If oligarchy/corporatocracy is so bad then why is true democracy any better?

[Hardkill]

Yes, corporate interests and wealthy elites have greatly undermined our democracy and have played a major role in killing many good bills that would have improved our society in countless ways.

However, too many people are too stupid, too uninformed, too disengaged, and too easily manipulated to elect the right leaders.

Corporate elites are smarter than most people, so why not let them govern alongside political elites on behalf of the people?

I’m not really saying that we should allow an oligarchy or corporatocracy to rule over the people. I’m raising this point to invite a response and to probe whether true democracy is really what is best for the country.

 

Edited Tuesday at 07:51 AM by Hardkill

[aurum]

40 minutes ago, Hardkill said:

Corporate elites are smarter than most people, so why not let them govern alongside political elites on behalf of the people?

In practice, they do.

But in theory, they shouldn't because corporate interests are private.

The point of the government is to be an overseer of private activity. Government needs to remain uncorrupted by corporate interests for this to happen.

[enchanted]

6 hours ago, Hardkill said:

Yes, corporate interests and wealthy elites have greatly undermined our democracy and have played a major role in killing many good bills that would have improved our society in countless ways.

However, too many people are too stupid, too uninformed, too disengaged, and too easily manipulated to elect the right leaders.

Corporate elites are smarter than most people, so why not let them govern alongside political elites on behalf of the people?

I’m not really saying that we should allow an oligarchy or corporatocracy to rule over the people. I’m raising this point to invite a response and to probe whether true democracy is really what is best for the country.

 

Good question. It was one of the core concerns the Founding Fathers had. They were extremely wary of pure, direct democracy because they believed it could devolve into mob rule where passionate majorities make rash decisions without deliberation or safeguards. That’s why they designed the United States as a constitutional republic, not a simple democracy.

The whole structure (Congress, the Senate, checks and balances, staggered elections) was built to slow things down, force debate, and filter public opinion through institutions meant to encourage reason instead of the crowd impulse. The founders knew that the system needed to be protected by both from the elites and the volatility of public passions.

Read the biography of Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow for a fascinating and deep analysis of the founding of the US. 

Edited Tuesday at 02:08 PM by enchanted

[NewKidOnTheBlock]

At some point during the 80s neoliberalism started to get adopted by the Western world as a way to increase the state's GDP and economic output/competitiveness, emphasising free market values and less state intervention. The downside of such a system is that, given enough time, it eventually produces bad actors and elites who can potentially destroy the system itself and the democracy that allowed it to exist. However it also supercharges technological progress due to the principles of free market competition and the rapid commercialisation of new products, which tends to lead to high rates of flexibility and constant iterative improvement (with customer feedback serving as the end of each iteration). We can clearly see that with the rate of technological progress at this very moment. So, although the more Keynesian model of economics may lead to more decent living standards in the short term, it is actually technological progress which sets entirely new levels of living standards previously unimagined. It also leads to even more democratisation and liberalism, and we are nearing the end stages of that process

[Xonas Pitfall]

I think a helpful way to look at this is through specialization. Adults generally know more than children, but that doesn’t mean any adult is qualified to teach any subject. We ideally still want to rely on trained experts in specific areas.

The same logic applies to governance. Wealthy or corporate elites might have deeper knowledge in certain domains, like business or finance, but that doesn’t mean they should have broad, unchecked authority across all areas of public policy. In an ideal system, decision-making would be more “policy-specific.” People with demonstrated knowledge and experience in a given area would have more influence over decisions in that area, rather than power being concentrated in a small group or tied to wealth alone. Right now, democratic systems often end up revolving around electing a single leader or "a vibe", and voters are frequently influenced more by charisma, identity, or surface-level messaging than by careful evaluation of actual policy.

One way to think about it is that instead of relying mainly on a human representative system at the top level, you could have a more direct, structured participation system, where people engage with policy through, let's say, for a fun example, a web or mobile platform. On that platform, users wouldn’t pick leaders, but would be presented with policy proposals and asked to respond to them directly, through written input.

Before participating, the system could also gather relevant context about each person, such as their experience in specific fields, how much of it is tangible and verifiable, years of work in those areas, relevant certifications, and possibly general knowledge assessments. Based on that, different aspects of policy input could be weighted differently depending on relevance and demonstrated expertise. The idea is that this could filter out low-effort participation to some degree, since many people would not spend the time engaging deeply unless they care about the topic. It could also help distinguish between different levels of understanding, where someone with direct experience in a field might have more informed insight into that domain than someone without it.

