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Comment by y80 | Hacker News Reader

Democracy isn't a failure. Capitalism is. Now before you dismiss me, I'm not defending socialist states, they are far far worse than liberal democracies, however liberal democracies are run by money. Politicians are bought and sold, and we see an undemocratic group of very powerful individuals influencing legislation and pushing around politicians and manipulating public opinion. How can we claim to live in a democracy if the people we trust with developing legislation must filter everything they develop through the approval filter of an undemocratic, and unfairly powerful minority?

Fortunately we have options that aren't the failed states of the 20th century, we need a democratic economy and a democratic workforce. Those are the only solutions to this problem, and if you spend enough time looking at the problems and their causes, it becomes readily apparent why this is so.

Democracy is not a failure, if you believe democracy is a failure, you're saying that your ability to control your own life is a failure. The problem is the structure on which modern democracy has been built.

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They're complementary. A sibling thread on this article says that the problem with democracy is that votes based on a gut feeling that doesn't reflect reality count for the same as well-researched votes by experts with a full understanding of the consequences:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12878457

Capitalism solves this problem with bankruptcy & business failure. People whose beliefs are shown to be false lose their businesses and are forced to work for other people whose decisions turned out well. Conversely, capitalism introduces problems with inequality and forced servitude that democracy solves. Democratic government serves as a check on the ability of the economic winners to pull the ladder up after them and use their economic power to impose their will on the people.

This is behind much of the tension between big business vs. big government. You have two power structures (five, actually - the press, the military, and the academy form the other pillars) that work in opposition to each other, each according to different rules. I'd argue that the biggest problem facing America today is that business and government have gotten too cozy with each other while the press and the academy are getting eviscerated, which is letting them manipulate the voter through control of information.

>Capitalism solves this problem with bankruptcy & business failure. People whose beliefs are shown to be false lose their businesses and are forced to work for other people whose decisions turned out well.

And how often does this work in real life?

Too often.

I think it's rather that big business swallowed everything else.

>Democracy is not a failure, if you believe democracy is a failure, you're saying that your ability to control your own life is a failure.

Interesting, I would interpret democracy as the ability for others to control my life; the ability for the majority to gang up on a smaller group and impose laws which benefit the majority in lieu of the minority.

>I would interpret democracy as the ability for others to control my life

Interesting, I'd disagree though. Say you live in a fascist society or a feudalist society, you get absolutely no say. Democracy allows us to make decisions that influence our own life, however we must obviously respect the fact that we live in a society with other people, and they must be respected. Beyond living in a vacuum, we have no real way to ensure absolute individual freedom, however a completely democratic society is one way of reconciling the thirst for individual freedom with the necessity of cooperation with others.

>The ability for the majority to gang up on a smaller group and impose laws which benefit the majority in lieu of the minority.

This is absolutely a valid concern, which is why I believe in a rigid groundset of rules on which all laws and rules must comply (consitutions/bill of rights) which respect the rights and liberties of individuals to ensure they have maximum freedom with respect to other individuals in society. This isn't a groundbreaking idea, but I do believe we need to re-evaluate these approaches in a modern context, as most countries were established in a time before progressivism was dominant.

I've really become more and more for states' rights as time goes on. It's very clear that most states (especially rural states) fundamentally disagree with California, New York, and the other blue strongholds.

I want to preserve the culture I grew up in. I want everyone to contribute to society. I want a culture where what you get is what you worked for. I don't want "diversity" or a bunch of people from other countries to move to the town I grew up in.

Having moved to California from Iowa, I can totally understand how Californians value diversity and equality (not necessarily equal opportunity) above all else. But where I'm from, people value equal opportunity and hard work. It's very hard to see the merit in one culture, being from the other.

In my mind, it would be an absolute travesty to allow the distant majority to vote for the destruction of the culture I grew up in.

>> I don't want "diversity" or a bunch of people from other countries to move to the town I grew up in.

Yet you have moved to California? Can you hear the irony?

>> It's very hard to see the merit in one culture, being from the other.

You don't have. You just have to accept other people think differently and want different things to you.

Yes, I accept that other people think differently than me. But that should not give the right for Californians to overthrow my community and my culture which exists thousands of miles away from California.

> "Having moved to California from Iowa, I can totally understand how Californians value diversity and equality (not necessarily equal opportunity) above all else. But where I'm from, people value equal opportunity and hard work. It's very hard to see the merit in one culture, being from the other."

How is diversity diametrically opposed to equal opportunity and hard work? From what I can see you can have all of the above without any issues.

