/lit/ - Literature

Hence, my question stems from a few observations about how we discuss voting, including:

The idea that people can vote 'incorrectly' (or, against their interests) either by being tricked, misconceiving their interests, or otherwise.
The idea that people can vote 'charitably' (or, intentionally against their interests), either because they're economically well off enough to be able to insulate themselves against any redistribution, or because they prioritise some other thing over their total advancement.

And some more general assumptions, including:

It's bad when people are coerced into making a certain decision and;
People who are economically or socially excluded from society are typically the worst victims to a totalising kind of coercision that not only limits their capacity to engage in politics in the limited sense of voting, etc, but also in the broader sense of being considered a worthy subject for governance (someone who is campaigned to, someone whose interests are considered important w/r/t legislating).

What this isn't is a specific response to various degenerate features of our democracy, which is to say:

I'm not discussing specific instances of disenfranchisement or coercion, I take it as obvious that things like voter suppression, misleading advertisements, bad faith op eds, etc, are clear barriers to democacy in its ideal form.
Instead, what I'm asking is whether democracy, in that ideal, is actually compatible with inequality or whether that kind of economic/social inequality means that there is always one correct candidate for each individual to vote for and that candidate, for the majority of people, is the one who most rigorously redistributes wealth to the greatest number.

I think towards the end we reach a point of overstating our conclusion, I think it makes sense to start and try and sketch out a more humble space in which we can do some work.

>>11004638
I want to suggest the following:

In any election there is a candidate who best represents a voter's immediate economic interests. All rational people should vote for the person who best represents those interests.
If such a candidate doesn't exist, it is only because the range of discourse is so narrow as to preclude that candidate from even running. (This applies to both the poorest of the poor, who would benefit from the most radical redistribution of materials; as well as the worst masters of capital, who would do well in a Libertarian hellscape).
That, given complete knowledge, it would be irrational for anyone to vote against their own interests, unless they are of sufficient means to protect those interests without the assistance of government.
That such complete knowledge, far from being a philosopher's theoretical apparatus, actually can exist within an election cycle: in general, there are always going to be policies that benefit those worse off (redistribution, nationalising, subsidies) and there are always going to be policies that benefit everyone (hospitals, schools, universities/training).
(Within that: A person's failure to learn which candidate best represents those interests, or to demand that candidate, is not their fault, but the product of crony politicians, misinformation, or the simple fact that it's a bit annoying to spend your nights and weekends educating yourself when you work exceptional hours for barely anything).

So how do we leap from those premises to this question to democracy in general. Essentially, democracy implies the exisence of choice, but such a free choice and only exist among unbaggaged equals.

Thoughts?

>>11004637
What are you, some faggot on NPR? The people you list exist in excellent first world standards by and large, that would only be improved by an unworkable socialist utopia which would collapse the state under the weight of massive entitlements. Your suggestion that Brexit and Trump are "regrettable" shows you to be spooked to the max. I dont even like Trump, but I sure am glad that a populist counterweight exists to the typical Republican hypocrisy and Democratic Hand-wringing. And to assume British voters went against their own interest in washing their hands of the EU is shit tier. Also your use of the paragraph shows you are truly on a journey from Reddit. Fuck the welfare state desu, . People choose their own interests, and its not for you judging what is best for them. DESU, you would probably be happy with China.

>voter suppression, misleading advertisements, bad faith op eds, etc, are clear barriers to democacy in its ideal form

You are an idiot. From demagogues to pamphleteers, democracy is always about convincing.

>>11004673
But is convincing the same as lying to? Would you say someone 'convinced' into signing a phony contract has done so of their own volition?

Democracy as it existed with the Greeks presumed a lot: a relatively homogenous population (in terms of education), the time to engage directly in the political process, and all the geopolitical advantages that come from being a dominant empire.

My question, when would you think someone's vote was illegitimate?

(I appreciate the response totally I want to discuss this so I can improve on it).

Democracy is supposed to act as a release valve so that if you are mad at the person in power you can just vote them out. In a place where this is not possible, the only option is bloody revolution.