A.K.A You can see whether the person wrote to “Should immigrants be allowed in the US?” “no because they are gay lol, death to all Mexicans,” compared to a properly written, logical, well-phrased opinion, that would be far more helpful both for data quality and for the actual informational value of the vote. That is much more useful than simply circling the name of a president they like to watch TikTok videos about.

Of course, there are serious problems with this kind of system. One major issue is governance: who designs and regulates the system itself? How do you ensure the people defining what counts as “relevant experience” are honest and not biased actors? How do you prevent manipulation, cheating, or people gaming the system by faking credentials or optimizing for whatever increases their influence score?

So this kind of system might be a kind of idealized direction; it is very much utopian for now. In principle, though, it tries to move toward a model where specialization, multi-perspective input, and reduced bias and polarization lead to more informed collective decision-making, rather than relying purely on broad, undifferentiated voting or personality-driven leadership.

TLDR: I don’t think pure one-person-one-vote democracy works that well because it treats everyone’s input as equally informed. I think voting power should be weighted based on things like experience, domain knowledge, and how much someone actually understands a specific issue, so people who are more informed or experienced in a topic have more influence over decisions in that area. Obviously, you’d need really solid, fair ways to measure that; it could get gamed or corrupted.

Edited Tuesday at 04:00 PM by Xonas Pitfall

[Hardkill]

11 hours ago, aurum said:

In practice, they do.

But in theory, they shouldn't because corporate interests are private.

The point of the government is to be an overseer of private activity. Government needs to remain uncorrupted by corporate interests for this to happen.

Right, but I wonder if the people should have a lot more power or say as to how the government should run the country, after really seeing how idiotic most people in this country are.

[Hardkill]

6 hours ago, enchanted said:

Good question. It was one of the core concerns the Founding Fathers had. They were extremely wary of pure, direct democracy because they believed it could devolve into mob rule where passionate majorities make rash decisions without deliberation or safeguards. That’s why they designed the United States as a constitutional republic, not a simple democracy.

The whole structure (Congress, the Senate, checks and balances, staggered elections) was built to slow things down, force debate, and filter public opinion through institutions meant to encourage reason instead of the crowd impulse. The founders knew that the system needed to be protected by both from the elites and the volatility of public passions.

Read the biography of Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow for a fascinating and deep analysis of the founding of the US. 

I know. 

Yet, the current system isn't working so well for the people.

5 hours ago, NewKidOnTheBlock said:

At some point during the 80s neoliberalism started to get adopted by the Western world as a way to increase the state's GDP and economic output/competitiveness, emphasising free market values and less state intervention. The downside of such a system is that, given enough time, it eventually produces bad actors and elites who can potentially destroy the system itself and the democracy that allowed it to exist. However it also supercharges technological progress due to the principles of free market competition and the rapid commercialisation of new products, which tends to lead to high rates of flexibility and constant iterative improvement (with customer feedback serving as the end of each iteration). We can clearly see that with the rate of technological progress at this very moment. So, although the more Keynesian model of economics may lead to more decent living standards in the short term, it is actually technological progress which sets entirely new levels of living standards previously unimagined. It also leads to even more democratisation and liberalism, and we are nearing the end stages of that process

I don't buy the part that neoliberalism has greatly helped technological progress due to the principles of free market competition and the rapid commercialisation of new products. I believe that could've happened under a more modern newer kind of Keynesian model. I think that the neoliberal philosophy has become a bad excuse for corporate elites and the wealthy elites for getting away with increasing concentration of wealth for the very rich and corporations at the expense of everyday people and small/mid sized businesses. 

Neoliberalism has never really promoted free markets. It has really promoted private enterprise too much, which has allowed the corporate and wealthy elites to have way too much money and way too much power.

It's not like the traditional Keynesian model during the mid 1900s involved the government controlling the entire US economy like Communism. It had a healthy mix of socialistic and capitalistic elements for the US economy. In fact, technology was rapidly developing back then including:

 

1. Antibiotics, vaccines, sanitation, and safer public health systems.
This was not just “better gadgets.” It radically changed whether people lived or died from infectious disease. CDC says U.S. life expectancy increased by more than 30 years over the 20th century, with 25 years of that gain attributable to public health advances; it specifically highlights vaccination, clean water, improved sanitation, and control of infectious disease. Penicillin was scaled up in the U.S. during the 1940s and helped open the antibiotic era

 

2. Air conditioning and refrigeration becoming practical and widespread.
This sounds less glamorous than smartphones, but it changed homes, factories, offices, retail, hospitals, migration patterns, and the habitability of huge parts of the country. DOE notes that modern electrical air conditioning began with Carrier’s 1902 system, and its later spread became one of the major quality-of-life and economic shifts of the postwar era. Gordon also specifically points to air conditioning and home appliances as part of the mid-century transformation still remaking the economy in 1950–70.

