BigBallinStalin wrote:Governance or government, democracy ITT can serve as the political means for either, so my criticism still applies.
Your question about providing the clearer survey is good. The problem is that people have an agenda which can be profitable. Rhetoric is profitable as well, and ideologies (e.g. nationalism/patriotism) cloud people's perception. Having the goal of informing people is great, but if their incentives don't line up with what you offer, then the exchange won't occur.
As far as voter informing and rationality is concerned, the lower the scale of democratic governance over a particular area, the more costs of one's decisions are internalized. So, my arguments deal with factors that are on the margin. Scale up the democratic, and you get more ignorance, more externalized costs, etc.
Basically I'm proposing that the average citizen has enough common sense to take a proposal formed in a non-biased, lucid way and figure out whether or not they would be happiest if said proposal were passed or not.
Unfortunately, they really do not. Most people do not excel in estimating risk, making equivalent comparisons, knowing what's best for others, etc. So, the question is what kind of institution in which they make decisions would lead to the better outcomes? Rule by majority is not where it's at, nor is the political primarily the best institution for this.
Ok, I hate to keep coming back to the same point and I am not being sarcastic, I just think I need to clarify my answer.
To me, estimating risk, knowing what's best for others, etc., does not necessarily need to be assumed or understood by the audience when presenting these proposals. Maybe you are right, your average person may not be capable of answering these types of questions in a non-biased manner. I don't necessarily agree but lets just for the sake of argument consider it a truth. That being said, why couldn't you further simplify the questions by incorporating these more complex thought processes into the proposals? No matter what limitations you may put on the audience of said proposal, it seems there would always be a way to reduce the proposal even further until the issue was completely presented in layman's terms.
Also, if we are still talking about utilitarianism, is there any real evidence that the market represents what makes people happy? The market shows the trends of what individuals strive for but there is not necessarily a correlation between the striving and the happy-ing. It could be argued that the market complicates people's lives to the point where they are actually becoming more un-happy. Maybe I'll try an analogy since it couldn't hurt anything right?
Lets assume that cigarettes had just been invented.
Now in one scenario the long term benefits/hazards of cigarette smoking could be analyzed and the legalization of such a product could be voted on by an informed audience in a direct democracy. We can pretty well guess what the outcome of such a vote would be.
Now in the second scenario we would let tobacco be produced out on the open market. The market would most likely suggest that cigarettes made people very happy because their demand would be very high since they are addictive.
I am suggesting that market analysis could be a total hit or miss approach at figuring what actually made people happy in a utilitarian sense while democracy at least involves some consideration of rational thought, imperfect as the audience may be. If the masses are as ignorant as you say and cannot be trusted to vote for the decision that would gain the most happiness, then why would they be trusted to steer the market in the right direction?
