

[steer.livejournal.com]

The traditional criticism of a negative utilitarian system is that if you can press a button which ends the universe right now with no pain to anyone then you should always do it. Most people would see that as a bad thing. We wouldn't want our "negative utilitarian" government to invest in a cheap project to blow up the sun and instantly, painlessly destroy the human race but their value system would compel them to.

[chess]

The question is 'effectiveness for whom', though...

I don't care about 'democracy' at all; it's only useful insofar as it seems to be the best system for ensuring bloodless revolutions when something particularly awful happens, and handling succession without the constant looming possibility of total crisis and civil war. It also had the advantage for a while that no-one had really worked out how to 'play' it effectively, but nowadays alas our political classes are getting a lot better at securing the results they want rather than anything resembling 'the will of the people'.

OTOH, the will of the people is usually crap anyway. I still maintain the best form of government is a dictatorship of me and my mates...

Freedom is something I only care about insofar as people are usually rubbish (even really, really smart people) and make mistakes, especially in the area of 'let's guess what other human beings want from life'; freedom is a useful safeguard on the government doing something really crazy, because if you have fundamental enshrined rights you can at least point and say 'look, that thing is really crazy', which is a) more satisfying than not being able to and b) might even get something done about it.

I care quite a lot about effectiveness but mostly what I care about is essentially utilitarianism - the political system should, like every other system, ensure the greatest good for the greatest number, probably measured in things like those goofy happiness surveys and life expectancy and literacy etc...

[andrewducker]

I think you'll find that all of the parties are offering the greatest good for the greatest number - they just define "good" differently, and judging by the way people vote, so do they.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

I've not answered the question because I don't understand it...

There are of course different ways of setting up democracy. We elect MPs (MSPs...) who can then do what they want, on our behalf - representing us, to a degree. (If they don't represent us at all, of course - and really do what they want - they don't get re-elected.)

A lot of people are now talking about using technology so that the public can directly participate in democoracy - making every decision like, I suppose, a Swiss decision-making referendum.

Much as I am for democracy, such participation scares me witless. I am more liberal than I assume much of the population, who it would appear would, for instance, bring back the death penalty, leave Europe, dump the Human Rights Act.

Even with participatory democracy, I think engagement would be low, and only those with extreme views (or those scared of extreme views!) would take part. Active, vocal but small populations - the religious right, say - could have an undue influence.

An interesting example would be California, where, as I understand it, local plebiscites result in votes to simulataneously increase spending and reduce taxation, leaving the state stuffed.

In these circumstance, I would want a much stronger constitution.

This isn't necessarily "freedom", though I might have originally checked that box. One person's freedom constrains another's.

But I still don't know how to answer your poll...

[andrewducker]

One person's freedom doesn't always constrain another's. The right to equal marriage, for instance, doesn't stop anyone else getting married. But many do.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

From my PoV, democracy is only a means to an end and has no intrinsic value beyond the fact that it's the best system we know of for avoiding truly bad leaders.

I want a system that prioritizes two things:

Access to basic needs for all citizens (top priority)
Freedom for all citizens (second priority)

[mark-nicol.livejournal.com]

Can I put in a vote for maximizing equality of opportunity ?

[eatsoylentgreen.livejournal.com]

ooh that's good

[ipslore.livejournal.com]

I would prefer a political system that maximizes me.