>I want to preserve the culture I grew up in. I want everyone to contribute to society. I want a culture where what you get is what you worked for. I don't want "diversity" or a bunch of people from other countries to move to the town I grew up in.

>Having moved to California from Iowa, I can totally understand how Californians value diversity and equality (not necessarily equal opportunity) above all else. But where I'm from, people value equal opportunity and hard work. It's very hard to see the merit in one culture, being from the other.

Can you phrase your political philosophy in terms of real proposals rather than thought-terminating cliches? When I hear the term "value" or "values", I reach for my gun.

Significant relaxation of federal power is the only way USA and Europe can be politically stable over the long run, but good luck getting people to let go of the idea of federalism.

How so? The general public in the USA and Europe seem fairly docile, we've had massive political scandals on both side of the Atlantic over the past couple of decades, and the general public barely reacts at all (in any meaningful way at least, in terms of organising resistance).

You don't think the political events of 2016 count?

Consider what might happen if Clinton win and more corruption scandals appear about her, or if Brexit is halted somehow. Things are getting less stable over time.

Bills of rights don't address the problem of the majority voting to define crimes that suit themselves and punish the people who commit them, even if they're not very bad. For example, various drug and sex related laws that keep changing and we can never agree if something should be an important right to be supported or a crime to be punished.

Very true, but if you dig down at the root causes of drug dealing and sex trafficking, you'll see a definite profit motive which drives these systems, that is capitalists which monopolize these trades and continue them for profit. Drug cartels are a perfect example, and basically all organized crime. People who voluntarily participate in these systems (i.e. drug dealers and prostitutes) do so usually out of desperation and the necessity of a capitalist society where poverty means participate in shady pursuits (especially when you're alienated from the work force due to blacklisting like having gone to prison) or go hungry.

I am however not saying that a purely democratic society would eliminate all of societies ills, I'm saying it would make many of the constructs which perpetuate these sorts of problems would become non-viable.

> Interesting, I'd disagree though. Say you live in a fascist society or a feudalist society, you get absolutely no say.

These are hardly the only alternatives. In case you haven't noticed, the other people here aren't implicitly contrasting democracy with e.g. monarchy; they're implicitly contrasting it with anarchy (probably anarcho-capitalism).

Again, there's lots of possibilities out there. Personally I like the idea of futarchy, though it's untried. But that's not the point; the point is, there's a lot of degrees of freeom here.

Anarchy (and some of its branches) value very much the values of democracy, with the added benefits of stressing the search of compromise.

In my opinion, anarcho-capitalism is merely feudalism, with some brainwashing for people to accept their fate. There's a reason some prominent anar-capitalists want to be differenciated from anarchists.

Isn't anarchocapitalism a contradiction in terms? Capitalism is perhaps the most statist of all forms of society. It's development coincided with the birth of the nation state. Markets have been a part of human societies since the birth of agriculturalism, but it was the state that created the large scale market systems required for capitalism to flourish. Historically markets were established in conquered areas to support standing armies. The same story for currency, which is introduced alongside the market as a means of tax payment levied upon the population by the conqueror; the army comes with the currency and the population has to acquire it through market transactions with them. Schooling is another big one, the Karolingian expansion first instated it in Europe and around the time of the industrial revolution there was a clear need of schooling the peasantry into the new market driven systems, unifying disparate dialects, teaching basic arithmetics, making sure they can read instructions and do basic record keeping. It's around that time you see the establishment of new public institutions such as prisons and police for enforcing private property law, expansion of courts for arbitrage, the list goes on. Almost all of the foundations of capitalism were created by state power and coercion.

You're reasoning based on a name. Names are not necessarily accurate descriptions. From what I've read of theirs, it doesn't seem that anarcho-capitalism would support capitalism in the sense you describe.

Remember, "capitalism" is an overloaded term. Sometimes it means what you describe, and sometimes it means the free market. Make sure you know what sense it's being used in in a given context, or you can't have a meaningful discussion! In the case of anarcho-capitalism, it refers to the free market. (But even though that works out in this case, you really should be wary of reasoning based on names.)

>In my opinion, anarcho-capitalism is merely feudalism, with some brainwashing for people to accept their fate. There's a reason some prominent anar-capitalists want to be differenciated from anarchists.

There's also a reason all anarchists want to be differentiated from ancaps ;)

> Interesting, I would interpret democracy as the ability for others to control my life;

Yep, but you have exact same right to control life of others, so things are balanced.

