It's funny. LDP had been the ruling party for more than 50 years. By the standard of the west, Japan's democracy never work at all (Can you imagine the US or the UK being ruled by the same party for 50 years? Would people still call it them democracies?)
But only when LDP is falling and becoming a minority government and so-called alt-right is rising, it's "joining the trend of declining democracy."
Perhaps it is just population feeling that previously elected democratic leadership did not do their jobs very well. And I would tend to agree. When they then decide to instead vote for someone who promises to do better it is "populism".
I think lot stems from the reality that many don't see the "plenty" themselves that is spend in many cases spend on others. Or notice that somehow "plenty" comes from ever increasing debt...
V-Dem seem to be redefining the word democracy somewhere here to mean something other than the demos being in charge of things. I agree that all this stuff is bad news but they're using the wrong word. The term is "illiberal" and the problem is a lack of personal freedom. Democracy is a technical concept about how decisions get made and is capable of doing some really evil and illiberal stuff in a perfectly democratic fashion.
> A government panel has also started work on restricting entry into Japan by foreigners, a policy that could further spread xenophobia around Japan.
This was the part that really set me off. I mean, democracy is fundamentally a little xenophobic. Democracies tend to be militarily aggressive and the people on the receiving end don't get a vote. One of the best arguments for being a capitalist democracy, in my opinion, is that the only way to hold off a foreign capitalist democratic military is to deploy one yourself. Otherwise it is hot knife through butter time. They are unkind to foreigners.
> Populism that gains support through xenophobia and chest-pumping arguments is also spreading into Japan. This reflects the distortions in politics and society that fuel dissatisfaction among the public with their daily lives.
And I get that this is not a good thing, but how are they to argue that it makes a country less democratic? There seems to be some bizarre academic re-appropriation of words here where it only counts as democratic if the majority can't act, can't be persuaded of new ideas that haven't been approved by Sweden and some blessed minority is secured. All that probably would be nice, but words mean something!
It is hard to get much more democratic than populism. Mobs are very democratic organisations too, that is one of the arguments against going overboard with democracy. Too much of the stuff. It is good to have a few slow multi-year rituals to give people time to think over whether they want to do something really stupid.
> but how are they to argue that it makes a country less democratic? [..] words mean something!
You misunderstand the purpose of editorials such as these. It is not to communicate, but to push an agenda [1], here by putting PR pressure on the Japanese government. Words are just a tool in pursuit of that goal. So 'democracy' is used because of its positive affect in the minds of the public, and because it can be successfully misused without most people noticing - the line between "a set of policies I like" (how they are using the word) and "rule of the people" (what the word actually means) has been blurred through years of media effort for this very reason.
[1] I use the term neutrally, as in agendas can be either good or bad. E.g. fighting for the right for repair, and tobacco companies deceiving the public about the harm of their product, are both agendas.
My jarring awakening to the importance of genetic and cultural Japanese-ness in Japan was when that girl won the Miss Japan pageant. She was seen as not-Japanese as she was white. Which I hadn't thought would be a problem. (Maybe it was foolish of me, but to be fair they had actually already had a black Miss Japan. So why wouldn't they accept a white one?) Anyway, it culminated in that girl giving up the crown but it taught me an important lesson after several conversations with friends.
Japanese-ness is not some backward notion from a time that the world has advanced beyond. They take Japanese-ness extremely seriously. One ignores it to their own detriment. As that particular Miss Japan contestant found out.
And as, I suspect, many foreign residents of Japan will find out in the coming years. It's unfortunate.
If a democracy votes to not allow foreigners in, and to lower their standard of living year after year, and die out as the birth rate declines - I think it is the will of the citizens
Lower GDP doesn't mean to lower standard of living, if it is due to lower population. Similarly, more foreigners doesn't mean better standard of living. There is no point in increasing the GDP if this doesn't translate.
Check the EU: millions of foreigner have arrived in the past 20 years, yet EU's GDP has been growing very little during the same time
>and to lower their standard of living year after year, and die out as the birth rate declines
Eventually the population will get low enough that standards of living start improving because there's so much land and resources per person, and the Japanese birth rate will start rising again. Which won't happen if they keep importing foreigners to compete with Japanese youth for resources.
Got my (Japanese) wife to vote for CDP at the last election after years of complaining about the LDP as a non-voter. She managed to get a few of her friends out too by merely expressing her intention to vote - nice work. There was no change in government but the LDP were given a bloody nose. Whether that resulted in anything good remains to be seen (as a foreign resident I'm keeping a keen eye on it).
I always find any discussions which do not adequately desrcibe the terms cuious. Thers a reason why academic articles usually stress on the 'term of art' to make exact what is being addressed and the scope.
Going forward as far as 'Democracy' i personally think not many countries can claim to have been/are one. If we are definig it as a system where the majority make decisions while minority rights are protected.
For one the US has only ever been aspirational to those ideals since its founding and objectively with Citizens united eventhat pretence has dissolved [1] and moving to out and out a collection of oligarchs that pay lip service to any democratic institutions/norms.
To bring it back to the article after WW2 , Japan has been basically run by one party backed by the US , which still holds veto over key military/financial decisions. Certainly if it was a democracy this situation could be changed by the vote (eg bases on okinawa) , that it persists shows the hollow nature of the derciptor.
What articles like this show is the kabuki theatre is incresingly being rejected by the deimos worldwide who are seeing through the tricks in realtime - hence the plethora of cencorship laws going live obstenively to tackle lewd images/terror etc.
Not even in its founding. Federalist #10 spells out exactly the fears that Madison had about democracy. You give people full political power and they'll use it to redistribute wealth/land. So you need to give people somewhere to funnel their energies without rocking the boat too hard. Originally we weren't supposed to vote for Senators and the presidency was mostly conceived as a ceremonial role and the Electoral College was there just in case the establishment was ever too threatened by "democracy"
A true democracy would be people voting on laws directly and having the _option_ to appoint an assistant to vote for them.
That's right - politicians would not be "leaders" but assistants who could be removed or replaced at any time.
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A political party and a person's political opinion are both points in a high-dimensional vector space. The greatest issue with representative democracy is that voting is the act of describing one point (your political opinion) by picking another point from a small predefined set (political parties) which is acceptably close to yours.
