More Equal Animals - Chapter 2: True Democracy (Unofficial Summary)

Democracy is understood as government ‘for, of, by’ the people, but can also be viewed as governance by majority consensus. Modern democracies are ‘DINOs (Democracies in Name Only)’ that give a false sense of consensus and are often run by a minority of tyrants. In John Brennan’s book ‘Against Democracy’, he describes political ignorance as a major problem and proposes only the knowledgeable should vote, but the author instead suggests that the system should protect against the need for global knowledge and ‘harness the wisdom of the crowds.’ Rather than focus on what government power is used for, the process of delegating the power is more important and that power should all come from consent.

All Power Comes From Consent

The problem of government is a ‘consensus building problem’ so the society should create a process that protects people’s ability to reach consensus. Corrupt powers will divide, censor and use propaganda to prevent people from working together, but the key is the consensus process.

Independence

The Declaration of Independence declares the reason why the founders were justified in dissolving the existing government and establishing a new one. The principle of independence is ‘the foundation of freedom and democracy,’ the opposite of which leads to dependence and slavery. Furthermore, independence is a precondition of consent and ‘consent is a precondition to legitimate democratic government’. Independence requires self-reliance and responsibility.

The Means Justify the Ends

Judging how good a democratic process should not depend on a ‘predicted outcome’ or the ‘ends’. ‘This “end justifies the means” philosophy is the seed of genocide and totalitarian utopianism. The means must justify themselves and be consistent with truth and integrity of the community consensus. The means must produce self-correcting results.’ Hence a critical foundation to the democratic process is to allow people to secede and be independent despite any disruption it causes.

Perception of Public Opinion Matters

Most people rely on the perception of public opinion instead of using independent judgment. Hence the media can make a minority be perceived as the majority and manipulate public opinion. ‘One approach is to implement private, incorruptible, continuous polling of the population’ to gauge what people truly think and get independent honest opinions.

Democracy and The Rule of Law

‘Even if you believe in the “rule of law”, you must first reach consensus on what the rules are and then continue to reach consensus on when the rules have been violated.’ ‘In some sense, the entirety of the “law” should be the process by which rules are made and disputes resolved.’ ‘Remember, for the purpose of this section the entirety of the “law” is the democratic process, and not the “rules passed by those put in power”. Hence theoretically a democratic process can correct any written law.

Direct Democracy

‘The concept of direct democracy is that the people should not have to rely upon representatives.’ and that all laws are voted by the people. However direct democracy ‘will be dominated by special interests’, can be controlled by the media, would require advanced technology to maintain, would be ineffective to operate the executive and judicial branches, and ultimately won’t build consensus.

True Democracy

Hence true democracy has the following properties.

Composed of independent people

Independence defined as ability for minority to secede

Resistant to covert control by minorities (the 0.01%)

Survive a systematically misinformed population

Aggregate wisdom from local knowledge

Not require individuals to possess global knowledge

Empower the individual rather than disempower

Protect the majority from a minority

Protect the minority from the majority

Failure transparent to all

Process to recover from failure obvious to all

Empower people to reach a new consensus

Not overly biased toward the status quo