> the ability for the majority to gang up on a smaller group and impose laws which benefit the majority in lieu of the minority.

Constitution and court protects us from abuse, so don't worry about minorities in Constitutional Democracy.

I would interpret the predominant style of capitalism we have in the same way.

Centralisation of power is the issue, it doesn't matter if that centralised power is held by governments or by large corporations, the end result is a tilting of the playing field in favour of those with the most power.

> I would interpret democracy as the ability for others to control my life

That's probably because you're thinking in terms of how things actually are, rather than in terms of vague emotions tacked onto political buzzwords. A classic mistake.

As a friend recently put it: "Late capitalism depends upon the endless differentiation of desire and the mediation of social recognition (upon which men depend, being social animals) through commodified signs, in order for consumption to continue at a rate which will maintain profit. This means, in principle, a bad infinity of 'lifestyles'. 'No two people identify in exactly the same way', to quote a recent trans propaganda piece. And note that I'm talking about actually existing capitalism, not an abstract or even real free market. I'm talking about the system as it actually exists."

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/03/ber...

Why stubbornly claim capitalism is a failure when America is not capitalist? It is not laissez faire capitalism, like Chomsky says, it is a nanny state, where government bails out failed business. That is not capitalism.

Au contraire it's just a matter of what definitions you are working with, and to many of us the US is the penultimate expression of the rule of capital over society -- capital-ism. The rule of capital. The rule of the interests of those who own capital.

Classical liberals and libertarians of course run with a different -- IMHO utopian -- definition of capitalism which puts the emphasis on the act of individuals trading goods with each other. From my perspective it's an ideological smoke screen which papers over the reality of the asymmetrical distribution of power that arises naturally out of the particular 'natural rights' of property that classical liberalism embraces. And they were embraced historically precisely because of that distribution of power -- during an era of expanding colonialism, imperialism, and enclosure.

To put it another way -- the US may not look like a textbook laissez-faire capitalist society that a Friedman, Hayek or Randian would advocate -- but the unjust power structure of the US and societies like it are what actual-existing capitalism _creates_. It is capitalists who rule, and capitalists who made it that way.

Spot on! I believe the other term is 'crony capitalism' and this is too often confused with the natural desire of most of us to be able to freely trade goods and services (including our labor) with other people within an evolving independent legal system (national law & international agreements otherwise known as international law) that disallows criminal and unfair practices.

Democracy is not about having control of your own life. It is about a large group of other people having control over your life.

What you are thinking about would be volunteerism/Non-aggressionism.

> Democracy is not about having control of your own life. It is about a large group of other people having control over your life.

Democracy is about balancing individual freedom with the demands of living in society. There is no other system of decision making which even attempts to reconcile these two adversarial relationships (individual vs. society).

>What you are thinking about would be volunteerism/Non-aggressionism.

I fail to see how you could have an undemocratic voluntary society. I'd argue democracy is the backbone of a voluntary society.

> Democracy is about balancing individual freedom with the demands of living in society.

No it's not. Democracy does not inherently balance individual liberty with societal necessity. In fact, democracy says absolutely nothing about individual liberty or societal necessity at all. Democracy is a form of government that holds regular public elections. It is not anything else. It might be argued that democracy is a necessary condition for liberty, but it is certainly not a sufficient one.

>Democracy is a form of government that holds regular public elections

Democracy is a group of people co-operating in a system through equal representation. This does not require a state apparatus or government.

>It might be argued that democracy is a necessary condition for liberty, but it is certainly not a sufficient one.

Solely sufficient? Absolutely not, that's what I'm saying, but yes it is a necessary condition. It's is the sustinence on which liberty grows.

>It might be argued that democracy is a necessary condition for liberty, but it is certainly not a sufficient one.

I think that's too strong. Some dictatorships have more liberty than some democracies. Democracy increases the odds of liberty immensely, but is neither necessary nor sufficient.

Democracy is voting. It is majority rules.

A voluntary system is basically the opposite. Every who wants to participate in something, can choose to do so. Or choose not too. You don't vote on what should be done, and then force everyone to go along with it.

Majority rules is force. You go along with the decision of the group or else. Whereas voluntaryism is zero force. No matter what the group decides, how many people vote for it, you never ever use force on anyone to make them go along with the group.

Thats fine if you think that using force is necessary for the greater good of making society better.

There are lots of good arguments for why the government threatening people with guns, in order to get them to pay taxes, for example, is needed in order to get anything done at all in society.