That's nuts and it should be obviously nuts to anyone who understands a tiny bit of vector math. Thank god they don't teach it until university or we'd have riots every day until it was fixed.
Yes, nowhere has a 'democracy', this is a sales or branding term.
What we have is 'representative democracy' where people choose someone to represent them.
So, hundreds, thousands or even millions choose one person to represent them for 4-5 years. That person decides those people's best interests on what to do for the thousands of decisions that come up.
The representative however does not need to do any of the things they said they would. They can not be held accountable for saying one thing but doing the other (ie lying), except at the end of their term, when they can be voted out. (Giving another the chance to do the same.) They only have to catch the people's aspirations, not deliver on them.
And even on those 'decisions' that the representative does get a chance to opine and vote on, the representative is hamstrung - bills contain so much that no one would agree with. Even if there were well-meaning representatives, they are unable to do anything with bills written by lobbyists in the pay of the companies that the bill is meant to 'restrain' - representatives cannot agree only with the good and leave the bad.
The closest i feel is with the swiss canton system where each region kind of runs its own affairs and the major ones get put to a referendum - so immigration stuff might be on the local regional level , while things that would impact everyone gets a referendum.
Of course theres the issue with voter apathy/fatigue.Hopefully a system where excluding emergency situations elections should select for implementors of already decided laws(via referendum) to reduce the stakes and possibility of corrupting influence once in power(since there would be limited to shaping not introducing new laws).
Unfortunately i doubt most of the current systems are reformable short of a revolution, so well proceed to stumlealong until the wheels fall off.
Perhaps the problem lies in the Anglo-American "Democracy" as a system of rule itself ?
I mean for the most part, democracy is a joke today. Most people have no say in how they get "governed" by increasingly haughty and disconnected elites. It's all but a farce today - worse, there's no central King whose greed for wealth can be satisfied once.
Voting is just a means for legal legitimacy - nothing more. Until the systems become radically decentralized (ergo, ruling out every political theory in existence), this "liberal" trick of atomizing the public, while the elites centralize globally, will continue.
There's a endless musical chair of parasites who come in to get their fill, and then leave - so 'people' don't even have one guy they can kill off to start anew.
> there's no central King whose greed for wealth can be satisfied once.
King and court and lords are the same amount of greedy bastards. The issue with kings is on another plain, what to do with power transfer to a new king. Democracy try to solve exactly this problem. What to do with individuals bending laws to be new kings is another issue to solve.
The issue is we look upon the government for solutions. In reality, the answer always lies in us.
What people don't get about 'Anglo-American' democracy is that the various political governmental bodies ARE NOT the governing mechanism of society
If you're not president of some local board or organization, then YOU are the problem. America is a nation of presidents. Until we each do that, the country will always be missing something. Outside observers clearly noted this early on in this country's history. People completely misplace their trust today depending on the government.
This is why transplanting American legal systems to foreign cultures doesn't work. The work to be done is not governmental but rather interior to each individual in society
I'm in Japan now. Whatever Japan is doing, they should continue doing it. Life is much better here than in the US. By a country mile. I could elaborate for hours on this small statement. Everything in the US is worse than in Japan, except perhaps the cheese selection at the grocery store. The US does a great job on cheese, I can give our team that one. Everything else, Japan wins. It's not even a contest.
Crime rate: Japan is better.
Divorce rate: Japan is better.
Suicide rate: Japan is better.
GINI score: Japan is better.
Life expectancy: Japan is better.
Obesity rate: Japan is best in the world.
I could go on and on and on. If democracy isn't working out in Japan, that tells me democracy sucks, not Japan.
>As of 2025, Japan's suicide rate is reported to be 15.3 per 100,000 people, which is lower than the United States' rate of 16.1 per 100,000 people, despite the common stereotype that Japan has a high suicide rate. This marks a reversal from earlier decades when Japan consistently had higher rates than the United States.
On voting day here, you can be in and out in 5 minutes. The amount of time it takes to vote is the amount of time it takes for you to fill in the bubbles.
Tell me how that's worse than me waiting three hours in line in the Phoenix sun to vote, only to be given a provisional ballot because I'm the wrong demographic. And I know my ballot is going to be thrown in the trash and not counted.
You have never been to Japan. Visit. It will blow your mind.
edit: lol, "You're posting too fast" an hour later. Okay @dang, you win. I'll just take the "ur stoopid" comment like a champ. What kind of fucking Nazi won't even let you speak?
I’m an American and I love Japan, in fact, I’m typing this in my hotel room in Tokyo. This is my 14th trip here in 16 years; my seventh trip since Japan lifted COVID-19 travel restrictions in late 2022.
Japan does many things well; I love the efficient and clean public transportation, the excellent customer service, the lack of price gouging at hotels and airports, and the general kindness of the people. I love the social harmony here. I also used to work for a Japanese company before switching careers to academia, and in many ways I seem to fit in better with corporate Japan than modern corporate America.
However, not everything in Japan is better than the United States. I stayed in Japan for nearly two months last summer and I found myself craving a nice deli sandwich when I returned to America. Deli sandwiches aren’t really a thing in Japan other than Subway.
For more serious matters, I know many Japanese people who moved to Silicon Valley because there were more opportunities there compared to Japan. I know a few Japanese women who felt stifled in Japan due to gender expectations and ended up thriving in America in careers such as art and biotechnology. While Japanese K-12 schools are better on average than their American counterparts, American higher education is still the best in the world, though it’s very expensive. While I had great experiences at the Japanese company I worked for (both in Japan and the US), not all companies in Japan are good. The work culture here can involve very long hours. Additionally, salaries in tech are much lower than in America, and the yen has been weak since 2022.
Additionally, the United States is a multicultural nation. While it still has a long way to go when it comes to rooting out racism and xenophobia, and while things are challenging with the current political situation, there’s still the idea that anyone can become an American no matter their birthplace. In contrast, Japan is a Japanese nation. I could naturalize, but I’ll never be treated as truly Japanese, and if I have children, even if they are half-Japanese, they would not be treated as truly Japanese.
I love Japan; I want to continue traveling here twice per year and I can see myself spending a sabbatical year here one day. However, Japan is not paradise, and while things in the United States are rather tumultuous now, there are still aspects of American life that are nicer than in Japan, and not just cheese and deli sandwiches.
