So long as we have elected “representatives” we are not a democracy in the true sense of the word
The people of England regards itself as free; but it is grossly mistaken; it is free only during the election of members of parliament. As soon as they are elected, slavery overtakes it, and it is nothing.
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract (1762)
There is always these guys.
Lol. They’ve been dead for a while now
Representative democracy is a form of democracy. Direct democracy is another form. There’s no “true” form.
In theory yes, in practice no. There is clearly a class difference between politicians and those whom they “represent”.
I mean it’s possible to have more representative representatives. It’s not an inherent thing in representative democracy that the representatives are wealthier.
Deceptichum@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
Direct democracy is the only real democracy.
“But but you’ll get tyranny of the majority, which clearly doesn’t happen when the majority elect a tyrannical representative”
What we will get is not having to pick a pollie who only aligns with 2 out of 2000 of our views.
Zagorath@aussie.zone 5 months ago
I have to say, the more I think about it, the more I genuinely think Thor Prohaska—a recurring independent candidate for Dickson (Peter Dutton’s seat) and Kurwongbah (the state seat around the same area)—might have the right idea. He has an extremely detailed explanation for how it would work, but the short of his plan is that your MP would vote on any particular issue precisely how a majority of residents vote on the issue. But local residents could nominate some other local resident to be their proxy either overall, or for specific issues, alleviating the need for every voter to keep up-to-date and educated on every single issue, if there’s someone else they trust who can do that for them—while still being able to pull away that trust at literally any moment, or to simply vote directly for an issue that they are particularly passionate about, or if there’s one issue where they disagree with their chosen proxy.
Deceptichum@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
Or we could cut out the middle man and just vote or not vote ourselves on issues as we see fit?
Zagorath@aussie.zone 5 months ago
That’s how you get an America-like situation where the goal isn’t to come up with policies the most people agree with, but to find ways to get the people who already agree with you to turn out to vote, and to dissuade people who disagree with you from voting.
It’s a brilliant way to empower NIMBYs even more than they already are.
Famko@lemmy.world 5 months ago
While I agree that direct democracy is the only real democracy, history has shown that direct democracy can only really be achieved in small communities, otherwise you run into various problems.
Referendums are notable examples of a direct democracy in action, however they can only really work with simple yes or no questions as more complex questions usually don’t work (as voter turn out becomes abysmal).