Thread: Democracy and others forms of goverments

Something that is bothering me in last couple of days....
Democracy, which supposed to be open for other people ideas, is objecting to every others forms of goverment- Socialism, Communism, Dictatorship, Theocracy and many more.
This way of view, led us to many wars like the Cold War and Iraq War(Saddam era)
of course that some forms of goverment are not good for the people, but other ideologies like Communism are not bad from their foundations- it's their ruler(Stalin, for example) which made them so.

So... why Democracy does not accept other forms of goverment?


edit: just fount out that there is a politics forum.... this topic should be there?

Just as a point of clarification, Impactor... We in the US do not live in a democracy. We live in what is known as a Constitutional Republic.

One of the benefits of this setup... being a republic... is that we can live in a society with mixed governance... some parts democratic and other parts socialistic. None of these systems tend to be very successful on their own. They rely on ideals and human nature hardly ever allows systems to realize ideal states.

However, when you mix good ideas from differing ideologies and political philosophies in an eclectic manner, you get a system that performs really quite well.


In short, I'm not too sure I can accept your premise because 1) we are not a true democracy, and 2) we do accept other forms of governance depending on the issue being discussed.

These are just some thoughts of my own. Others may choose to disagree. Enjoy.

How exactly should a democracy become compatible with dictatorship...

We need to clarify some terms here... Democracy is a form of government, which is usually tied in with constitutional forms of states.

Canada is a constitutional monarchy, just as the United States is a constitutional republic, and both of these are representative democracies. We should not confuse the nature of the state with the nature of the government.

Now you have political ideologies: conservatism, reform liberalism, classical liberalism, neoliberalism, social conservatism, socialism, fascism. Different political ideologies tend to be more compatible with different forms of government. Fascism and communism lend themselves better to dictatorships than liberalism. Liberalism and modern conservatism advocate minimal state power, at least in the private lives of individuals, so they are much more compatible with democracy.

Communism is a form of government not an ideology, the governing ideology of communism are Marxism, Marxist-Leninism, Maoism which are extreme forms of socialism... It is an extreme form of socialism that was first theorized by Marx and Engels. Communism is the idealized point where the state no longer exists and all people are fully equal, Marx said that this would be achieved after a people's revolution and a transitional period of socialism. Marxist-Leninist communism is slightly different because it advocates revolution from above and state directed movement towards communism. Of course the Soviet Union never moved out of that "transitional" socialist government. Marxist-Leninism lends itself much better to dictatorships.

Socialism is perfectly compatible with democracy. As can be seen in the existence of social democrat parties found in Canada (NDP), the UK (Labour), and many other European governments. In fact, it is the dominating political ideology in Sweden.

Socialism in democracy tends to take the path of the "Third-Way", socialism directed at creating social capital (i.e. spending on children), or of democratic socialism. Most modern socialist don't want to see the full transition to the communist state, and just want to make regulations to the economy and improve general welfare.

As to theocracy, there can be theocratic democracies, but I would argue that by nature these are not universal franchised democracies, and most theocracies are just forms of dictatorships. Most constitutional states contain conventions or explicit restrictions against theocracy. Although, technically the head of the Anglican Church is also the head of state of Canada, the head of state has no constitutional power in Canada and secular law rules by convention.

First of all, in the true sence there are no big democracies in the world. Just because you have elections doesn't mean you have democracy. Democracy is essentially where everyone in society votes on the decisions of government, which is not what the US, NZ or most any other western country I can think of does. We do have refferendums and petitions which are relics of democracy.

By 'democracies' I assume you actually mean the western world. The western world objects to those other 'forms of government' because they're all just authoritarian governments, which if you don't understand whats wrong with that then I really don't know what to say.

"Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." - Winston churchhill

We strive for fair and free government and as Winston said, although democracy is wrought with problems it has been proven by the test of time to be the best form of government.

Hostility from the west towards non-democractic governments is for the most part not ideologically based, ie the west doesn't oposed the chinese government because they aren't democractic, what form of government a country has is relatively unimportant. The west's hostility towards China and other non-democractic countries is mostly due to said countries corruption and human rights abuse; and also in response to hostility from those governments towards us. This is further exemplified in the way that China, although a long way from a responsible and fair government has improved its behaviour significantly since China's reforms and oppening up in the 1980s and consequently the west now has a respectful relationship with China as where pre-1980s where were constantly seconds from war.