I understand it, the "disagree votes" and whatnot. At the end of the day, I fully expect to be a -4 wrongthinker for posting this. People get defensive when you start talking about their country, but they've never set foot here. It is mind blowing. You cannot buy a 30 year old vacation home ANYWHERE in the US for $650. Like, you get the land, the house, everything. You couldn't even RENT one for a month in the US at that price.
As Japan's economy weakened, Abe and now Takaichi have promoted remilitarization. The big money in military hardware can sway any election.
The US is a obvious example. The best "democracy" that money can buy.
I doubt that. Takaichi has (IMHO needlessly) angered China and China is lashing out - because China is much bigger, the economic pain will be much greater for Japan.
It's theoretically possible that Takaichi had a plan and decided the economic pain was worth it, but generally you don't win elections by hurting economy.
> After an apparent victory over communism with the end of the Cold War, democracy now faces a major challenge.
The benefits of globalization did not reach all citizens, leading to a maldistribution of wealth.
Sounds like they nailed the problem.
Too bad there’s no push to solve this as a global community. That’s really the only way out, globalization isn’t going away, externalities and climate change are on a one way path. So assuming you can go back to a time before globalization is fantasy.
Instead, people are retreating to their tribes and the only option now is prepping for tribe-tribe battle.
It’s a shame that it’s been the failure of multiple generations to provide, not only the leadership, but the citizens who could accept and promote the right people into the leadership, for the good of all people
Alas, humanity does not have the capacity to do that.
The macroeconomic problem is that export-led growth is zero sum. Other kinds of growth aren't, but for most countries export-led growth is the most accessible kind of growth. Then, if other countries are rationally defecting, trying to reach out to them gets viewed as treason.
But export led growth isn't zero sum. Sure someone needs to import your products, but they are importing them because it is in their own best interest to do so. You grow by having access to a market for your goods and services, they grow by having better access to a resource than they did before. Of course these strategies can be poorly executed and may wind up leaving one party worse off, but win win situations are most certainly possible.
I actually think globalism has nothing to do with the decline. Or maybe the gains it brought us has indirectly contributed. In general US quality of life has risen. Japanese quality of life isn't bad either. I think the keys are just simple apathy, ignorance and fear of loosing what you have when you have it easy. It is like the silly anti-vax stuff now. People don't see the huge infant mortality rate that used to be there so their value signal for vaccines is completely un-tuned. They didn't have to go through the hardship so they don't know the value. Similarly, by most measures, life is actually pretty good compared to the time we are trying to make great again, but because people now weren't alive then and didn't see the impacts of unregulated stocks, weak health institutions, etc etc, they don't understand the value of the institutions and can't adequately judge the importance of people that are trying to keep those institutions strong. Instead they see a report that has dramatic music and footage from a different time/country with no context and a headline saying 'inconsequential thing X will destroy you and take your home and I will protect you' so they vote out of fear and ignorance or don't vote at all because they can't be bothered to learn as a way to inform instead of experience. Until it happens to them it isn't real. I think fear, ignorance and apathy are the real keys here.
Democracy requires that people view themselves as part of a singular group; we might all have different interests and priorities, so each citizen might want different policy, but the compromise to the majority should be something that's positive overall.
We are not so far into the multicultural experiment (in the literal sense where distinct self contained cultural groups can exist in one nation), and it's becoming clear that it doesn't really work. You get endless cases of representatives chosen based on cultural groups, policies where one group wins at the cost of the whole, and lower trust in the system generally.
This is complicated by the messaging that multiculturalism is the same as anti-racism. This has been such a successful campaign that nationalism even being an acceptable idea is one of the major dividing points between parties.
I don't really believe that it's resolvable without some kind of major external factor.
What has nationalism and religion ever given us other than bloodshed? Nationalism is the problem. If nationalism didn't exist people won't have an inclination to fight over racial lines. Destroying nationalism will solve half the worlds conflicts. Destroying religion should deal with the remaining 90%.
Nationalism as ideology gives a shared identity, that allows ideas like long term public infrastructure, multgenenrational plans, and efforts to advance the Citizens overall to take root.
Why should I want affordable housing for citizens, unless being part of my nation is important?
Why should I accept any plan that extends beyond my lifetime?
More fundamentally, I believe that when a groups identity is sufficiently fragmented, it's no longer ethical to apply the powers of the state. Since my (and my groups) interests are no longer sufficiently represented. There is no unifying identity, or argument that can be made that allows me to believe a compromise leads to anything good.
Groups identity is fragmented precisely because of nationalism. White nationalism, black nationalism, original country nationalism of immigrants. If there hadn't been nationalism, you remove one of the major reasons for that fragmentation in the first place.
You are trying to define the existence of multiple cultures inside a nation, as a reason why a unified national identity is an issue?
You cannot remove the idea of a national identity without some way to prevent a unified group from forming in exclusion to the rest of the population, to advance their group primarily. And the word for that is nationalism.
If you are talking about national identity bereft of and independent from race or ethnicity then you are close to what I want and are maybe using the word nationalism differently from what I meant. Except I go one step above and believe in taking this to a supra national level. You clearly see benefits in dissolving ethnic/racial identification in service of a larger group viz a nation, I just believe in taking it a step further. It has nothing to do with the number of governments one wants or wanting a world government. I don't feel a need to be governed by Germany or France while at the same time I feel no problem in my money and my support going to them and in feeling kinship with them over common principles.
I think it's important to draw the distinction specifically between multiculturalism (the idea of allowing the nation to be just an economic zone containing multiple cultures), and nationalism (the idea that the citizens of a nation should have a shared culture and identity).
And promotion of that shared identity is absolutely vital; it should be independent of race, but not ethnicity, since typically I understand ethnicity to include cultural identity.
It's not so much about what we do voluntarily; Its about how we construct an argument that taxation and policing is ethical.
I think ethnicity is also not a good fit if thats what you are intending it to mean.
But actual ethnicities and races will in any case emerge in any society over the centuries. And we will need another set of wars and bloodshed to relearn the lessons of ethnic/racialism being bad again.
That's where I differ. I see absolutely no point in ethnic identity and what benefits it gives us (over its negatives). If you tell me there is a plot of land available and I get enough people to agree I'd gladly jump in with peoples of liberal capitalistic democratic mindset with absolutely zero shits given about race or ethnicity or language to form a new country. We will set a common language but its simply a matter of common standards, not some emotional or historical appeal to thousands of years ago. I'd explicitly make it clear in the founding documents we are not founded on any race or ethnicity or religion.
