The free market is not democratic, and never has been. In fact, from an historical standpoint, democracy and capitalism were considered to be antagonistic towards each other. After all, a majority of poor people could pass laws to confiscate the wealth of the capitalists. It's only in more modern times where the concept of democratic capitalism has taken hold, as if the two are joined at the hip. People should realize too that capitalism as we know it today only exists as a result of laws that were passed to make capitalism more humane. We had to legally abolish child-labor, unsafe work conditions, long hours, etc.

What he said. At the very least, markets need regulating to minimise fraud, mafias, conspiracy, price fixing, etc. More generally, voting as purchasing power is only democratic if wealth is equal. I buy potatoes because it's all I can afford, that's not a vote for potato farmers.

"You are the only (one) responsible for your decisions and the only one who will suffer its consequences."

Unfortunately, or perhaps, fortunately, our purchases affect the whole world. People in a democracy must understand the power of their decisions and the responsibility that goes with them. It is a mistake to think our decisions affect only ourselves.

If capitalism is the best depends on how well educated the citizens are, and this includes education in higher order thinking skills and making moral judgments. If the citizens are not well educated there needs to be authority over them.

I agree with the points made previously by the others but want to focus on the idea of buying power. On the one hand, consumers have an incredible power over any provider of goods by simply not purchasing from them. The principle of boycotting certain products is a way to diminish influence but is not a replacement for it. The other options may be more palatable for whatever reason but they are not in the business of challenging any of the elements that make the business possible.
So "I" can stop giving money to certain owners but that doesn't, by itself, provide any leverage over how things are made and for what reason.
Capitalism is not going to sort out that limit through itself. That can be observed without promoting any particular solution to the problem.
For what its worth, even hard core free marketeers like Hayek have noted that it cannot replace the civic life, per se.
At the very least, I think the argument should be on the other foot. The burden of proof is on those who claim a system of exchange can replace all other methods of deciding what happens next.
Being told to freely select what has been offered doesn't sound like an alternative to much. How is it separable from: "we had choices during the process of conditioning and that made us feel free."

Once you get beyond a few people bartering potatoes or apples for socks or mittens, a market, large, small, free or otherwise, can not exist without organization. Generally, political institutions (however primitive or advanced). Rules, a currency, and some sort of policing are all required for an open, free market to exist.

This might be obvious, but "democracy" is a political system and markets are economic systems. they don't have to go together, though they usually do. China has some elements of a free market, but is not a democracy by any stretch. The US has some elements of a free market and is more like your oligarchy with democratic decor.

One could have an industrial democracy (workers own it all) and a free market where workers are also consumers. (Almost everyone in any society either is a worker or was a worker before they retired.) By buying Coca Cola instead of Shasta cola, consumers vote for Coke. By buying bacon and pork chops they vote for swine and red meat. Let them eat tofu if they must.

To prevent the tyranny of the majority, most countries adopt a constitution (written or not) that limits and distributes power. By doing so, the constitution impose restrictions on the rule of the majority.

There are inherent limits to the amount of power a democracy confers.

Democracy is based on popular sovereignty ie all power is vested in the people.

If power is vested in the people, then they must be free, as only a free people can have power.

If they have power, then they must have inalienable rights that ensure that they remain free.

A non-exhaustive list is:

Freedom of expression
Presumption of innocence and the right to a fair trial
Freedom of association
Right to live without discrimination

he moment that this rights stop being a guideline (a suggestion/a cultural imposition) and start being an legal imposition on the majority, we stop having a democratic system.

These restrictions are what make it democratic. Rule by the majority without restriction is mob rule.

For me, most are oligarchies with democratic elements.

You are 100% correct. I would be honoured if you read the first post in the following thread:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/4501/you-cannot-have-an-electoral-democracy-without-an-effective-none-of-the-above-nota-option

The free market is stunningly wasteful. For example, there are about 200 UK insurance companies. Life insurance is pretty much the same whoever you buy it from, but 200 duplicated payroll, policy administration, human resources, IT, claims, etc... departments and systems. Thats just one country and one vertical; looking at global capitalism as a whole, it's a huge mess of duplication. Maybe the world is running at 5% of peak efficiency with all this duplication.

The arguments for and against democracy go back to Herodotus the ancient Greek historian. He presents pro's and con's very clearly. If you have not read Herodotus then you need to.

The problems of a free market are discussed in detail by Adam Smith in Year 1777 when he published his now famous Wealth Of Nations. If you have not read that then you need to.

Seems like you are asking us here questions that you need to research yourself.

We have learned since the Industrial Revolution (in England and in the USA) that Government regulation of business is critical to protect workers and the environment. This was first borne out by the coal industry. There is really no question about it. The banking and the savings/loan industries have also born it out in the financial arena. The Crash Of 1929 has born it out in securities. Nonstop continuous Ponzi schemes continue to bear it out. There is no longer any question.