But don't dress it up in pretty words and call it "voluntary". Voluntary is the absence of force. It is the idea that no matter what I do, as long as I don't directly harm another people, noone should use force against me.

> we need a democratic economy

Ah, excellent idea. Put the same people who elected Clinton and Trump in charge of the most complicated emergent system in the world. What could go wrong?

> a democratic workforce

"We voted for you to work on this cotton plantation, so get to it! We also have a democratic economy, so you don't need to worry about getting payed anymore!"

> if you believe democracy is a failure, you're saying that your ability to control your own life is a failure.

That's interesting, because last time I checked I didn't control my life via a democracy.

Based on the fact that you're using a very new account, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume this is some sort of incoherent troll bait. If not, this is a strong contender for the dumbest comment I've ever seen on HN; just slap the word "democratic" on random topics and pitch it as an alternative economic system, no further details required.

>Ah, excellent idea. Put the same people who elected Clinton and Trump in charge of the most complicated emergent system in the world. What could go wrong?

The people that placed them on the frontstage already are in charge of it? If you think the people decided on these two I'd say you misunderstand the process by which these two reached the forefront. A very small minority selected Clinton and stacked the odds in her favor for selection, as to the rise of Trump, I'd say that's perfectly representative of the type of misdirected anger that rises out of repeated failings of the system. Remember the individuals Trump was running against? Trumps a protest vote, and a terribly dangerous one at that. Choosing between three different people put on your plate by people you don't trust isn't a failing of democracy, it's a failing of the underlying system.

>"We voted for you to work on this cotton plantation, so get to it! We also have a democratic economy, so you don't need to worry about getting payed anymore!"

You fundamentally misunderstand what I'm saying here. I'm not proposing elected slavery, and truly fail to see how you reached that conclusion. I don't know what part of my pro-democracy comment implied I believe in forced labor, but I'm interested in hearing what process you went through in your mind to reach that point.

>That's interesting, because last time I checked I didn't control my life via a democracy.

I'd say your ability to vote, and decide mutually with other people the form society takes is your life being controlled by democracy.

> You fundamentally misunderstand what I'm saying here. I'm not proposing elected slavery, and truly fail to see how you reached that conclusion. I don't know what part of my pro-democracy comment implied I believe in forced labor, but I'm interested in hearing what process you went through in your mind to reach that point.

This is an unproductive comment. If you say something and you aren't understood, the better response would be to explain.

(I, for one, also have no idea what you might mean by a "democratic economy".)

A democratic economy is one where the workers control it through cooperation across industries, the form this takes is up to the workers in this theoretical system. An anarcho-syndicalist approach may work, a participatory economic approach may work, a socialist market system is possible (mutualism). Unfortunately I can't really explain more without getting into the nitty gritty which requires an understanding of socialism.

>(I, for one, also have no idea what you might mean by a "democratic economy".)

One in which we workers are rid of all absentee bosses and run enterprises ourselves, democratically. Hence "democratic economy".

You understand that you are allowed to create such companies now, and they do exist? They don't appear to work much better, if at all better, than a traditional company. But you're free to join or start one if you think you'll like it better.

So... cooperatives?

Among other things, yes.

Would you care to elaborate on that?

Commons trusts would be another major pillar, and democratic confederations of localities. There are many non-capitalist types of institutions ready to use.

> non-capitalist types of institutions

Common trusts and co-ops are both "capitalist institutions". They both rely on private ownership and voluntary transactions. Not sure what you mean by "democratic confederations of localities".

To be fair, he means "capitalist" in a different sense than you do. If you take what he said but use a different interpretation of the words, of course nonsense will result.

But I do think that despite the above your underlying point is fundamentally correct here; both commons trusts and co-ops work perfectly well under existing rules. It sounds like, aside from the democratic confederations thing, what eli_gottlieb wants is not a different system of rules, but rather to kick the existing system into a different equlibrium. (It really seems like these socialist types tend not to distinguish between these...)

> It sounds like, aside from the democratic confederations thing, what eli_gottlieb wants is not a different system of rules, but rather to kick the existing system into a different equlibrium. (It really seems like these socialist types tend not to distinguish between these...)

Well, I'd love to know where you draw the conceptual boundaries between systems. Lemme guess: it's only not-capitalism when the state controls everything?

So, I'm a little confused here. You're listing individual points of what would be different, and what the overall intended effect would be (democratic control by workers), but I'm not seeing how this all fits together into a coherent system.

> I, for one, also have no idea what you might mean by a "democratic economy".

Co-ops, probably.