I don't feel nationalism. I want good public infra, more housing because it simply makes life better. For example, have you ever released anything FOSS? I haven't yet but it is my aspiration to, I don't care which country or person it helps. I will happily support liberal democratic elements whether they be Germans in Germany or blacks in America or any other group. And conversely, I would absolutely fucking hate any of my tax money supporting far right wing elements in my own country/race or otherwise. But I am not stupid enough to deny improvements in my country just to spite these retards.
Sure, I use and contribute to some; and participate in international groups.
The key part for me though is the voluntary nature. I can participate as much or as little as I like, and my motivation to participate can be entirely individualistic, and the whole thing still works (more or less).
Taxation and policing is not voluntary however; and I frequently see the proceeds going to short term initiatives, that are promoted based on how much they impact some minority group specifically.
Advancing one group in a democracy is not often even a neutral action; its entirely possible to use resources so poorly that it's harmful overall. (Both in economic terms, but also in more abstract things like public trust in policing, or tolerance of corruption)
Eg I dislike mistreatment of a person of my race or any other race but its not due to racial kinship but distaste for mistreatment in general. I would say I am very low on race, you could say even deracinated and anti national overall in my worldview.
And for me the slicing in dicing happens for non-racial axes, I don't like certain racial minorities getting some subsidies but I don't "feel it in my bones" so to speak whereas I absolutely hate in my very bones the fact that eg conservative voting provinces are getting services from my tax money. Ideally of course I'd prefer not subsidizing any racial groups. Again, the concept of a country or nation defined without race or ethnicity is much closer to what I believe in anyways, except I want it at an even large scale.
So if not for nationalism. Why not roll over and let the other country take over you and then join their democracy? A single world government ruling over all the land?
They have a right to self defense like anyone else, illegal aggressors should be killed. Nationalism as in racialism. I have no problem with defining a country on principles you have agree to follow, in fact its one of the best forms of countries. I am ambivalent to apathetic to "Iran" remaining "Iranian race" or "France" remaining "French race".
Haven't defining country over "principles" been proven also as failed thing? Just look at most recent example. A illegal invasion of foreign country. Wouldn't you now agree that principles that that country is build on must be wrong and evil and world would be better off without any other country that says they rely on them?
I'd gladly agree all other countries should disengage from and route around Trump America because its sliding into ethnicism and its attendant stupidities. But I see your broader point how the USA has been having foreign adventures even before trump.
I will admit that the USA is a bit of a funny one. It has in some ways been nice to the people living there but its foreign policy has been very violent. I'd say again though its more of an indifferent to race reason they do all this bs in the middle east and latino countries.
It is sliding toward being a shithole precisely because of the rise of inferior ethnic nationalism. It had less of it relative to other countries until recently.
I don't have any problems living in any liberal capitalist democracy. I could be equally as happy living in say Germany as in Canada more or less. But then again, your example scenario is funny, how many times have liberal capitalistic democracies been attacking other liberal capitalistic democracies ever even happened vs wars fought over religion and nationalism since times immemorial and wars fought over fascism/nazism/communism in the WW2?
It looks like it goes in cycles: after major catastrophic event subsequent generations that don't remember the catastrophe are willing to engage in another one (I think of WWI and WWII as one event). If the memory was stronger there would be more pressure to find other means of resolving issues.
Eg. as a "half boomer" European I remember well why EU was created. It looks like the reasons have been largely forgotten now.
I think more broadly, we're (re?)discovering various weak spots in democratic governments, and all at once globally.
Ones that strike me include:
- Most crucially, democracy relies on an educated electorate, but access to really excellent education is minimal globally. This exposes democracies to disinformation and populism
- Democracies are not great at long-term investment and planning, due to the rapid election cycle and politicians needing to manage polls in ~real time
- We long relied on media as gatekeepers and curators of sound political analysis and facts, but a revenue race to the bottom means media now chase ragebait and owner politics instead
- The uncomfortable truth is that a lot of successes of Western Democracies happened when they weren't all that democratic. Anything prior to 20th century was really plutocratic at best, then there was a slow expansion of the vote, but even then, there simply weren't that many terrible options to vote for. Even an uneducated electorate can make a good choice when all you can do is choose between two decent options
- Not entirely related, but I think shift from values-based societies to consumption/hedonistic societies broke the unwritten contract of democratic systems, where you vote not for your immediate benefit, but for some kind of societal one.
As Churchill supposedly quipped, democracy still seems like the least bad option, but that shouldn't mean we don't discuss improvements. I don't really know where we go from here - pumping lots of money into education would possibly do it eventually - but awareness is a good first step to fixing.
> Most crucially, democracy relies on an educated electorate, but access to really excellent education is minimal globally. This exposes democracies to disinformation and populism
Not so sure about that. Some of today’s autocratic leaders are incredibly smart and educated people and still took the wrong turn. If education doesn’t work for these leaders why should it work for the electorate?
Hence, I’m leaning more towards your last point that it’s maybe more about values and morals? A common understanding of what is „good?“ You can certainly sharpen these through education but there seems to be more at play. Our world also seems to have moved beyond some of the simplistic moral frameworks of the past… Maybe the current times of turbulence are the precursor to the development of new moral frameworks?
I don't think we're lacking intelligent and motivated people who want to be elected to implement their agenda - for good or bad reasons.
Rather, the electorate is not equipped to tell the good ones from the bad ones. And I don't even mean, they aren't voting the way I'd like. Trump is doing everything he said he'll do, and his popularity is so low. Why? We see this over and over again.
Otherwise, I cannot reconcile how people are genuinely voting for terrible politicians and falling for blatant populism and propaganda.
Because we all do. There is a limit to all of us how much we can process and how much we truly want to challenge rather than just accept. In personal life, at work, in politics, and even more so for the big questions of humanity. All of us accept a lot of things at face value and move on. Some put maybe more attention to politics, others have maybe better heuristics, and some select few are maybe smart enough that they can constructively challenge more than others
> Some of today’s autocratic leaders are incredibly smart and educated people and still took the wrong turn
This assumes every person has the same goals. The reality is that the privileged (autocrats at the extreme end of the spectrum) have completely different incentives and objectives. E.g. a person who gets most of their income through salaried work benefits from completely different (often opposite policies) than a person who gets most of their income from renting real property or from taking a cut from the profit of companies he "owns".
