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Comment by repomies691 | Hacker News Reader

> Compared to ruling by force, yes, democracy is inherently good for the people

I don't understand why people here see democratic system as a replacement for ruling by a force. Democratic countries also rule by force in the end. Democratic countries also need polices, guns, armies, prisons, tax inspectors, prosecutors etc. Those same institutions are also the tools for dictatorships, they are just governed in a different way.

(I also think democracy is good, but however in the end both democracies and dictatorships rely on violence to be effective. I think that's quite basic lesson on how society works.)

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The relevant word isn’t “force” it’s “consent”.

All forms of government to some extent or another have to maintain a monopoly on legal violence and use force.

The distinction with democracy is that the government secures and maintains the consent of those being governed.

There are plenty of people who don't consent on a daily basis. The actions range from peaceful protests to traitorous acts. How does a democracy deal with them? Force.

So? It's still force in alignment with the majority. That is better than force in alignment with one central power that may or may not have public interest.

Also much of the consent is, as Chomsky would put it, manufactured.

Don't invoke Chomsky for this nonsense.

> What has been created by this half century of massive corporate propaganda is what's called "anti-politics". So that anything that goes wrong, you blame the government. Well okay, there's plenty to blame the government about, but the government is the one institution that people can change... the one institution that you can affect without institutional change. That's exactly why all the anger and fear has been directed at the government. The government has a defect - it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect - they're pure tyrannies. So therefore you want to keep corporations invisible, and focus all anger on the government. So if you don't like something, you know, your wages are going down, you blame the government. Not blame the guys in the Fortune 500, because you don't read the Fortune 500. You just read what they tell you in the newspapers... so you don't read about the dazzling profits and the stupendous dizz, and the wages going down and so on, all you know is that the bad government is doing something, so let's get mad at the government.

-- Noam Chomsky

I'll invoke him if he's relevant.

It is possible for both the government and the private sector to be corrupted, especially if the latter exerts corrupting pressure on the former.

> I'll invoke him if he's relevant.

No, you're trying to speak for him. Consent to, say, physical assault being illegal, is a whole different ball game than manufactured consent to the Vietnam War, and all that is entailed in this wishy-washy stuff about "consent" in this context. Not to mention "democracy reacting by force to protest" -- as opposed to what, exactly? Non-democracies? Companies? People clicking buttons on HN? Nobody bothers to say, making it all an exercise in throwing shade at the one means of self-defense we have left.

> The neoliberal era of the last generation is dedicated, in principle, to destroying the only means we have to defend ourselves from destruction. It's not called that, what it's called is shifting decision-making from public institutions, which at least in principle are under public influence, to private institutions which are immune from public control, in principle. That's called "shifting to the market", it's under the rhetoric of freedom, but it just means servitude. It means servitude to unaccountable private institutions.

-- Noam Chomsky

> It is possible for both the government and the private sector to be corrupted

Obviously, but the private sector isn't "corrupt" when it's a tyranny, that's the best it can hope to be. The government is responsibility of the citizens in a democracy, not something purely external they get to just complain about.

Get off your high horse. Chomsky speaks for himself. We interpret his words differently.

I still don't see the obvious difference between consenting to "typical" law enforcement (read: "physical assault being illegal") and consenting to imperialistic wars all over the globe. In both cases the government employs its monopoly on legal violence and is empowered to do so by our consent.

Of course the distinction between reasonable law enforcement and horrible wars of aggression is obvious, but when the exact same mechanism used to manufacture consent for the latter is also used to manufacture consent for the systematic oppression of racial minorities through law enforcement, it absolutely is not.

> Obviously, but the private sector isn't "corrupt" when it's a tyranny, that's the best it can hope to be.

Is the officially accepted purpose of a private enterprise specifically and exclusively to create wealth for its owners, or have we just resigned ourselves to that reality? Isn't this supposed to be the most effective mode of production?

Yes, but you don't have to "manufacture" consent to, say, assault being illegal in anyone but sociopaths. That's the differnce. It's like saying "discussing in good faith and bashing our skulls in are actually both chemical and physical processs, I fail to see the obvious difference".

> Is the officially accepted purpose of a private enterprise specifically and exclusively to create wealth for its owners, or have we just resigned ourselves to that reality? Isn't this supposed to be the most effective mode of production?

Maybe you did, but then make the argument.

Going back to what spawned this discussion.

> There are plenty of people who don't consent on a daily basis. The actions range from peaceful protests to traitorous acts. How does a democracy deal with them? Force.

Let's say for the sake of argument that I am an American citizen and that I do not consent to the tear gassing and pepper spraying of college aged young adults, nor do I consent to Chelsea Manning being jailed and Snowden being in exile. Does that make me a sociopath? I'm only scratching the surface here.

In any case, I recall saying that "much" of the consent was manufactured and not "all" of it.

There is no consent. There is not even a choice.

Even in anarchy, humans form groups because it's better than being alone. Every group has rules. Members can choose to follow them and enjoy the benefits or leave the group and lose the benefits.

Governments don't follow this logic. Nobody consciously decides that they want to be governed, they just happen to be born on a particular territory. Most people can't just reject the laws and leave, and those that can are really just choosing between other governments. They can't simply create another country with their own laws and invite people over.