Of course democracy is a sham. We live under a plutocracy. There is no major difference between the republicans or democratic party besides a few cultural wedge issues that dont harm capital.

If there is one thing you learn from the obama presidency.

it doesnt matter what color, gender, or party the president is because they all serve the same plutocratic and bourgeois interests and only seek to preserve that status quo by being a managerial neoliberal.

Of course that doesn't apply to countries like Switzerland right? There are plenty of examples of places that perform adequately with socialist-infused democracy.

>>11004673
They are scared. Its why everyone who isnt a status quo neo moron should love trump. The proles voteed him in, not because he will change anything, but because it makes them mad. It makes them mad that he doesnt have the same bourgeoisie manners while drone striking browns in the mid east.

These people cant comprehend that the youth, but right and left wing are fucking tired of neoliberal and neocon shit. And they know there is a revolt coming. And a revolt that has happend. But they want to blame it on russian hackers.

>>11004694
No one's vote is illegitimate as long as they make it in good faith.

>>11004700
This, culture war issues are irrelevant when you look at the highly static domestic and spending policies.

>>11004715
Why dont you read about the swiss involvement in the panama papers and get back to me. The swiss live a wonderful little life because their main industry is basically a global wall street.

>>11004637
democracy CREATES inequality, dum dum.

by definition the majority passes laws that serve them best. this creates a disenfranchised minority.

/thread

>>11004739
But the majority of people in America, for example, are the working class and below. Surely they could vote 'better' so to speak and improve their conditions?

>>11004727
Does that really align with the way our society is organised in other facets?

Again, to use the legal example, signing a coercive contract in good faith doesn't mitigate the wrongful elements of the contract.

Surely someone's vote ought to be evaluated by whether it would be the decision they would make given all the information?

>>11004637
This is democracy's dilemma: Do you a) allow people to freely vote for whichever candidate or laws they want even without knowing the first thing about them, causing sensationalistic and irrational people to gain power or b) tyrannically coerce people into choosing the 'right' candidate or laws and take away their freedoms?

>>11004876
>Surely they could vote 'better' so to speak and improve their conditions?
what would that require? How can their conditions be improved?

>>11005065
- Make voting compulsory.
- Ban campaigning.
- Provide blind issues-based campaign material to all households allowing people to evaluate the issues as opposed to anything else.

Alternatively, a Swiss canton-style direct democracy system is effective too.

>>11004965
I think this is a false dichotomy, I'm not speaking of a coercive power forcing someone to vote X way, I'm simply asking who a person would vote for with complete knowledge. I tend to think people with the time and the inclination; or people or who put thought into voting, tend to vote more in line with their interests than those who don't.

>>11005361
what should people be voting on, what should their interests be? What are some examples of what the lower and middle classes could and should vote on to improve their life?

>>11005437
I always just answer "their immediate economic betterment" because that allows the freedom to pursue whatever course of life those people may want.

I think plenty of meaningful objections could be raised to that, and my response is: so long as economic circumstance dictates all other quality of life outcomes (health, education, access to cultural expression, security, etc) then that should be ones priority when voting.

Another objection concerns immediacy (especially in light of short to medium term economic betterment at the cost of one's children) but we then might respond that the election cycle is short enough for people to continually adjust that line on the horizon and avoid such errors.

>>11005768
what could they politically do, what are some examples, of political propositions that could result in their economic betterment? How can they be economically bettered via politics?

>>11005768
>so long as economic circumstance dictates all other quality of life outcomes
They don't, except for a tiny percentage of the population.

>>11004637
1. You're talking about a democratic republic, not democracy.
2. True Democracy should always lead to inequality because the majority dictates policy.
3. Meritocracy is the answer.

>>11004637
>>>/pol/

>>11004876
>But the majority of people in America, for example, are the working class and below. Surely they could vote 'better' so to speak and improve their conditions?