Exemplifying this is the way the west is relatively peaceful towards effectively non-democractic countries that are relatively free of corruption and human rights abuse, such as singapore. Singapore is a long shot from being 'democratic' (seing as every election since the countries formation has been won by the same party) but for the most part the people of singapore are free and the government is fair to its people, altough not perfect. The same can be said about south africa (similar situation to SG) and Hong Kong. These countries are arguably not democractic (and in the case of HK, deffinately not seeing as its govt isn't elected at all) but are easily far from being 'problem countries' and atract little hostility from the international community.

The reason democracy is the most common form of 'fair' government is because democracy provides effective checks and ballances against the government, making them accountable to the people. This is the core of contempory western democracy, government that isn't ruled by the people but accountable to the people.

I'd also like to note that democracy isn't uncompatible with those other ideologies, and rather 'democracy' isn't an ideology so much as a platform for government to form on. Most modern democracies are made up of parties who each allign with those different ideologies, such as in my own country our two main political parties align themselves with socialistic and the other captialistic ideologies.

Also the peak of the conflict between the USSR/China and NATO, particularly under ronald raegan, was never an ideological conflict between democracy and communism but if anything communism and capitalism (but again, for many countries it had nothing to do with ideologies at all).

Originally Posted by Impactor

Something that is bothering me in last couple of days....
Democracy, which supposed to be open for other people ideas, is objecting to every others forms of goverment- Socialism, Communism, Dictatorship, Theocracy and many more.
This way of view, led us to many wars like the Cold War and Iraq War(Saddam era)
of course that some forms of goverment are not good for the people, but other ideologies like Communism are not bad from their foundations- it's their ruler(Stalin, for example) which made them so.

So... why Democracy does not accept other forms of goverment?


edit: just fount out that there is a politics forum.... this topic should be there?

The central tenet of democratic ideology is "Rule by the consent of the governed." It's the belief that no one person, or small group of people, has the right to violate the will of a larger group of people.

Without regular elections, there is no way to be certain that the people are in consent to their government being in charge of them. For all we know, maybe they are tired of that government and want to be rid of it. The only way to prove that their will is not being violated is to let them vote freely, and see what they decide.

Communism, Dictatorship, and Theocracy are all fine as long as the people are allowed to vote every few years about whether they want to keep that system of government ruling over them. At the very least, the government has to be "popular", in the sense that it is well liked by the people who live under it.

Thank you all guys, I think I understand much better now.

Originally Posted by Chenzah

First of all, in the true sence there are no big democracies in the world. Just because you have elections doesn't mean you have democracy. Democracy is essentially where everyone in society votes on the decisions of government, which is not what the US, NZ or most any other western country I can think of does. We do have refferendums and petitions which are relics of democracy.

Representative democracies are still democracies. There are no state level direct democracies, but this isn't bad. Democracy means power of the people, any government that rules by virtue of authority from popular support is a democracy. It has nothing to do with how decisions are made, whether by elected official or directly.

You are completely wrong to think that the (so-called) democracy is opposed to dictatorship, that is just part of the propaganda they feed you and not a part of reality.

The US/UK is against democracies that do not show fealty and favors dictatorship so long as they remain pro-WallStreet/London corporate puppets, should they choose to cut too many ties with their previous pupeteers then the exact same dictator that was called a President would now be called a "Dictator" while a "King" would be rebranded a "Despotic Monarch" etc

The US was against democracy in Chile under Allende and supported the coup d'etat and the Pinochet Dictatorship.
The US/UK was against democracy of Iran in the 50s orchestrated the terrorism and coup d'etat that put the Shah Dictatorship in place and even trained Savak in the fine art of torture.

Saddam was a wholesome "President" even if he did gas the Kurds with chemical weapons provided by the west, but he becomes too independant and now the exact same dictator is now an evil "dictator" (you couldnt make it up). The Media go apeshlt over alledged election irregularity (even though a US-based poll had given Amadinejad a 2 to 1 lead weeks prior) in Iran, but no one gives a rats a$s about Saudi Arabia not having any election (plus beheadings, stringent islamic laws, etc).

The double standards, dog-that-didnt-bark clues, and hypocrisy are so blatant i almost understand what Orwell meant by double think.

