Chris, I agree with your frustration. If you consult any political science textbook, it is explicitly stated that the term "democracy" in contemporary use is an umbrella term for all forms of representative government. This allows theorists to refer to "democratic socialism," which is exactly like Communism, but with better marketing.
It is the result of knowing one thing (the Founders' rhetoric re: [direct] democracy) but not another (the broader use of the term as an umbrella category). I try to be understanding, because there was probably a time in my knowledge journey when I too knew the one but not the other. But it is indeed frustrating. It wastes time, and the person then closes their ears to what I am saying, thinking that I am the one who lacks knowledge.
Re: democratic socialism…
These days, lefties use the term incorrectly. "Democratic socialism," in its original meaning, involves state ownership of the means of production (or at very least nationalization of many major industries) and much stricter limitations on property and commerce. (Yet somehow, magically, this comes about through democratic means. But can they vote their way out? Maybe…)
When most people use the term, I suspect that what they actually mean is "social democracy"—a mixed-market system with a massive welfare state. In a synoptic chart of movements of the left, we would have to place democratic socialism (e.g., what Sweden started to try to be in the 1970s, IIUC) to the left of social democracy (what Sweden became in the 1990s).
(That's all stuff I am sure you know, but talking about it helps clarify it for oneself and others reading.)
I find this to be the best description off what we currently have.
Ineptocracy - a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.
Cult like conditioning from those things we call schools and media propaganda is my guess. And a crippling fear of not having an all powerful 'god' making all the decisions perhaps.
I would say it begins with the notion that mankind considered it a victory to eliminate monarchy/hereditary rule and replace it with democracy/majority rule. That feeling is a cultural inheritance, felt and shared by many. In some ways, rightly so: hereditary rule had no basis in reality. In reality, no one is born with automatic authority over any other. Thus, by getting rid of monarchy, we did away with a fiction.
That said, I don't think that many people have even begun to wrap their minds around the fact that what we replaced it with—democracy—isn't much better. So the cultural trope—the democracy mystique—marches merrily on. Most people still believe that we have "consented" to this and that we "control" the government because we can vote. It is going to take a long time to break that mystique.
Then we have general statist propaganda, which existed before democracy and continued under it—that the state is the "protector" and without it, all would be chaos. That is 10,000 years of mental programming that we have to overcome. As you say, those things get thoroughly reinforced, in modern form, in schools and media.
And I do think some of it is that crippling fear you mention. Most people do not want to be accountable and responsible for every aspect of their lives. Ayn Rand hits that point really heavily in Atlas Shrugged and elsewhere: this desire that most people have to abdicate thought and transfer responsibility. The state offers that service for people, and then voting and the illusion of consent trick people into thinking that somehow they are in control of their own lives.
I think that sums it up pretty damn good. One thing I think could be added, decades of policies that lead to far too many being financially dependent on the state. Once you get someone looking to you for food, sky's the limit with what will be tolerated. We know what LBJ is alleged to have said about a certain demographic voting Dem for life. And, looks like he was entirely correct.
You touched on the idea of Anarchism. My son spent a few years as a “traveller.” He moved around, homeless, from place to place by jumping on freight train cars. While it was not my first choice for his life, so be it. He told me there were thousands of these kinds of travellers in Canada! (Who knew?) I got to meet some of them when my son blew through town. In conversation with them, I found they were all looking forward to the dismissal of governments etc. They also said that in the readjustments of the “New World Order,” they will all be musicians, leaving the rest of the work to others. To describe the lack of substance in this political worldview, my son also spoke of a season, one winter when he landed in a far city to hunker down and wait for spring, when he shared an apartment with avowed anarchists. His roommates were very politically involved, going to “meetings” all the time. The problem was that, throughout the tenure in this situation, he could NOT ever get the people to wash the dishes. Politics was too important for such mundane time-wasters.
That, to me, is the fundamental flaw in the entire worldview. I write this for any anarchists who may read it. Go do the dishes and make your bed.
Those people may call themselves anarchists, but they are just wastrels who are one bong-hit away from being indistinguishable from Marxism-addled hippies. They use the term without knowing what it means.
Hans-Hermann Hoppe is an anarchist (https://ia804707.us.archive.org/21/items/HoppeDemocracyTheGodThatFailed/Hoppe_Democracy_The_God_That_Failed.pdf). Murray Rothbard, David Friedman, Linda and Morris Tannehill, Michael Malice, and many others are anarchists. The people your son encountered were lazy idealistic children who had imbibed the lies of Marxism but then heard the word "anarchist" and found it pleasing to their desire to differentiate themselves from boilerplate leftism. They are no more anarchists than a toothbrush is a telephone.
I recently spoke with an old friend who described something similar—meeting such people, becoming curious about what they were all about, only to be grossed out when she figured them out. They give actual anarchists a bad name.
Chris, I agree with your frustration. If you consult any political science textbook, it is explicitly stated that the term "democracy" in contemporary use is an umbrella term for all forms of representative government. This allows theorists to refer to "democratic socialism," which is exactly like Communism, but with better marketing.