Hopefully much more will be said about the democratic model for industry. The US adopted England's autocratic model for industry and this is dreadful, especially today with international corporations and the power of Microsoft and Walmart.

I want a revolution that means education for democracy and using the democratic model for industry. The enemy of democracy is autocracy and the place to challenge the enemy is within the boundaries of the US.

Amen.

Freedom of expression is a terrible idea because it is far too inclusive. In your list of what we must have to have freedom, you did not include education for good moral judgment, and liberty is not possible without that. Uneducated people can be like children whose freedom of expression can be as an undisciplined three-year-old. Our dignity, honor, and ability to govern ourselves begins with education.

:grin: Look at all those jobs! Inefficiency may be good for keeping people employed. :lol:

On second thought, might all those jobs be done by a computer? :gasp: Oh dear, then what would we do? When I was in school, and the dinosaurs walked the earth, a teacher warned us we should be thinking of how we to live our lives when machines and computers do all the work. Perhaps we need a revolution of thinking to better manage our present reality?

I look forward to an age where machines do all the dull work and we are employed 3 days a week in interesting and creative arts and crafts roles. Some serious modifications to the free market are needed to get there though.

I think another area the free market fails us is that it gives us what we want rather than what we need. The confection and tobacco industries are examples of where the free market is killing us through misplaced demand.

I'm a fan of industry specific taxation rates. Most countries do this to a degree but it could be widened to include:

- Higher taxes for confectionary, cosmetics, luxury items
- Lower taxes for internet, education related, biotech

I'm a fan of industry specific taxation rates. — Devans99

I don't feel that comfortable with government deciding what I should or should not consume.

Our dignity, honor, and ability to govern ourselves begins with education. — Athena

The problem that I see here is: who decides what will be taught?

I would be honoured if you read the first post in the following thread: — romanv

Read it and I do agree with you that a NOTA option is a requisite for any electoral system that intends to be democratic. Whoever, it really only makes practical sense in a political system that does not allow candidates who are not with any party. If anyone can run - no barriers imposed -, than someone must please your taste, even if it has to be yourself.

In Brasil, my country, we had a really smart rule. If more than 50% of the voters (especially for the executive branch) annulled their votes, the election would have to be held again. Unfortunately, our Electoral Court (yes, we do have a different court for each matter) gave it a twisted interpretation, making it only effective when the votes are judicially annulled (like when the candidate that got more than 50% is ousted from the race for cheating).

We better think about what you said because it could be a total nightmare and we do not want to walk into that blindly. At the beginning of the industrial age, and with a strong Protestant work ethic, it was thought the best way to maintain social order is to keep people working. Fear of the masses was handled with long working days, 7 days a week and low wages holding people in such insecurity they remained hard-working Protestants who accepted low wages. Now we speak of decay and occasionally of revolution meaning a violent revolution. I do not think we want to leave humans with too many idle hours unless we prepare them for liberty.

I will support the idea that all harmful substances should be taxed as we now tax cigarettes to discourage their consumption, The tax should pay for all expenses caused by the use of the substance covering recovery from addiction and all medical cost.

To answer your question about who should make education decisions. Traditionally, the people in each community are by law responsible for providing education without charge to all children, and they hold the responsibility of determining what that education will be. Only in times of war did the federal government get involved in education and then the purpose was to use the institution of education to mobilize for war. Earlier though, the North did make an effort to avoid a war with the South through education, but the South caught on to cultural attack and began publishing their own textbooks defending slavery and their way of life in the South.

Our federal government did not get strongly involved in education decisions until the 1958 National Defense Education, and just a few years ago it was believed our constitution prevented the federal government from getting involved in our education decisions. I think Bush's "No Child Behind Act" ended the question of the federal government controlling education? There are some good reasons for centralizing the control of public education but it sure is a threat to our liberty and perhaps we need to increase our awareness of the issues and the change? One of the first things the Prussians did when they took control of Germany was centralize education and focus it on technology for military and industrial purpose. We might want to be aware of the social, economic and political ramifications of this change in education?

Formal education is partly what makes people, people. Do you think society must help those people to share basic values and ideas of the world? Like, women can not be beaten for refusing to obey, or Law being over the quran or the bible? Education is not only about making better citizens. It´s also about having a society that works, with a core of beliefs and values. And that requires certain standards to be well, standard. Not just everybody teaching children what they want, whether is compatible with society or not. That doesn´t work.

Freedom of expression is a terrible idea because it is far too inclusive. In your list of what we must have to have freedom, you did not include education for good moral judgment, and liberty is not possible without that.