 

3. The interstate highway system and car-centered logistics.
The 1956 Interstate Act created what the National Archives calls the nation’s biggest public works project. That was not just about driving faster. It reorganized freight, commuting, military mobility, warehousing, retail geography, tourism, and suburban development. In terms of physically reshaping American life, this was enormous.

 

4. Jet aviation.
The jet engine did for long-distance movement what the internet later did for information: it compressed time and distance. The Smithsonian notes that jets made airliners bigger, faster, and more productive, transforming air travel. That was a major shift in business, tourism, diplomacy, and national integration.

 

5. Semiconductors and the integrated circuit.
This is especially important because it shows the line between the “mid-century” and “post-1980” eras is not clean. The digital revolution did not just appear in 1980. The Smithsonian notes that in 1958, Jack Kilby demonstrated the integrated circuit, calling it a revolutionary enabling technology. In other words, one of the central foundations of the later computer/internet age was itself a mid-20th-century breakthrough.

 

6. The space program and systems engineering.
Apollo was not only symbolic. NASA describes it as a defining event of the 20th century and a triumph of meeting extraordinarily difficult systems-engineering, technological, and organizational integration requirements. That mattered for electronics, materials, aerospace, computing, and engineering practice more broadly.

 

 

[Hardkill]

5 hours ago, Xonas Pitfall said:

I think a helpful way to look at this is through specialization. Adults generally know more than children, but that doesn’t mean any adult is qualified to teach any subject. We ideally still want to rely on trained experts in specific areas.

The same logic applies to governance. Wealthy or corporate elites might have deeper knowledge in certain domains, like business or finance, but that doesn’t mean they should have broad, unchecked authority across all areas of public policy. In an ideal system, decision-making would be more “policy-specific.” People with demonstrated knowledge and experience in a given area would have more influence over decisions in that area, rather than power being concentrated in a small group or tied to wealth alone. Right now, democratic systems often end up revolving around electing a single leader or "a vibe", and voters are frequently influenced more by charisma, identity, or surface-level messaging than by careful evaluation of actual policy.

One way to think about it is that instead of relying mainly on a human representative system at the top level, you could have a more direct, structured participation system, where people engage with policy through, let's say, for a fun example, a web or mobile platform. On that platform, users wouldn’t pick leaders, but would be presented with policy proposals and asked to respond to them directly, through written input.

Before participating, the system could also gather relevant context about each person, such as their experience in specific fields, how much of it is tangible and verifiable, years of work in those areas, relevant certifications, and possibly general knowledge assessments. Based on that, different aspects of policy input could be weighted differently depending on relevance and demonstrated expertise. The idea is that this could filter out low-effort participation to some degree, since many people would not spend the time engaging deeply unless they care about the topic. It could also help distinguish between different levels of understanding, where someone with direct experience in a field might have more informed insight into that domain than someone without it.

A.K.A You can see whether the person wrote to “Should immigrants be allowed in the US?” “no because they are gay lol, death to all Mexicans,” compared to a properly written, logical, well-phrased opinion, that would be far more helpful both for data quality and for the actual informational value of the vote. That is much more useful than simply circling the name of a president they like to watch TikTok videos about.

Of course, there are serious problems with this kind of system. One major issue is governance: who designs and regulates the system itself? How do you ensure the people defining what counts as “relevant experience” are honest and not biased actors? How do you prevent manipulation, cheating, or people gaming the system by faking credentials or optimizing for whatever increases their influence score?

So this kind of system might be a kind of idealized direction; it is very much utopian for now. In principle, though, it tries to move toward a model where specialization, multi-perspective input, and reduced bias and polarization lead to more informed collective decision-making, rather than relying purely on broad, undifferentiated voting or personality-driven leadership.

TLDR: I don’t think pure one-person-one-vote democracy works that well because it treats everyone’s input as equally informed. I think voting power should be weighted based on things like experience, domain knowledge, and how much someone actually understands a specific issue, so people who are more informed or experienced in a topic have more influence over decisions in that area. Obviously, you’d need really solid, fair ways to measure that; it could get gamed or corrupted.

Yeah, I agree with your points. 

The question is how to make the voting power you're suggesting happen.