A lot of people can write a lot of things about democracy or other governmental or societal orders. But so few ask "can democracy work". You can also ask "can dictatorship work" or "can monarchy work" or "can colonialism work" ...etc. Most of these are byproducts of experiments. Humankind is struggling through a spectrum of management ideas and even the most idealistic system like democracy turned into a questionable method. In this post, I won't just wander around democracy, I will also try to understand why there is no bulletproof system.
Strangely, there are different understandings of democracy these days. It doesn't matter though, we still believe equality and having a voice in government and society is a good thing. If you believe in god, which I do, you can say rights are given to everyone equally by god. Even if you don't believe in a god, you can say "there are no apparent reason why one should have more rights than another". So, even though it can be a little bit of simplification, we can say everyone have equal rights. There is nothing wrong with this, unless people have ulterior motives.
When everyone has freedom, we can't exactly determine what people can do or say. But we can't tolerate harmful behavior either. Then we can establish unbiased rules and courts and judges. Assuming those people have good intentions, this system can work. But still, you indirectly give people freedom to do or say bad things, only to punish them later. So, does this mean you should take preventive measures? Well, that requires mind reading and it is impossible. So freedom gives bad things a possibility to grow.
Now let's assume, you want to be strict and want to have a feared object. Call it a tyrant or dictator or a king, doesn't matter. You can scare people off from bad behavior at some level. But the authority should not be corrupt either. To counter that, you can also add some sort of coalition under the super authorized figure and let them prevent the authority from being the ultimate god-like power. But topologically, the system is basically like ruling elites, and not much different than 1 authoritative figure on top. So, you tried to forbid bad things but ended up having more authority than everyone else. This can't work because people should not have more authority than others no matter what.
If you are the central authority, you can set the rules and apply them yourself. If there is freedom, there must be a set of rules to be applied by someone on the people with freedom. So you might think about balancing institutions. Let everyone speak and act freely but also under surveillance. And you must also have unbiased and independent institutions to both apply rules on the people and keep each other in check, to avoid concentration of power or abuse of power. In an ideal world, this is closest to the best solution. Because relying on humans is not a good idea but letting them check each other can be a balancing ingredient. The system is like "prosper together or collapse together".
Until this point, we have just talked about freedom and rights and how to regulate them in a way that everyone is benefitted. But elections are also part of democracy. If you want some institutions or regulating forces, you need to elect them, since no one can directly have that right. So everyone raises their vote. At this point, from mathematical perspective, some people argue democracy can't always make sure equality is preserved. But you don't have to deep dive in math here. Think about 2 figures or groups racing in a democratic way. If one of them gets 55%, what happens to the other 45% ? You did what most people wanted but also disregarded like the half of the country.
There is also an indirect problem occuring in a democratic election. People clumping together either by fanaticism or because they have to. For example, if you believe the most harmful party or figure is going to be elected, you can join the biggest opposition even if you don't want to. So democracy turns into "I don't want X to rule" logic rather than "I want Y to rule" logic. This is basically because we are giving the numbers too much power. The party with most representation decides on our behalf and crush the others, without asking our opinion first.
So yes, in a nicely working democracy, there are laws or rules or balancing regulations are created and put into work. But still, they usually don't ask what we want and they decide on our behalf. But on the other side, you can't just inform millions of people everytime for every law or regulation or action. People don't have time or knowledge to comprehend everything about government, and therefore they give you some initiative and trust. Unfortunately, this is not a good thing. Giving authority and stepping aside is bad. Giving authority without responsibility is even worse. We should be able to know what is going on an we should be pursuing the information. At least some of us must do this and mediate. Also, if you want a perfect democracy, transparency is mandatory. No government has the right to withold any information from us.
I would say "single-party government" or "presidential" kind of systems should never happen. Also, just because majority wants something, doesn't mean it is the right thing or the others should be ignored. Democracy is mostly about protecting the rights of the few. I think people are actually looking at this from the wrong side. It is not about giving you rights, it is about making sure everyone has their protected rights. I guess Orwell said this faulty way in Animal Farm, everyone is equal but some are more equal.
So basically, the 2 aspects of problems to be solved in democracy are: Speaking or acting freely and being involved in the management. These 2 aspects are the key concepts for any kind of management or societal ruling. After applying whatever system you think is ideal, you have to make sure authority should be responsible and questionable. You also have to be involved in things to stay informed. Finally, the system has to ensure minorities are not disregarded.
Let's assume there is democracy and a parliament of multiple voices and no central authority and rights of everyone is preserved. How can you make sure the elected ones doesn't have ill intentions? And if they have, how can you force a re-election? Even if people are able to elect, how can you make sure people are informed and also sane and logical? In the end, the elected is a mirror of the elector. It is not about the management systems. It was never about the management systems. All of the ideas were based, one way or another, on regulating humankind.
So I had to assume people are willing to cooperate and respect each others boundaries and negotiate when collided. But in reality, we see people trying to find shortcuts and privilege, rather than equality for all. This fact and the inherent complexity of any ruling system, make me say "can any ruling system even work"? My magic ingredient philosophy is "tolerance, rather than dominance". Yes, democracy seems to be the right direction to start with, but be aware of ending up with "tyranny of the majority".
At the end of the blog post, I am sure you are wondering "why don't you mention Socrates"? Also, I know you are wondering the "majority of stupidity" situation. The purpose of this post was to be analytical rather than philosophical. Also, I have mentioned clumping in democracies. In real life, if you have an army of stupid people gathering up, you probably have more pressing issues than management system, since no proper management can come out of their mentallity. So in order to talk about democracy in particular, I had to assume people are not plainly stupid.
You should all start with the mindset "others have rights too". Then "I have to be informed and well educated" must follow it. I guess these preconditions can make a lot of problems go away. Management systems are meant to manage people. That means everything starts with you. You can also check out my earlier post about why societies collapse. See you at the next post :)
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