Its my opinion that no-one possesses the skill or knowledge to restrict what can or cannot be said spoken of, or expressed. Its a power that no-one should have another.

I think there are clear limits, when you think of freedom of expression as one of a number of rights that each individual should have to ensure their freedom.

Hopefully then it is self evident that calling for physical harm or threatening the safety of other people is not covered under freedom of expression, nor is lying.

I agree with your sentiment on education, but again, who decides on that what is good moral judgement and what isn't?

If anyone can run - no barriers imposed -, than someone must please your taste, even if it has to be yourself.

I disagree vehemently! :)

What you are doing is re-stating 'lead, follow or get out of the way'. This is THE enormous flaw we aim to fix!

If you want voters to be more directly involved in governing, then there should be more referendums.

Why should they be forced out of the way? An electoral democracy has been created for the voters, voters don't serve the electoral democracy. The reason why we have an electoral democracy is because we, as voters, don't have the expertise to govern ourselves, so we delegate governing to others.

Our job is to tell those who wish to govern whether the options on the ballot will guarantee the majority adequate representation. We are not doing our job, if we accept bad representation.

Saying 'No' when you believe an election cannot represent you adequately is a dereliction of your duty as voter, how else can those who wish to govern know whether they are doing a good job or not? This our job as the boss, to give or withhold consent. This is our sole duty as a voter.

To not allow a voter to do so, and then tell him he should run himself is preposterous, its gas-lighting on a massive scale, and for some reason we buy into this nonsense.

Is there any other situation where we will not allow an adult to say 'No'? Should a boss not be able to decide what he wants freely? Its your country, why voluntarily restrict your voting power? This makes everything worse, not better.

I couldn't possibly run a country, so what now, I get out of the way, and pay for people who don't have the consent of the majority to rule me?

If you google the 'iron law of oligarchy' you can see why ruling elites inevitably become self serving cliques that are out of the control of their voters. (This is also in our white paper)

Do you want to be ruled or represented? If the latter, then you have to be able to say 'No' from time to time.

Its a matter of logic that if we allowed voters to say 'No' then they will, over time, choose candidates and policies that maximise the common good, and discard those that have a bad effect as it is them (by that I mean all of us) who live with the consequences of the decisions made by those who are elected.

Not allowing us to say 'No' can send a country into a never ending series of disasters, or allow a situation where voters turn to an extremist candidate or party.

Perhaps on a theoretical level anyone can run, but its easy enough for the unscrupulous to make politics a gutter that puts off, or destroys, good people who could have done a better job.

In a real democracy, almost by definition, those who are elected would be the most respected members of society, not the least respected. There is a good reason why politicians are generally despised, and that reason is because we don't have a binding NOTA on the ballot.

If we could run the country ourselves then we wouldn't need an electoral system in the first place.

In Brasil, my country

Our white paper includes Brazil as a case study. As I understand it you have a non-binding NOTA option, and in a recent election this option was widely used, even though it had no effect.

It would be very interesting for me to send you what we have written and get your feedback, on whether we have reported accurately on it or not. And you could tell me more about NOTA and politics in your country.

I would be delighted to read your paper.

If you want voters to be more directly involved in governing, then there should be more referendums — romanv

I have to agree with most of your statements, but I am not sure if direct democracy is a good solution. Too many problems. We can’t have a referendum without rules. Someone must decide (1) who votes?; (2) how the voting process works?; (3) what are the options that will be voted?, etc.
There always seems to be an element of authoritarianism involved.

In my country, we had a severily restrictive firearms regulation a few years ago. To the point that, basically, only rich people and criminals have guns nowadays. To “legitimize” the ban, we had a referendum about firearms commerce. The permissive option won by a large margin.
The problem is that the question was not about gun ownership, but gun commercialization. The result is that nothing changed. To this day people argue over the redaction of the question asked, the referendum’s effects, if it is time to do it again, etc.

But this is just a criticism of mine, with no solutions proposed.

"I agree with your sentiment on education, but again, who decides on what is good moral judgment and what isn't?"

Thank you so much for your question because it is the most vital question that could be asked. We have a democracy because of the Age of Enlightenment and a belief that educated people can have liberty and be self-governing. Education for good moral judgment is training in logic. This education does not teach the young what to think, but how to think.

We used to read our children moral stories. "The Little Red Hen" and "The Fox and the Grapes" or "The Little Engine that Could" are moral stories. After reading the story to the children we ask, "what is the moral of that story?" The answer is a matter of cause and effect. Cicero, a Roman Statesman who was essential reading to our forefathers, claimed doing wrong is a problem of ignorance, and well-informed people will not make bad choices. So the generation that is now dead, thought doing wrong is a matter of ignorance because that is what education taught. They were also taught we defend our liberty by obeying our laws and we are responsible for those laws.