> The people that placed them on the frontstage already are in charge of it?

First off, there's no secret cabal of billionaires that's "in charge" of the economy. Let's dispense with the conspiracy theories.

Second, the group of people that has a disproportionate amount of economic influence (i.e. bankers and the extremely wealthy) generally supported Clinton and rallied extremely hard against Trump. I don't blame them; Trump's policies are bad for trade. But let's not pretend that they're both some sort of globalist illuminati puppets or something.

> I'd say that's perfectly representative of the type of misdirected anger that rises out of repeated failings of the system

You mean the sort of misdirected anger and other irrational motivations that would completely dictate the behavior of a "democratic economy"? Don't put your money where your mouth is; put someone else's money where your mouth is, and vote!

> I'm not proposing elected slavery,

Interesting, because that's the only meaningful interpretation of "democratic economy".

> I'd say your ability to vote, and decide mutually with other people the form society takes is your life being controlled by democracy.

Besides this statement being more or less incoherent, it also doesn't have anything to do with your earlier statement that

> if you believe democracy is a failure, you're saying that your ability to control your own life is a failure.

There is no connection between the decisions I make for myself and the decisions imposed on me by the whims of a political majority.

>First off, there's no secret cabal of billionaires that's "in charge" of the economy. Let's dispense with the conspiracy theories.

Not at all what I'm trying to say, I don't think there's a shady room where rich people come to smoke cigars and plan out the election, in fact you actually agree with what I'm saying in the very next sentence:

    "Second, the group of people that has a disproportionate amount of economic influence (i.e. bankers and the extremely wealthy) generally supported Clinton"

>I don't blame them; Trump's policies are bad for trade. But let's not pretend that they're both some sort of globalist illuminati puppets or something.

I agree, which is why I said Trump was a protest vote, a naive attempt at hitting back at the system whilst still completely supporting it. I don't know how you think I'm sitting here talking about illumaniti when you demonstrably agree with me about capitalist influence on the election?

>You mean the sort of misdirected anger and other irrational motivations that would completely dictate the behavior of a "democratic economy"? Don't put your money where your mouth is; put someone else's money where your mouth is, and vote!

I don't think you know enough about a democratic economy to be attacking the idea, evidently since you're still believing that I think a democratic economy can exist in a capitalist system.

>Interesting, because that's the only meaningful interpretation of "democratic economy".

Then I think you're very poor at reasoning, can I suggest "The Conquest of Bread" it's a great book that might help you on your journey to understand what I'm saying.

Can you not type so much. Just define "democratic economy" in 1-2 sentences without using more undefined words (buzzwords).

A worker controlled economy. I don't really know what you consider buzzwords and not.

Undefined: A worker controlled economy.

It's really not definable in 2 sentences, there are so many different forms this can take. In essence it's where rather than a capitalist system of a small minority directing the production based off the market, it's the workers directing the production based off of mutual cooperation across industries (note this doesn't mean no market, there are market socialist economies e.g. mutualism). That's it in very broad strokes but by no means an all encompassing definition, especially as the form this co-operation takes is left out of this discussion, and that is a very big part of it.

> In essence it's where rather than a capitalist system of a small minority directing the production based off the market

False premise. This is simply not true in any way, shape, or form. The bottom 90% of people have drastically more control over production than the top 10%. That's why the single richest company in the world, Apple, is a consumer products company.

> it's the workers directing the production

There's a very obvious conflict of interest there, because the workers aren't the only ones who have things that need to be produced. "You know, Ivan, making bread is really tedious; let's go back to making AK-47s instead." This is why if you go on Ebay and type "soviet surplus", you can still buy crates of Mosin Nagants and Nixie Tubes to this very day.

Planned economies are terrible at producing what needs to be produced, and excellent at overproducing things that don't. Whether you think market economies are impersonal or not, they are undoubtedly extremely efficient at meeting people's needs; no more, no less. Deviating from optimum production levels costs companies money.

Why does anyone (minority/majority) have to control anyone ? Do you any problem with live and let live.

> Politicians are bought and sold, and we see an undemocratic group of very powerful individuals influencing legislation and pushing around politicians and manipulating public opinion.

The problem is not minority. The problem is overreaching government. Keep government specific and small.

But your vindictive like attitude is what makes government overly powerful. Your "union-infested economy" solution is worse than what we are facing.

Can you elaborate on what you mean by " a democratic economy"?

A worker controlled economy. Many different forms this could take, perhaps a syndicalist approach. Not state controlled, no central control.