>dividing America by class lines, or assuming voters would or indeed should divide themselves this way
you're not gonna make it. majority rule still disenfranchises the minority. even if it is the bloodsucking scum of the earth bankers and 1%, they would be at the mercy of "democratic" "wealth redistribution"

bump

>>11006146
A grounding premise is that that minority have some capacity to insulate themselves from politics though. They're financially capable of their own protection and even aggressive redistribution (say,60 percent of earnings over 500,000) leaves them fully capable to maintain an excellent standard.

>>11005816
Support candidates who:
- support UBI
- nationalise key transport and health infrastructure
- prioritise equitable access to homes by penalising rent seeking behaviour by slumlords
- provide retraining to victims of offshoring
Along with standard Nordic Socialist ideas: free education, swf, etc.

>>11004637
read some K-L

>>11008726
But also I would add: there's room for conscience here, there's room for trying and adjusting. In a system of blind voting people get to test their ideology with their vote, they try X policy and then get to genuinely examine whether they're better off; in which case, failing that, they can then opt to Y policy.

>>11008740
Who?

Poor people don't deserve rights, they are abject failures in society who have no ability of their own and do not deserve to make choices to effect those above them. Democracy is a lie anyway, so doesn't really matter, but those that wish to elevate people incompatible with actually being able to live a successful life to the resources of the better must realise that they are creating a system of dependancy which will ultimately ruin everyone.

>>11004641
You're completely wrong because you assume one single correct decision based on something on a large scale. Depending on your perspective people can vote for things that have immediate negative outcomes on their person but better effects for a whole. What you get when people vote in their financial self interest is a society where everyone screams at one another that they need more money and expect those they elect to take it from other people. Counter productive if you want people to actually become successful and not remain in poverty

Democracy should not exist as giving ill informed idiots the same power as someone more informed is just a recipe for disaster

>>11008779
Read The Right to be Lazy, people don't have any obligation to take part in the race, their status as humans should be sufficient for their basic needs to be cared for.

>>11008779

>>11004637
Is reality compatible with equality?

>>11008801
People have no obligation to take part in the race is correct, but they need to be responsible for their own lives and create that lifestyle. The right to be lazy and have other people fund your life simply because you happen to exist is ridiculous. And making that decision that all people are liable to others simply for existing is a notion of ignorance

>>11008801
Food water and shelter is all people need, so if they want access to technology and heat they can fund that themselves

>>11008767
Kuehnelt-Leddihn

read Leftism: revisited, The Menace of the Herd, and Liberty or Equality

I suggest the first one first; it's really good

>>11008841
Okay well, firstly: that isn't provided under the status quo and secondly, the idea that "technology and heat" are some unique benefit from wage slaving is I think a bad faith argument.

Can you justify why people who are ambitious (a disposition) should have more benefits that those who aren't?

Democracy isn't compatible with anything because it's the idea that two fools deserve more say than one wise man. It's wrong.

>>11008876
In a sense I don't have to, you're advocating for people to receive goods and services for no other reason then existing, you have to prove why it should be the case that people inheritely deserve it for no contribution
People receive more benefits for being active and intelligent as they are able to benefit from their skills and make mutually beneficial agreements with other people, people who do no such thing an espouse that they deserve benefits not earned are ridiculous as all things in life will always be give and take. Wage slaving is not the only means of existence in modern society and plenty of people are able to ply unique skills and ideas to receive compensation that people are willing to pay for such services, they exist to fill the blanks of people desires and profit from it from being intelligent. Reducing all people to the same level regardless of greater ability will only lead to a society that will fail

>>11008876
A person who sits at camp and provides no contribution does not deserve the benefit of the fruit or meat harvested by the active (a disposition) person

>>11008915
>>11008928
neets btfo?

>>11008950
Neets are eternally btfo they exist only on mummy and daddy's money and once they die will stop existing, besides they breed themselves out of the gene pool by being incels so their genetic disposition to laziness will be gone eventually

>>11008928
But that's a simplification: people have different capacities and dispositions, which are not necessarily met in a given time.