The social contract isn't really a contract, it's an imposition.

I was born in a Democracy. Democracy was forced upon me. I never gave my consent.

Note: I'm not talking about whether Democracy is good or bad, just about my "consent".

edit: fixed typo

You gave your consent at democratic election, so now you have your representatives in government.

In democracy, your country is your property, so you were given your share of your country at your birth, with corresponding benefits and obligations.

In despotism, country, including citizens, is owned by despot, so citizens inherit obligations only.

>You gave your consent at democratic election

No, you voted at the democratic election. There is no question on the ballot asking whether or not you consent to be ruled by the resulting government.

Think about how many differences between those two abstract interpretations of citizenship manifest in real life.

Differences are astonishing. It's Ok for a despotic country to murder their property, or property of some other country when net effect is positive for them. For them, it's like a plantation: if we cut some trees, or cut grass, then net yield from field will increase, so lets do it. If you are good plant and in good place, you will be left. If not, you will be cut.

For example, it's Ok for Russian Federation to kill their own or foreign people (e.g. British citizens), or start a war just to increase their profit from their natural gas.

Are you positive western democratic republics don't murder and/or start wars for profit ? Last I heard the USA's army and secret services were pretty active.

What's different about their armies and ours ? I mean when was the last time citizens of a democratic republic gave their input on what assassination to carry out or war to wage ?

There is definitely a point about overt, extreme abuse against their own citizens being mostly prevented by representative democracy. But nothing about general consent or agency.

A lot of differences:

- No eternal leaders. - Freedom of expression - Separation of powers that limit each other

>No eternal leaders.

Oh? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_monarchy_referendums

>Freedom of expression

Oh? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_Haverbeck

Apart from "No eternal leaders", I don't think these are specifically attributable to representative democracy.

If you don't consent to democracy, you implicitly consent to non-democracy. That means you consent to being ruled without your consent. And that's what you got.

> I was born in a Democracy. Democracy was forced upon me. I never gave my consent.

You were born without your consent too, therein lies the rub.

I'm not sure what the parent meant by consent, but you are in fact allowed to leave and resign your citizenship. So you aren't forced into the constitution.

The rich live pretty good lives in most places and only leave for greater opportunity.

The poor have few places to go and no resources to go anywhere.

This is an example of Hobson's choice[0]. It is not really a choice.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobson%27s_choice

In this case you also have the right to vote and get equal representation. I'm not saying it's an amazing position to be in, but I can't think of any way to make things more consensual on all sides.

In practical sense, voting in a democratic republic is simply choosing, very infrequently, between a set of pre-defined parties. Only the natural supporters of the most popular party are given real agency. Any other viewpoint is discarded by design.

That a candidate is elected, doesn't mean they have anything close to 50% real support in the population. They just need to embody the one set of decisions that the largest homogeneous group of people agree with. That could very easily be a low single digit percentage of the population.

Smaller scope, heterogeneous governments with protected passageways in-between them would be a way to make things more consensual. If people can chose between multiple governments while still staying in similar climate and language-speaking areas, then you could say they really "chose to live in their country".

The agency situation for the average democratic republic citizen is not great right now. Exercising the negative side of consent requires huge sacrifices that many rationally can't make.

It's less rule by consent and more rule by mob. Just because 50.5% of people vote for something I disagree with, doesn't mean I suddenly consent to it being law. I still don't have a choice and must unconsentually comply, otherwise "men with monopoly on legal violence" come and kill me or take me to prison. The only other choices are 1. convince the 1% (literally millions) of people to change their mind and get that vote to 49.5%, or 2. find a different place to live.

You forget the second amendment remedy. The USA was founded by destroying the agents of the state that taxed and oppressed the people.

Those founders would be considered terrorists today.

How is that consent measured?

That's the theory. However, just see what happens in most democracies if you, or a larger group of people, try to revoke your consent to be governed.

The jackboots come down just as hard.

Dictatorships rely solely on force. Democracies mostly rely on a common agreement to follow a social contract. There’s not nearly enough police in the US to quell a rebellion of the people if they lost faith in Democracy.

> Dictatorships rely solely on force.

Not necessarily. Some dictatorships do enjoy genuine support. (Obviously they make it easier for themselves it by controlling the media etc.)

> There’s not nearly enough police in the US to quell a rebellion of the people if they lost faith in Democracy.

By the same token it's also possible to topple a dictatorship. At some point even your security forces will say "no". A good example would be the failure of "Plan X" in East Germany, when Stasi agents boycotted the orders, since they realized the cause was lost anyway.

If you've never seen it, this is a good watch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs

Isn't it true though, there's not nearly enough police in any country to quell a rebellion of the people? This is how dictators get overthrown.

There might just be enough police and military to quell any feasible rebellion, seeing as pretty much every country is divided along ideological lines.

MAGA types would, for instance, would never participate in a syndicalist general strike.

> I don't understand why people here see democratic system as a replacement for ruling by a force.

I would hazard a guess that a lot of us, that see it this way, are from culture backgrounds that still have historical recollection of "not democracy".

The definition of state is it's monopolisation of violence. But the difference is if it uses violence to keep the specific section of the ruling elite in power ... or just to keep the state (i.e. the entirety of the ruling elite) in power.

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