> Maybe the current times of turbulence are the precursor to the development of new moral frameworks?
Hopefully.
I for one would like to see a consistent (without contradictions) moral system not based on "authority" (religion or state).
Good points, though I have some other thoughts (note that this is coming from an American; I don’t know the situation in other democratic countries):
1. More people have access to a university education today than in previous generations. Granted, not everybody goes to college, and I’m concerned about the relatively low standards of today’s high schools outside of highly-ranked ones that serve as feeders to elite universities.
2. I wholeheartedly agree. Moreover, I feel modern American culture as a whole, and not just politics, is very short-term driven compared to previous generations, though this is a perception and I have no data to back this up. I feel so many businesses, for example, are hyper-focused on achieving the next quarter’s targets. To put it in computer science terms, sometimes a greedy approach isn’t optimal.
3. I sympathize, but this is not the first time America has dealt with a reckless media landscape. I remember reading in high school about “yellow journalism” and its role in instigating the Spanish-American War.
4. I wonder if modern presidential primary elections helped contribute to polarization as opposed to the old, pre-George McGovern methods of choosing presidential nominees? The Democratic and Republican parties used to be less uniform ideologically, and party bosses often picked compromise candidates to try to appeal to different factions of each party. The pre-Civil Rights Democratic Party was an alliance of Northern pro-union, moderate-to-liberal politicians and Southern conservatives. The Republican Party had Northeastern moderates (like Nelson Rockefeller and Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.) and conservatives from other parts of the country (like Robert Taft and Barry Goldwater). On one hand primaries are arguably more democratic, but on the other hand they’ve fueled polarization.
I see the real problem as having a president in the first place. Politics is about compromise and achieving mutual benefit. Electing a singular person is contrary to both.
> democracy relies on an educated electorate, but access to really excellent education is minimal globally
1) Even locally in countries where education is decent, democracy seems to be weakening, with authoritarianism rising.
2) People talk about education is a general thing but really, a lot of the stuff is biology, chemistry, memorizing book and author names in literature without deeper understanding, etc. What we're missing is education focused on logic and reasoning, both formal and the so called critical thinking - the ability to detect biases, manipulative ("rhetorical") techniques, lying etc. There's focus on "presentation skills" but nothing about "anti-presnetation skills" - detecting nicely packaged bullshit and detecting poorly presented good ideas. And what's completely missing is basic psychology and psychopathology (many politicians have blatant NPD or ASPD, yet people still vote for them).
3) There's no requirement for voting except age. Maybe voters should have to answer a few questions about math and formal logic and their vote weighted by how much they get right. Or simple questions about the party they're voting for.
> 1) Even locally in countries where education is decent, democracy seems to be weakening, with authoritarianism rising.
I mean, either these voters are right and are seeing something I don't. Or they aren't smart enough to vote. I'm not trying to be elitist but the world does feel a bit like a bus where the people are increasingly voting to go down the cliff, just to shake things up a bit.
> Maybe voters should have to answer a few questions
I think about it from time to time. I guess the concern would be that the flat earthers & co will be more motivated and organised, grit their teeth, pass the tests (since political pressure will stop them from being too hard) and educated people will be less keen. I can totally imagine this in my native Poland, where the populist right is actually polling consistently around only 35% but is very organised and has the highest turnouts.
> the people are increasingly voting to go down the cliff, just to shake things up a bit.
1) I think a lot of people (correctly) feel that their quality of life is not improving the way it should be according to the (so often discussed) technological progress and growing economy, yet don't have the ability to think about the system as a whole and the root causes.
I could be wrong too but the way I see it is that an increasingly large cut of wealth goes to the already massively rich.
Any kind of passive income is IMO exploitation by a different name. If you're not putting in work, then the money coming out has to come from other people's work. Finite investment should yield finite reward. Owning companies should be illegal just like it's illegal to own humans already (at least in the civilized world but it took even us a long time to get here).
> since political pressure will stop them from being too hard
Calibrating the difficulty correctly will be hard but we won't know until we try. Politics is adversarial so the way of coming up with questions probably(?) has to be as well.
I think people should be able to vote on laws directly - see my other comments. That would hopefully cut down on some populism and also incentivize not voting on stuff you don't understand.
But as long as we're stuck with political parties, we could try systems where each candidate party provides a list of questions+answers (with a maximum amount). Or where anybody can submit a question if they collect enough signatures.
The benefits of globalization did not reach all citizens, leading to a maldistribution of wealth.
Those are merely received ideas, not necessarily the root cause of a decline in democracy.
Acid House music arose around the end of the Cold War.
If, for some reason, a handful of influential figures had blamed Acid House for all society's problems instead of globalization, then presumably the author would have written:
The benefits of Acid House did not reach all citizens, leading to a maldistribution of wealth.
This century, we have landed on a whole framework for explaining what we don't like about the world - involving 'elites', globalism, immigrants, etc etc - and it is a pretty useless as a framework.
It's funny. LDP had been the ruling party for more than 50 years. By the standard of the west, Japan's democracy never work at all (Can you imagine the US or the UK being ruled by the same party for 50 years? Would people still call it them democracies?)
But only when LDP is falling and becoming a minority government and so-called alt-right is rising, it's "joining the trend of declining democracy."
Perhaps it is just population feeling that previously elected democratic leadership did not do their jobs very well. And I would tend to agree. When they then decide to instead vote for someone who promises to do better it is "populism".
I think lot stems from the reality that many don't see the "plenty" themselves that is spend in many cases spend on others. Or notice that somehow "plenty" comes from ever increasing debt...
The article cites as an anti democratic trend:
>A government panel has also started work on restricting entry into Japan by foreigners
but if the people want that and vote for that maybe that's democracy in action?
V-Dem seem to be redefining the word democracy somewhere here to mean something other than the demos being in charge of things. I agree that all this stuff is bad news but they're using the wrong word. The term is "illiberal" and the problem is a lack of personal freedom. Democracy is a technical concept about how decisions get made and is capable of doing some really evil and illiberal stuff in a perfectly democratic fashion.
> A government panel has also started work on restricting entry into Japan by foreigners, a policy that could further spread xenophobia around Japan.