To take your example of a hunter-gatherer, there are plenty of brick-necked, no-future, meat-headed thugs that have no hope of getting employment beyond bouncing or some kind of labouring (steadily replaced by machines) who, if they had been born a millenia ago, would have been the undisputed heads of their communities. They had a time and a place and this is not theirs.

(I'm sure the neets will have their time too lol, just not until sexbots are a thing...)

Today, certain sorts of jobs exist (and there are huge shortages of them the world over: youth unemployment in Italy sits around 35%, that's not because they're lazy) and those benefit people who are aspirational, who enjoy repetitive labour, etc, etc, but why should Person Y, who is out of their time, or just doesn't want to take part in that, be punished when they have no capacity to change their nature?

>>11008846
Thank you I really appreciate any reading, I've taken a year to just travel and further my study before returning to do my thesis so anything helps.

>>11009081
A person isn't punished, they just don't receive a benefit as they have not put any input in. Society is a by product of the rat race, just as cities are formed around economic hubs. You can't say I want to work in an office and live in the middle of nowhere, if you want x conditions you need to go where x conditions are. If you don't want to participate in the rat race, then move somewhere outside of society. The problem is entitlement believing that you should be allowed to enjoy the fruits of other people's labour for no input. It's like saying I deserve to live in a city, and other people should pay for my rent because why should people who work hard and earn money receive the benefit of living in a city? If you can't afford a certain lifestyle it's not inhumane for it not to be presented to you, implying that you deserve equality with those who work for what they get on the simple basis of existing is absolutely ridiculous. Here's a perfect example, you talk about bouncing, in Australia it takes 2 weeks to get security training and then a couple more weeks for the license to come through. You can then earn 60k a year just standing around. Go stand around for the hours you want per week, and then enjoy the rest of the time at home with the money you earn. The point is you will always receive benefits for efforts you put in, and asking anyone else to give you those benefits for nothing is obviously illogical, the only people who would assume it is righteous to do so are those who the input they give would be minimal (millionaire celebrities) and people who aren't providing the benefits out of their pockets

>>11009122
Should people be punished then for basing their decisions around those economic hubs? I.E. if someone moves out to Karratha in WA to work in the mines and then that work dries up, should it be on them to relocate themselves or should they be given some kind of subsidy to ease their transition?

All I'm arguing is that all these decisions about work are effectively contingent on factors well outside of individuals control. We say it's easy to find a job, a lot of people find it quite hard. Some people also really /like/ working, that's the nexus of meaning for them, shouldn't we find a way to liberate them from the people who just want to show up and slack off?

(Basically: full automation now, see Williams/Srnicek, Inventing The Future).

>>11009149
People are denying themselves facts of the world if they assume something like working in a mine will be a long term job, if they sign a contract under certain conditions which they agree to they will be paid redundency (I am not sure how it would work for the mines so I can't really comment on that particular example) there will always be positives and negatives to every decision made, it is simply up to people to weigh them up and take responsibility for their decisions if said job dries up.
The factors outside if their control are still decided inside the form of whatever industry or institution they base their life around. A teacher for instance will always have a certain lifestyle and stability, if you wanted a life like that then there is thatop otion for you, and there are multitudes of jobs out there for people. The issue with people being unable to find jobs is that the people telling youths their futures are disconnected from the actual job market, it is quite possible to do something like a Certificate IV in government security and do security Vetting which is not hard, and easy to obtain. Once again it's about making correct decisions and seeing good opportunities, unfortunately it weakly doesn't matter how much aid you give people if they cannot handle stuff like choosing good skills and deciding on an industry to work in it will not matter how much money you throw at them to transition into something better, teach a man to fish and all. For those people who don't want to wage slave there is creative opportunities, for those who lack the capacity for creativity there is manual labour opportunities, there is opportunities abound.

>>11009179
>A teacher for instance will always have a certain lifestyle and stability

People said that about taxis ten years ago. Jobs are more precarious than ever, there is constant market disruption, even teachers are finding that in Australia with the massive expansion of the external tutoring industry.