Sounds like a lot of buzz words. Is there any papers or research you can provide links to to flush out the concept. Or maybe provide some insight yourself. There are millions of workers. How do they control the economy and coordinate? And syndicalist push in Europe and even the US is a proven failure of the idea.

Sure, Anarcho-Sydnicalism is a book by Rudolph Rocker the founder of anarcho syndicalism. For other approaches there's mutualism a market based approach, for that I'd see the works of Proudhon, Participatory Economics. There's also anarcho-communism. Here's some books that flesh out the ideas:

Participatory Economics: https://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~wright/Published%20writing/Alterna...

What is Mutualism? : https://c4ss.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/what-is-mutualis...

Anarcho-Syndicalism https://libcom.org/files/Rocker%20-%20Anarcho-Syndicalism%20...

The Conquest of Bread (Anarcho-Communism): https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-the-c...

Capitalism vs socialist states. Could you define both ? In my experience it's just a sliding scale, either extreme is bad/non-optimal.

A socialist state is one which claims to be a transitional state between capitalism and socialism, i.e. the USSR. They're states which have nationalized most industries in order to prevent capitalists from seizing control until such time the state is no longer necessary and withers away into the establishment of a socialist society (some obvious flaws in this though). A capitalist state is essentially every other modern state, parliamentary democracies,republics etc. all with capitalism as the underlying economic system. Socialism is not state control.

capitalism is a failure because it destroyed earth.

> Now before you dismiss me, I'm not defending socialist states, they are far far worse than liberal democracies

The countries with the highest quality of life are Social Democracies. Places like the nordic countries and the 'new world' anglo countries excluding the US.

It's bizarre just how much the US has demonised the concept of socialism in its political dialogue.

Social democracies are not socialist states, and I 100% agree, there is no way I'd be able to argue against capitalism without prefacing with that statement because everyone would immediately think I propose something like the USSR.

My point is more that it's not an either/or proposition. Social democracies have significant components each of democracy, socialism, and capitalism.

It actually is. Capitalism is defined by the ownership of private property and individuals selling their labor to these owners in the form of a wage/salary, whereas socialism is where private property has been abolished for some form of common ownership. They are mutually exclusive. Social democracies aren't socialist, they're strong welfare in a capitalist system.

So why did the Soviet Union have private housing (and the ability to inherit it)? Why does the modern USA have public lands, managed by the government for the free use of all? How do you classify Chinese communism?

It really isn't an either/or proposition; you're only taking the absolute extremes of the concepts. If it was such a proposition, where does the switch take place? At what point would a nation 'flip' from being 'socialist' to being 'capitalist'?

Respectfully, I must point out that the countries you mention are also among the most homogenous societies on Earth, both ethnically and politically.

So, Australia, despite it's reputation, as of a few years ago, had 28% of it's population born overseas. Remove the brits (6%) and the kiwis (1%), and the figure becomes 21%. Compare to 14% for the US, and 12% for the UK (without any groups removed). The last few years, the #1 source of migrants was China. Australia also has only around the replacement birthrate, and yet has increased it's population from 19M in 1999 to 24M today - a figure mostly risen on the back of migration. I'm 43 years old; the White Australia Policy finished it's 20-year dismantling the year I was born, and so has been dead as a dodo for a while now.

Canada (20% foreign-born) and New Zealand (25% foreign-born) are in similar boats. However, your statement is also pretty offensive to kiwis, of whom 15% are of Maori stock - indeed, the relatively harmonious relations are rightfully a source of pride to the kiwis. Both of these countries also deal in bilingual politics (Australia does not).

I'm less knowledgable on the makeup of the Nordic countries, but it's worth pointing out that only two western democracies have a higher rate of immigration than Australia (excluding the year of Syria crisis migration). These countries are Spain and Norway. As for Sweden (usually the go-to country for these discussions), looking now, and excluding the Syria crisis, 14% of Swedes were of foreign birth, equivalent to the US, and two-thirds of these were born outside the EU. While, yes, Sweden doesn't have the latino or black analogues in their national background like the US does, they're not as culturally homogenous as most people think.

In short, I think you're talking about the stereotypes in your head rather than the actual nations. Handwaving it away with "meh, they're all the same in those countries" is an egregious error - after all, if what you're suggesting was true, then Portugal and Ireland (95%+ local-born, single culture) would be powerhouses.

They were homogeneous for centuries, then non-homogeneous for a few decades. Maybe it takes a few decades for the adverse effects of the non-homogeneity to become apparent.

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