This was the part that really set me off. I mean, democracy is fundamentally a little xenophobic. Democracies tend to be militarily aggressive and the people on the receiving end don't get a vote. One of the best arguments for being a capitalist democracy, in my opinion, is that the only way to hold off a foreign capitalist democratic military is to deploy one yourself. Otherwise it is hot knife through butter time. They are unkind to foreigners.
> Populism that gains support through xenophobia and chest-pumping arguments is also spreading into Japan. This reflects the distortions in politics and society that fuel dissatisfaction among the public with their daily lives.
And I get that this is not a good thing, but how are they to argue that it makes a country less democratic? There seems to be some bizarre academic re-appropriation of words here where it only counts as democratic if the majority can't act, can't be persuaded of new ideas that haven't been approved by Sweden and some blessed minority is secured. All that probably would be nice, but words mean something!
It is hard to get much more democratic than populism. Mobs are very democratic organisations too, that is one of the arguments against going overboard with democracy. Too much of the stuff. It is good to have a few slow multi-year rituals to give people time to think over whether they want to do something really stupid.
> but how are they to argue that it makes a country less democratic? [..] words mean something!
You misunderstand the purpose of editorials such as these. It is not to communicate, but to push an agenda [1], here by putting PR pressure on the Japanese government. Words are just a tool in pursuit of that goal. So 'democracy' is used because of its positive affect in the minds of the public, and because it can be successfully misused without most people noticing - the line between "a set of policies I like" (how they are using the word) and "rule of the people" (what the word actually means) has been blurred through years of media effort for this very reason.
[1] I use the term neutrally, as in agendas can be either good or bad. E.g. fighting for the right for repair, and tobacco companies deceiving the public about the harm of their product, are both agendas.
The prime minister said she wants lower immigration in order to preserve Japanese culture:
https://x.com/ianmiles/status/1980957928791437360?s=46
The result will be lower GDP. But the culture will remain strictly Japanese
My jarring awakening to the importance of genetic and cultural Japanese-ness in Japan was when that girl won the Miss Japan pageant. She was seen as not-Japanese as she was white. Which I hadn't thought would be a problem. (Maybe it was foolish of me, but to be fair they had actually already had a black Miss Japan. So why wouldn't they accept a white one?) Anyway, it culminated in that girl giving up the crown but it taught me an important lesson after several conversations with friends.
Japanese-ness is not some backward notion from a time that the world has advanced beyond. They take Japanese-ness extremely seriously. One ignores it to their own detriment. As that particular Miss Japan contestant found out.
And as, I suspect, many foreign residents of Japan will find out in the coming years. It's unfortunate.
But culture above everything I guess?
It cuts deeper than that. Second generation ethnic Japanese who grow up outside the country are not treated as fully Japanese.
If a democracy votes to not allow foreigners in, and to lower their standard of living year after year, and die out as the birth rate declines - I think it is the will of the citizens
Lower GDP doesn't mean to lower standard of living, if it is due to lower population. Similarly, more foreigners doesn't mean better standard of living. There is no point in increasing the GDP if this doesn't translate.
Check the EU: millions of foreigner have arrived in the past 20 years, yet EU's GDP has been growing very little during the same time
>and to lower their standard of living year after year, and die out as the birth rate declines
Eventually the population will get low enough that standards of living start improving because there's so much land and resources per person, and the Japanese birth rate will start rising again. Which won't happen if they keep importing foreigners to compete with Japanese youth for resources.
Well, true.
Sigh.
Got my (Japanese) wife to vote for CDP at the last election after years of complaining about the LDP as a non-voter. She managed to get a few of her friends out too by merely expressing her intention to vote - nice work. There was no change in government but the LDP were given a bloody nose. Whether that resulted in anything good remains to be seen (as a foreign resident I'm keeping a keen eye on it).
I hope you will obey the government and hand in your papers if it votes to deport you.
CDP is the more pro-immigration (by Japan's standard) party. But nice knee-jerking comment.
I always find any discussions which do not adequately desrcibe the terms cuious. Thers a reason why academic articles usually stress on the 'term of art' to make exact what is being addressed and the scope. Going forward as far as 'Democracy' i personally think not many countries can claim to have been/are one. If we are definig it as a system where the majority make decisions while minority rights are protected.
For one the US has only ever been aspirational to those ideals since its founding and objectively with Citizens united eventhat pretence has dissolved [1] and moving to out and out a collection of oligarchs that pay lip service to any democratic institutions/norms.
To bring it back to the article after WW2 , Japan has been basically run by one party backed by the US , which still holds veto over key military/financial decisions. Certainly if it was a democracy this situation could be changed by the vote (eg bases on okinawa) , that it persists shows the hollow nature of the derciptor.
What articles like this show is the kabuki theatre is incresingly being rejected by the deimos worldwide who are seeing through the tricks in realtime - hence the plethora of cencorship laws going live obstenively to tackle lewd images/terror etc.
[1]https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2014/04/16/The-US-is-not-a-d...
Not even in its founding. Federalist #10 spells out exactly the fears that Madison had about democracy. You give people full political power and they'll use it to redistribute wealth/land. So you need to give people somewhere to funnel their energies without rocking the boat too hard. Originally we weren't supposed to vote for Senators and the presidency was mostly conceived as a ceremonial role and the Electoral College was there just in case the establishment was ever too threatened by "democracy"
A true democracy would be people voting on laws directly and having the _option_ to appoint an assistant to vote for them.
That's right - politicians would not be "leaders" but assistants who could be removed or replaced at any time.
---
A political party and a person's political opinion are both points in a high-dimensional vector space. The greatest issue with representative democracy is that voting is the act of describing one point (your political opinion) by picking another point from a small predefined set (political parties) which is acceptably close to yours.
That's nuts and it should be obviously nuts to anyone who understands a tiny bit of vector math. Thank god they don't teach it until university or we'd have riots every day until it was fixed.
Yes, nowhere has a 'democracy', this is a sales or branding term.
What we have is 'representative democracy' where people choose someone to represent them.
So, hundreds, thousands or even millions choose one person to represent them for 4-5 years. That person decides those people's best interests on what to do for the thousands of decisions that come up.
The representative however does not need to do any of the things they said they would. They can not be held accountable for saying one thing but doing the other (ie lying), except at the end of their term, when they can be voted out. (Giving another the chance to do the same.) They only have to catch the people's aspirations, not deliver on them.