>Once again it's about making correct decisions and seeing good opportunities,

Which ties back to the original point re: the capacity to 'vote correctly' or see opportunities 'correctly', which we have established is undermined by the degenerate nature of the political process.

>>11009184
Okay so if teaching jobs in Australia are not meeting a person's standards, they have the ability to go somewhere else for a better opportunity. My father is a teacher and left Australia to go work in Singapore and Australia, and makes twice the money he made here for a better lifestyle in his eyes. If you want to compare it to that of a miner having to relocate, or to say people shouldn't be expected to move, you are right, but if they don't want to move they must accept the fact that what they are doing where they are is only valuable to whatever they are being paid. To not accept that is to want to force your will onto the world and hope everyone else bows to you so that you can receive what you want.
I don't believe in democracy because how can anyone make a logical choice about anything when two retards will say to the third you owe us 2/3 of your money to be fair. Democracies are incompatible with a fair society, take it as you will

>>11009086
of course! :)

>>11009201
Settle a bet. What's your favourite novel?

>>11004638
>>11004641
>>11004637
>heh you stupid apes I know whats in your best interest
>Its very REGRETTABLE if you don't vote how I want you to(the CORRECT way)
>I take it as obvious that people voting for things I don't agree with is a barrier to real democracy
>economy economy economy money money money is all that matters
fuck off r*ddit

>>11009308
What do you think matters instead?
Also I've said there are plenty non-earnings based things people ought support: universal healthcare, access to university/vocational training, rent control. None of these are controversial unless you're a robber baron/slumlord. The only reason they're politically unpopular is due to scaremongering.

>>11009179
>It's possible to have a stable lifestyle, for example as a teacher
>>11009201
>Here's a personal anecdote about teaching not giving a stable lifestyle

Why would you give teacher as an example of stable employment when your father had to move overseas to find good work as a teacher?

I think Gore Vidal summed it up well when he suggested no matter who you vote for they're both just Aspirin.

The fact is, democracy is a flawed system that doesn't really work that well, but it's also one of the consistently better systems we have. In theory, socialism might work, but it hasn't in reality. In theory, a dictatorship might work, but there's only really been one successful dictator state (Singapore). So democracy is kind of the best we can get at the moment.

Given how much technology has changed the landscape I'd like to see more direct democracy, it would be so easy to have every citizen vote in the issues they actually care about directly and remove the concept and unnecessary bureaucracy of local MPs and the like, and instead just have longer term serving senators who might prepare and present or oversee bills but who ultimately serve an administrative purpose rather then a lawmaking or representative purpose. I don't know. There's a lot we could do that would make democracy more real and engaging and equitable, and perhaps it could elicit actual change for the better. Instead we just have a terrible system of voting for rich people who don't give a shit about the rest of us and regularly show they don't care by enacting out of touch laws that better the lives of the wealthy and do little to help the rest of us.

>>11009839
>I'd like to see more direct democracy, it would be so easy to have every citizen vote in the issues they actually care about directly and remove the concept and unnecessary bureaucracy of local MPs
this is retarded, people change opinions like they change underwear

>>11004637
Without inequality there would be no need for formal democracy. Democracy allows for pluralism, regulated markets allow for competition, which is an inevitable consequence of having a pluraity of interestes - some are bound to clash - to be made socially useful.

Democracy should be reserved for special purposes and only be implemented on a communal level.
It's really not necessary and actually plain fucking stupid to use democracy for many of the things it is used for.

>>11004641
>In any election there is a candidate who best represents a voter's immediate economic interests. All rational people should vote for the person who best represents those interests.
>economic interests are the sole reason driving people's existence and choices
This is an extreme oversimplification; people do not work like "rational agents" from an economics textbook, nor should they, lest they cease to be human. I recommend you to read Notes from Underground, in the first part of the book there are great passages about socialism, economic interests and the freedom of will.

>>11004637

Obviously not. The entire purpose for the creation of Democracy was to counter the political weight the nobles in ancient Athens had.