Re: Questioning Democracy

* Goverments make laws, and laws are supposed to be aimed at 'doing the right thing.' So, for a topical example, perhaps there should be a law about vegetarianism. No doubt some think that it should be legally compulsory, and others will disagree. Somehow we have to come to the right answer about this. I have my own opinions about this that not everyone will agree with, but I hope that we can agree that 'the right thing to do' is not synonymous with 'what most people think,' (unless you accept some weird kind of intersubjectivist ethics I guess). Consensus is of course a nice thing to get, but just because there is a consensus about something doesn't make things right: there is a majority consensus that eating meat is OK, but this of itself doesn't justify eating meat. So Governments should do the right thing, not what the people want, and democracy fails to do this.

* As a general meritocratic principle, I think that whoever is most qualified (in whatever sense) to do a job or make a decision should be the one to do it. That's why we go to a doctor when we're ill and not a police officer. Government is a hugely important job, so it is really important that governmental decisions are made by experts in the appropriate field, ( e.g. public health decisions should be made by doctors, regional public health officials etc). But legislative decisions aren't made by experts in the field. Instead the democratic system means that the people who make decisions are those who are good at (for whatever reasons) are good at getting elected.

Perhaps a meritocratic government would look like this: you're interested in public health, so after university you join the Department of Health, working on various projects of theirs. Just like in a corporation, as you do well you are promoted to more important jobs with greater responsibilities. As you rise through the ranks (learning more and more about public health as you do) you eventually reach a position where you (in consultation with others, of course) begin to make decisions that have effects upon public health at a national level: legislative decisions in effect. Other government departments would work in the same way. I don't know whether this would work, as we'd only really know by testing it, (perhaps people know of examples from history?), but it certainly doesn't seem obviously flawed to me. As a final point, I think that democracy does have one saving grace, and that is that (historically at least) because the people choose the leaders, and the leaders are thus dependent upon public support, democracy does seem to be a good way of preventing tyranny, and tyranny (I don't have a definition, but an intuitive grasp will suffice) is something definitately worth avoiding.