And even on those 'decisions' that the representative does get a chance to opine and vote on, the representative is hamstrung - bills contain so much that no one would agree with. Even if there were well-meaning representatives, they are unable to do anything with bills written by lobbyists in the pay of the companies that the bill is meant to 'restrain' - representatives cannot agree only with the good and leave the bad.
The closest i feel is with the swiss canton system where each region kind of runs its own affairs and the major ones get put to a referendum - so immigration stuff might be on the local regional level , while things that would impact everyone gets a referendum.
Of course theres the issue with voter apathy/fatigue.Hopefully a system where excluding emergency situations elections should select for implementors of already decided laws(via referendum) to reduce the stakes and possibility of corrupting influence once in power(since there would be limited to shaping not introducing new laws).
Unfortunately i doubt most of the current systems are reformable short of a revolution, so well proceed to stumlealong until the wheels fall off.
Perhaps the problem lies in the Anglo-American "Democracy" as a system of rule itself ?
I mean for the most part, democracy is a joke today. Most people have no say in how they get "governed" by increasingly haughty and disconnected elites. It's all but a farce today - worse, there's no central King whose greed for wealth can be satisfied once.
Voting is just a means for legal legitimacy - nothing more. Until the systems become radically decentralized (ergo, ruling out every political theory in existence), this "liberal" trick of atomizing the public, while the elites centralize globally, will continue.
There's a endless musical chair of parasites who come in to get their fill, and then leave - so 'people' don't even have one guy they can kill off to start anew.
> there's no central King whose greed for wealth can be satisfied once.
King and court and lords are the same amount of greedy bastards. The issue with kings is on another plain, what to do with power transfer to a new king. Democracy try to solve exactly this problem. What to do with individuals bending laws to be new kings is another issue to solve.
You summarized the "democracy the god that failed" book.
The issue is we look upon the government for solutions. In reality, the answer always lies in us.
What people don't get about 'Anglo-American' democracy is that the various political governmental bodies ARE NOT the governing mechanism of society
If you're not president of some local board or organization, then YOU are the problem. America is a nation of presidents. Until we each do that, the country will always be missing something. Outside observers clearly noted this early on in this country's history. People completely misplace their trust today depending on the government.
This is why transplanting American legal systems to foreign cultures doesn't work. The work to be done is not governmental but rather interior to each individual in society
What is V-Dem and what are their credentials?
I'm in Japan now. Whatever Japan is doing, they should continue doing it. Life is much better here than in the US. By a country mile. I could elaborate for hours on this small statement. Everything in the US is worse than in Japan, except perhaps the cheese selection at the grocery store. The US does a great job on cheese, I can give our team that one. Everything else, Japan wins. It's not even a contest.
Crime rate: Japan is better.
Divorce rate: Japan is better.
Suicide rate: Japan is better.
GINI score: Japan is better.
Life expectancy: Japan is better.
Obesity rate: Japan is best in the world.
I could go on and on and on. If democracy isn't working out in Japan, that tells me democracy sucks, not Japan.
Suicide rates: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r...
Japan: 17.4
USA: 15.6
Japan has more suicides
>As of 2025, Japan's suicide rate is reported to be 15.3 per 100,000 people, which is lower than the United States' rate of 16.1 per 100,000 people, despite the common stereotype that Japan has a high suicide rate. This marks a reversal from earlier decades when Japan consistently had higher rates than the United States.
https://www.reddit.com/r/UnpopularFacts/comments/1ke0fhb/as_...
Ok, I take back that point then.
They're talking about how recent trends are a departure from the existing trends that got Japan to where it is now (where you seem to like it).
On voting day here, you can be in and out in 5 minutes. The amount of time it takes to vote is the amount of time it takes for you to fill in the bubbles.
Tell me how that's worse than me waiting three hours in line in the Phoenix sun to vote, only to be given a provisional ballot because I'm the wrong demographic. And I know my ballot is going to be thrown in the trash and not counted.
You have never been to Japan. Visit. It will blow your mind.
edit: lol, "You're posting too fast" an hour later. Okay @dang, you win. I'll just take the "ur stoopid" comment like a champ. What kind of fucking Nazi won't even let you speak?
[flagged]
Yet japan's parmesan score is rather uninspiring
I’m an American and I love Japan, in fact, I’m typing this in my hotel room in Tokyo. This is my 14th trip here in 16 years; my seventh trip since Japan lifted COVID-19 travel restrictions in late 2022.
Japan does many things well; I love the efficient and clean public transportation, the excellent customer service, the lack of price gouging at hotels and airports, and the general kindness of the people. I love the social harmony here. I also used to work for a Japanese company before switching careers to academia, and in many ways I seem to fit in better with corporate Japan than modern corporate America.
However, not everything in Japan is better than the United States. I stayed in Japan for nearly two months last summer and I found myself craving a nice deli sandwich when I returned to America. Deli sandwiches aren’t really a thing in Japan other than Subway.
For more serious matters, I know many Japanese people who moved to Silicon Valley because there were more opportunities there compared to Japan. I know a few Japanese women who felt stifled in Japan due to gender expectations and ended up thriving in America in careers such as art and biotechnology. While Japanese K-12 schools are better on average than their American counterparts, American higher education is still the best in the world, though it’s very expensive. While I had great experiences at the Japanese company I worked for (both in Japan and the US), not all companies in Japan are good. The work culture here can involve very long hours. Additionally, salaries in tech are much lower than in America, and the yen has been weak since 2022.
Additionally, the United States is a multicultural nation. While it still has a long way to go when it comes to rooting out racism and xenophobia, and while things are challenging with the current political situation, there’s still the idea that anyone can become an American no matter their birthplace. In contrast, Japan is a Japanese nation. I could naturalize, but I’ll never be treated as truly Japanese, and if I have children, even if they are half-Japanese, they would not be treated as truly Japanese.
I love Japan; I want to continue traveling here twice per year and I can see myself spending a sabbatical year here one day. However, Japan is not paradise, and while things in the United States are rather tumultuous now, there are still aspects of American life that are nicer than in Japan, and not just cheese and deli sandwiches.
As a foreign resident I'm pretty happy. People like to make dollar comparisons (especially to US salaries) but it's a crude oversimplification.
