What good is democracy if the people are stupid?

People have no limits to being extra stupid, so what is your answer?

Quite an elitist question.

Better power to stupid people, than power to stupid autocrats. If Putin, and even earlier, Hitler and Stalin aren’t prime examples of stupidity, then I bow out. I’m not even impressed with our own founders, rich. slave driving, self-serving cretins, despite all of their flighty, wordy pronouncements. The French were right, Liberty Equality, Fraternity.

To quote Winston Churchill, “democracy is the worst form of government – except for all the others that have been tried.” A totalitarian government is not the answer.

And China doesn’t have a capitalistic society; they have a very regimented limited market.

I don’t think China is in any sort of contest. I think such nationalist economic perspectives are more about keeping people in check, and to distract them from their domination by capitalists and politicians representing capitalist interests.

There’s a whole lot of jingoism and xenophobia about “competing economic powers”, but the reality is is that China makes all your shit, and you get that shit for less because China can more efficiently keep its workers compliant—which is why capitalists in the rest of the world were so delighted with China “liberalising” its economy back in the 90s, and why China today is very much integrated into the global economic system.

I also don’t think the decision making of the Chinese Communist Party is that impressive or rational on the whole.

I would suggest that it’s exactly because people are “stupid” that we get to have representative democracy at all. If people weren’t so susceptible to propaganda and misinformation, the ruling elites would never let us vote, because we’d vote for whoever was trustworthy enough to represent our interests.

It was only with the development of propaganda and the public relations industry that ruling elites became comfortable with letting us vote, because they knew they could make us vote exactly the way they wanted. It also helps that the party duopoly is basically two wings of the one business party.

@zenvelo That’s apparently a bit of a misquote of Churchill.

I also disagree that China isn’t capitalist.

Because not everyone is stupid.

Well, aren’t we all ‘stupid’ in the sense that, no matter which party you side with, going voting is a stupid thing to do.
We know we’ll get fucked, but we vote anyway.
I’ve voted every time I had the chance and I’ve gotten fucked my whole life (by politicians, of all sides of the isle, making promises and always break them).

Your title strikes me as a good question:

Your details, however, presume we’re going to agree with whatever your presumptions are, and I don’t even know what thoughts lead you to write them:

“Isn’t our current competition with China actually a contest with a regime that has recognized that the population is not to be trusted with the decisions and affairs of state dictating their existence?”
– What do you think “our current competition with China” is?
– I would say, no, that’s not a way I think about “our” (?) relationship with China.
– Nor is it a way I would think to summarize China’s relationship with its power structures.

“And if they beat us at capitalism (as it appears they are destined to do) won’t that success prove their point?”
– No, because I don’t think I agree with any of what it appears your ways of thinking about capitalism, or “our current competition”, or “them” having “a point”.
– See the political and economic history of China, for how China actually arrived at its current political and economic organizations. It was not about distrusting the people to make political decisions because people were recognized to be stupid.

@Hawaii Jake The question is elitist only if you read it as a declaration that the people are stupid (which it is not) The stupidity of the people is a separate question.

@Zaku Rather than reviewing that history, you might explain which aspect I missed that convinces you the Chinese arrived where they are through trusting the populace?

I immediately thought of this classic video.

@Kropotkin You deserve more GAs than are available, but are you telling us the ruling elite were mistaken in allowing us the vote?

@Demosthenes It’s a classic for a reason. And when we look around, it becomes increasingly difficult to refute it. But again, that isn’t the issue.

Problem is politicians are just as stupid,and you can’t trust any of them no matter what banner they fly.

Democracy doesn’t exist to allow capitalism to flourish, on the contrary, it exists to allow people to flourish.

@Zaku And never mind the labels. You can call it what you will, but it would be difficult to argue that the Chinese are not dedicated to the propect of beating us at our own game. And for all my (perhaps) limitations on Chinese history, I am aware of Xi Jinping’s secret document, the revelation of which earned the individual responsible for its revelation a lengthy prison sententce for betraying state secrets. The document (the essence of which is indoctrinated into Chinese students) states that what we regard as democracy’s strengths are in fact its great vulnerabilities, readily exploited in achieving its downfall, beginning for example with its much overated requirement for freedom of speech.

@SQUEEKY2 My answer to paraphrase Ben Franklin’s “if you can keep it”—my answer would be the rather obvious “no good at all”.

@kritiper That is a worthy observation. But just what percentage of stupid people is required to render democracy futile? And how would you say we are doing toward avoidance of that threshold,?

@HP It’s not the binary question of trusting the population, that you keep framing it as. I would point to a long history of having monarchs and bureaucrats at the top, and then the adjustments following World War Two and then the so-called “communist” flavor added, as well as the recent commercial focus, and yes Xi Jinping and his associates.

But I wouldn’t take Xi Jinping’s leaked document or other acts and statements as the truth with which to frame the whole relationship.

There may be a million and one ways in which to frame “it”. My take on our competition is on the Chinese dedication toward supplanting us and the rest of the world’s liberal democracies toward mastery of the world. As limited as my knowledge of China might be, I can tell you that we here have no concept of just how deeply the Chinese feel about “the century of humiliation”. Xi himself is an extraordinary man with whose history we should all familarize ourselves. It is truly revealing, regarding his differences with regard to other authoritarian strongmen. But perhaps this is an issue of semantics. What’s your view on the Chinese government’s “trust” of its people?

@HP Stupid is as stupid does. Generally speaking, all of mankind is stupid.
Every democracy throughout history, with no exceptions, has lasted about 200 years before evolving into something else. So it isn’t so much as being stupid, it’s about the time involved being a democracy.

ok

Dictatorships are ALSO run by people. So the question before you isn’t whether you’d like to be ruled by a brilliant and benevolent dictator or a stupid and selfish democracy but whether you’d rather be ruled by stupid and selfish dictators or stupid and selfish democracies.

At least under a democracy, you’re frequently changing the government. You’re implementing SOME level of accountability…you can be a cynic and say ‘not much’, but it’s not zero. In a dictatorship, it’s zero. And in most western style democracies, you at least have some degree of due process and rule of law protections for your individual rights. Again, you can be a cynic at the margins about some of those, but compare to a dictatorship, and there’s a rather large difference of degree no matter how cynical you are.

Brawndo! It’s what plants crave.

In a more democratic system, stupid people are moderated by smart people. Get a stupid ruling elite, though, and you’re hosed – often with lead.

How likely are stupid people to vote in an elightened elite?

@Kropotkin You may not believe the Chinese dedicated to displacing the United States, but that is certainly not the position they both openly espouse and clearly exhibit. What the Chinese have accomplished is to learn from their mistakes. And the great lesson is simply that pragmatism ALWAYS trumps ideology. After a few hundred million deaths over 50 years, they were forced to admit it preferable to lose face in the admission that harmony would not be achieved through starvation. And unlike us, they also learned from our mistakes. The Chinese have concluded that harmony takes precedence over all else. And they are damned sure on the road to watching our vaunted supposed advantages destroy us. Just try to argue with China on the requirement for freedom of speech in the era of Trump and twitter.