It is the result of knowing one thing (the Founders' rhetoric re: [direct] democracy) but not another (the broader use of the term as an umbrella category). I try to be understanding, because there was probably a time in my knowledge journey when I too knew the one but not the other. But it is indeed frustrating. It wastes time, and the person then closes their ears to what I am saying, thinking that I am the one who lacks knowledge.
Re: democratic socialism…
These days, lefties use the term incorrectly. "Democratic socialism," in its original meaning, involves state ownership of the means of production (or at very least nationalization of many major industries) and much stricter limitations on property and commerce. (Yet somehow, magically, this comes about through democratic means. But can they vote their way out? Maybe…)
When most people use the term, I suspect that what they actually mean is "social democracy"—a mixed-market system with a massive welfare state. In a synoptic chart of movements of the left, we would have to place democratic socialism (e.g., what Sweden started to try to be in the 1970s, IIUC) to the left of social democracy (what Sweden became in the 1990s).
(That's all stuff I am sure you know, but talking about it helps clarify it for oneself and others reading.)
I find this to be the best description off what we currently have.
Ineptocracy - a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.
I fear—especially after reading Hans-Hermann Hoppe—that EVERY democracy naturally decays into an ineptocracy eventually.
Indeed. That 'god' always does seem to fail.
So why do we keep worshipping it as the be-all and end-all of human governance?
Cult like conditioning from those things we call schools and media propaganda is my guess. And a crippling fear of not having an all powerful 'god' making all the decisions perhaps.
Yes. I think definitely all that, and more!
I would say it begins with the notion that mankind considered it a victory to eliminate monarchy/hereditary rule and replace it with democracy/majority rule. That feeling is a cultural inheritance, felt and shared by many. In some ways, rightly so: hereditary rule had no basis in reality. In reality, no one is born with automatic authority over any other. Thus, by getting rid of monarchy, we did away with a fiction.
That said, I don't think that many people have even begun to wrap their minds around the fact that what we replaced it with—democracy—isn't much better. So the cultural trope—the democracy mystique—marches merrily on. Most people still believe that we have "consented" to this and that we "control" the government because we can vote. It is going to take a long time to break that mystique.
Then we have general statist propaganda, which existed before democracy and continued under it—that the state is the "protector" and without it, all would be chaos. That is 10,000 years of mental programming that we have to overcome. As you say, those things get thoroughly reinforced, in modern form, in schools and media.
And I do think some of it is that crippling fear you mention. Most people do not want to be accountable and responsible for every aspect of their lives. Ayn Rand hits that point really heavily in Atlas Shrugged and elsewhere: this desire that most people have to abdicate thought and transfer responsibility. The state offers that service for people, and then voting and the illusion of consent trick people into thinking that somehow they are in control of their own lives.
I think that sums it up pretty damn good. One thing I think could be added, decades of policies that lead to far too many being financially dependent on the state. Once you get someone looking to you for food, sky's the limit with what will be tolerated. We know what LBJ is alleged to have said about a certain demographic voting Dem for life. And, looks like he was entirely correct.
You touched on the idea of Anarchism. My son spent a few years as a “traveller.” He moved around, homeless, from place to place by jumping on freight train cars. While it was not my first choice for his life, so be it. He told me there were thousands of these kinds of travellers in Canada! (Who knew?) I got to meet some of them when my son blew through town. In conversation with them, I found they were all looking forward to the dismissal of governments etc. They also said that in the readjustments of the “New World Order,” they will all be musicians, leaving the rest of the work to others. To describe the lack of substance in this political worldview, my son also spoke of a season, one winter when he landed in a far city to hunker down and wait for spring, when he shared an apartment with avowed anarchists. His roommates were very politically involved, going to “meetings” all the time. The problem was that, throughout the tenure in this situation, he could NOT ever get the people to wash the dishes. Politics was too important for such mundane time-wasters.
That, to me, is the fundamental flaw in the entire worldview. I write this for any anarchists who may read it. Go do the dishes and make your bed.
Those people may call themselves anarchists, but they are just wastrels who are one bong-hit away from being indistinguishable from Marxism-addled hippies. They use the term without knowing what it means.
Hans-Hermann Hoppe is an anarchist (https://ia804707.us.archive.org/21/items/HoppeDemocracyTheGodThatFailed/Hoppe_Democracy_The_God_That_Failed.pdf). Murray Rothbard, David Friedman, Linda and Morris Tannehill, Michael Malice, and many others are anarchists. The people your son encountered were lazy idealistic children who had imbibed the lies of Marxism but then heard the word "anarchist" and found it pleasing to their desire to differentiate themselves from boilerplate leftism. They are no more anarchists than a toothbrush is a telephone.
Agreed, with a sorrow that is motivational.
I feel you.
I recently spoke with an old friend who described something similar—meeting such people, becoming curious about what they were all about, only to be grossed out when she figured them out. They give actual anarchists a bad name.