I recommend The War On Democracy by John Pilger
as one of many alternative points on view on theses issues

I was speaking in terms of domestic politics.

Even so, if you look at the overall statistical picture the amount of wars between democracies is near nothing. You get occasional small scale conflicts and of course anyone who is familiar with a Realist philosophy of international politics would tell you that states always act in their self-interest and it has nothing to do with the form of government. Historically though, democracies are much less antagonistic to each other.

I don't really buy into the Democratic Peace Theory though.

Originally Posted by i_feel_tiredsleepy

Originally Posted by Chenzah

First of all, in the true sence there are no big democracies in the world. Just because you have elections doesn't mean you have democracy. Democracy is essentially where everyone in society votes on the decisions of government, which is not what the US, NZ or most any other western country I can think of does. We do have refferendums and petitions which are relics of democracy.

Representative democracies are still democracies. There are no state level direct democracies, but this isn't bad. Democracy means power of the people, any government that rules by virtue of authority from popular support is a democracy. It has nothing to do with how decisions are made, whether by elected official or directly.

You've got me backwards. My point is that representative democracies are the only true form of democracy. First past the post democracies are undemocratic in that if you have 3 candidates, one gets 34% and the other two get 33% each only that first 34% is having their voice heard and the other 66% of the population of that electorate are being unrepresented. That's not terribly democratic.

If people are unhappy with "first past the post", then there should be a procedure to change the voting rules. No matter what the voting rules are, there will always be some unhappy people. In any case in a democracy the rules are subject to popular approval.

Originally Posted by Chenzah

Originally Posted by i_feel_tiredsleepy

Originally Posted by Chenzah

First of all, in the true sence there are no big democracies in the world. Just because you have elections doesn't mean you have democracy. Democracy is essentially where everyone in society votes on the decisions of government, which is not what the US, NZ or most any other western country I can think of does. We do have refferendums and petitions which are relics of democracy.

Representative democracies are still democracies. There are no state level direct democracies, but this isn't bad. Democracy means power of the people, any government that rules by virtue of authority from popular support is a democracy. It has nothing to do with how decisions are made, whether by elected official or directly.

You've got me backwards. My point is that representative democracies are the only true form of democracy. First past the post democracies are undemocratic in that if you have 3 candidates, one gets 34% and the other two get 33% each only that first 34% is having their voice heard and the other 66% of the population of that electorate are being unrepresented. That's not terribly democratic.

It's completely democratic, the power is derived from the people regardless. It is just derived in a different way from a proportional representative democracy instead of a pluralistic representative democracy. Trust me, proportionality has its own flaws, in a proportional system it is near impossible for any party to gain a majority. This results in coalitions where the positions of some parties must inevitably be compromised. So, of course the government that forms is never representative of what people voted for. They're also incredibly bureaucratic and inefficient.

Originally Posted by icewendigo

You are completely wrong to think that the (so-called) democracy is opposed to dictatorship, that is just part of the propaganda they feed you and not a part of reality.

The US/UK is against democracies that do not show fealty and favors dictatorship so long as they remain pro-WallStreet/London corporate puppets, should they choose to cut too many ties with their previous pupeteers then the exact same dictator that was called a President would now be called a "Dictator" while a "King" would be rebranded a "Despotic Monarch" etc

Well, there's a difference between how the leaders of a democracy approach dictatorships and how the people feel about dictatorships. As long as the people are too ignorant to do any of their own research or study, (Most Americans can't name the capital city of even half the foreign countries out there.) then they won't even be aware when a war has been declared on a democratic power, but their government will remind them every day just how un-democratic Sadaam was.

Selective awareness is a wonderful blessing to any corrupt government. You can make any war look beautiful if you just point at its beautiful parts.

So please do not talk about communism here . I totally got stuck in communism here in China. We are forced to learn Marxism ,no one told us why, we are obliged to write something just describing the bright future of communism.
But the fact is . In China's political world , no one has a voice in the national congress except the ones with rich or powerful ancestors. Can you imagine a elite college students with highest qualifications in all aspects get refused a credit card by ALL banks. We are 20+ years old ,we are expelled from social mainstream. Just because all the students with a total number of more than 3000000 do not have slightly one delegate in the congress.