Hacker News Reader

There are a lot of different ways to measure democracy but most of the established ones (my own selection based on a quick glance at the “Democracy Ranking” Wikipedia page) ranks Sweden as more democratic than the U.S. so I guess more direct government control and more directly elected officials doesn’t necessarily translate to more democratic system of government.

View on HN

> ranks Sweden as more democratic than the U.S.

That sounds like an awefully low bar, especially with the current administration, e.g. it currently score as 64th in the freedom of press index [0].

[0]: https://rsf.org/en/country/united-states

I think that's completely disconnected from the word Democracy. Democracy is a form of government where political power is vested in the people of a state. As opposed to a Monopoly or Oligarchy. "More democratic" is not necessarily "more good". If 99% of people vote to arrest a specific person because they don't like what he said. That would be the most democratic system but it would be a terrible system.

I think the people making those "established measures" are just measuring what they think makes a good government and then calling that Democracy.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com