It was understood with rights come duties. Liberty is not the right to do anything we please, but the right to decide for ourselves what is right, and this right comes with education for good moral judgment. Science is vitally important to this right. Religion tells us of life manifested by a God. Science tells us how God makes things work, and with this knowledge, we have overcome disease and feminine and doubled our life expectancy. This is awesome because those who spend a lifetime learning, gain wisdom, and in the past, their wisdom befitted society. That was before we got so technologically smart and instead of respecting our elders, decided they are outdated and should be ignored. But I hold out hope that there are enough of us to regain the respected position elders once had and that with the internet we will rescue our liberal democracy.

As for the question about our free market system- is it good for the world, for the US to sell weapons to the likes of the prince of Saudi Arabia, a country that kills citizens to defend the power of the royal family and wages a long war with an undeveloped African country causing the deaths of children? Our European allies have ended the sale of weapons to Suadi Arabia. Like the moral stories, might this freedom of the market have bad consequences? Is selling soda pop to underdeveloped nations causing an epidemic in diabetes and good thing? Without morals how can our free market system be a good thing? Are we being responsible? In a democracy who is responsible?

Basically a free market system leads to oligopoly competition. This is a fact, just look at any industry or sector and the ten biggest companies dominate the market. And do notice that free market doesn't mean the same thing as the economic term "Perfect Market", which is a theoretical market in which buyers and sellers are so numerous and well informed that monopoly is absent and market prices cannot be manipulated.

When the OP asks "Is the free market the best democratic system?" the first impression to many is to think about the current economic market and compare it to a democratic system. And the current global economy is dominated by those oligopolies. Of course, if the term free market is taken on a more theoretical view as like a 'free market of ideas' and what is meant is that you can enter the market with new ideas and ideologies, that there's a lot political freedom, then it's a bit different. But likely the question is seen as if plutocracy is the better choice than democracy. Hardly anyone will choose plutocracy.

I have to agree with most of your statements, but I am not sure if direct democracy is a good solution.

Its heartening to hear that my arguments are cogent enough for you to agree. I was not really suggesting direct democracy as a solution, but pointing out that if you want citizen participation in running a country, then referendums are the medium where that can occur.

As you point out, they have their drawbacks and are subject to manipulation.

However it is interesting to note that the 2 countries in the world that practice direct democracy on a regular basis, Switzerland and Chile, are comparatively very successful. Chile is obviously not yet a developed nation, but in comparison to its neighbours, it is less corrupt and is better run that most, if not all countries, in central and south america.

However my knowledge of both countries is superficial and perhaps I am not fully aware of the whole situation.

I think we are somewhat on the same page. I don't disagree with most of what you say. I guess the answer to the question is that the parents must instill values in their children. I think overall people do try and do so. I have a little one, and we spend a lot of time trying to make sure he understands what is right and what is wrong.

However, as he gets older, he will see that being a good person, doesn't necessarily get rewarded, and the rewards are there for those who cheat, then he will have to navigate those waters on his own. The world is a tough place.

How has this got so many replies? I don’t understand what an economic system has to do with democracy? I am not saying they don’t have an influence on each other, but no idea what this is all about.

The “free market” is open to all. Democracy is the rule of the people.

This seems more a question of economic competiton than of democracy. What did I miss?

imo the free market and democracy are based on the same principles. People themselves decide what succeeds and what fails.

The difference between the 2 is that the free market seeks to maximise profit, democracy, if properly implemented will seek to to maximise the common good.

That does hold up. Who buys the products? People vote with their money. Those that provide a better service/product than others profit and are then able to create more.

It is no more faulty than democracy itself. I could just as easily say “if properly implemented.” Making a profit isn’t all that bad, no more than persuading people to vote this way or that. The democratic principle in this sense is about the “better” idea winning through.

It is no more faulty than democracy itself. I could just as easily say “if properly implemented.” Making a profit isn’t all that bad, no more than persuading people to vote this way or that. The democratic principle in this sense is about the “better” idea winning through.

I don't mean to imply that making money is bad, but it is a free market's sole function, everything else that it provides is a by-product of that function.

What I mean by democracy 'properly implemented' is that our so-called democratic system is anything but, which is why it is failing to maximise the common good.

The opening post in the thread linked below outlines how a formal and binding NOTA option is the reform that is required to fix the flawed 'lead, follow, or get out of the way' electoral model that is so prevalent around the world.

It is this poor electoral model that prevents 'real democracy', and so the maximisation of the common good.

A well implemented and binding NOTA option would indeed allow democracy to fulfil its natural function of the maximisation of the common good.

You can read about it here: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/4501/you-cannot-have-an-electoral-democracy-without-an-effective-none-of-the-above-nota-option/p1