I understand it, the "disagree votes" and whatnot. At the end of the day, I fully expect to be a -4 wrongthinker for posting this. People get defensive when you start talking about their country, but they've never set foot here. It is mind blowing. You cannot buy a 30 year old vacation home ANYWHERE in the US for $650. Like, you get the land, the house, everything. You couldn't even RENT one for a month in the US at that price.
https://www.athome.co.jp/kodate/6979902125/
Life is ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE better in Japan than the US. It isn't even close.
As Japan's economy weakened, Abe and now Takaichi have promoted remilitarization. The big money in military hardware can sway any election. The US is a obvious example. The best "democracy" that money can buy.
I doubt that. Takaichi has (IMHO needlessly) angered China and China is lashing out - because China is much bigger, the economic pain will be much greater for Japan.
It's theoretically possible that Takaichi had a plan and decided the economic pain was worth it, but generally you don't win elections by hurting economy.
With all the saber rattling from China what else were they supposed to be doing?
> After an apparent victory over communism with the end of the Cold War, democracy now faces a major challenge. The benefits of globalization did not reach all citizens, leading to a maldistribution of wealth.
Sounds like they nailed the problem.
Too bad there’s no push to solve this as a global community. That’s really the only way out, globalization isn’t going away, externalities and climate change are on a one way path. So assuming you can go back to a time before globalization is fantasy.
Instead, people are retreating to their tribes and the only option now is prepping for tribe-tribe battle.
It’s a shame that it’s been the failure of multiple generations to provide, not only the leadership, but the citizens who could accept and promote the right people into the leadership, for the good of all people
Alas, humanity does not have the capacity to do that.
Bummer man
The macroeconomic problem is that export-led growth is zero sum. Other kinds of growth aren't, but for most countries export-led growth is the most accessible kind of growth. Then, if other countries are rationally defecting, trying to reach out to them gets viewed as treason.
But export led growth isn't zero sum. Sure someone needs to import your products, but they are importing them because it is in their own best interest to do so. You grow by having access to a market for your goods and services, they grow by having better access to a resource than they did before. Of course these strategies can be poorly executed and may wind up leaving one party worse off, but win win situations are most certainly possible.
I was unclear. There is a finite pool of customers to be fought over.
I actually think globalism has nothing to do with the decline. Or maybe the gains it brought us has indirectly contributed. In general US quality of life has risen. Japanese quality of life isn't bad either. I think the keys are just simple apathy, ignorance and fear of loosing what you have when you have it easy. It is like the silly anti-vax stuff now. People don't see the huge infant mortality rate that used to be there so their value signal for vaccines is completely un-tuned. They didn't have to go through the hardship so they don't know the value. Similarly, by most measures, life is actually pretty good compared to the time we are trying to make great again, but because people now weren't alive then and didn't see the impacts of unregulated stocks, weak health institutions, etc etc, they don't understand the value of the institutions and can't adequately judge the importance of people that are trying to keep those institutions strong. Instead they see a report that has dramatic music and footage from a different time/country with no context and a headline saying 'inconsequential thing X will destroy you and take your home and I will protect you' so they vote out of fear and ignorance or don't vote at all because they can't be bothered to learn as a way to inform instead of experience. Until it happens to them it isn't real. I think fear, ignorance and apathy are the real keys here.
Democracy requires that people view themselves as part of a singular group; we might all have different interests and priorities, so each citizen might want different policy, but the compromise to the majority should be something that's positive overall.
We are not so far into the multicultural experiment (in the literal sense where distinct self contained cultural groups can exist in one nation), and it's becoming clear that it doesn't really work. You get endless cases of representatives chosen based on cultural groups, policies where one group wins at the cost of the whole, and lower trust in the system generally.
This is complicated by the messaging that multiculturalism is the same as anti-racism. This has been such a successful campaign that nationalism even being an acceptable idea is one of the major dividing points between parties.
I don't really believe that it's resolvable without some kind of major external factor.
What has nationalism and religion ever given us other than bloodshed? Nationalism is the problem. If nationalism didn't exist people won't have an inclination to fight over racial lines. Destroying nationalism will solve half the worlds conflicts. Destroying religion should deal with the remaining 90%.
Nationalism as ideology gives a shared identity, that allows ideas like long term public infrastructure, multgenenrational plans, and efforts to advance the Citizens overall to take root.
Why should I want affordable housing for citizens, unless being part of my nation is important?
Why should I accept any plan that extends beyond my lifetime?
More fundamentally, I believe that when a groups identity is sufficiently fragmented, it's no longer ethical to apply the powers of the state. Since my (and my groups) interests are no longer sufficiently represented. There is no unifying identity, or argument that can be made that allows me to believe a compromise leads to anything good.
Religion is a sidetrack; god is dead.
Groups identity is fragmented precisely because of nationalism. White nationalism, black nationalism, original country nationalism of immigrants. If there hadn't been nationalism, you remove one of the major reasons for that fragmentation in the first place.
You are trying to define the existence of multiple cultures inside a nation, as a reason why a unified national identity is an issue?
You cannot remove the idea of a national identity without some way to prevent a unified group from forming in exclusion to the rest of the population, to advance their group primarily. And the word for that is nationalism.
If you are talking about national identity bereft of and independent from race or ethnicity then you are close to what I want and are maybe using the word nationalism differently from what I meant. Except I go one step above and believe in taking this to a supra national level. You clearly see benefits in dissolving ethnic/racial identification in service of a larger group viz a nation, I just believe in taking it a step further. It has nothing to do with the number of governments one wants or wanting a world government. I don't feel a need to be governed by Germany or France while at the same time I feel no problem in my money and my support going to them and in feeling kinship with them over common principles.
I think it's important to draw the distinction specifically between multiculturalism (the idea of allowing the nation to be just an economic zone containing multiple cultures), and nationalism (the idea that the citizens of a nation should have a shared culture and identity).
And promotion of that shared identity is absolutely vital; it should be independent of race, but not ethnicity, since typically I understand ethnicity to include cultural identity.
It's not so much about what we do voluntarily; Its about how we construct an argument that taxation and policing is ethical.
I think ethnicity is also not a good fit if thats what you are intending it to mean.
But actual ethnicities and races will in any case emerge in any society over the centuries. And we will need another set of wars and bloodshed to relearn the lessons of ethnic/racialism being bad again.
That's where I differ. I see absolutely no point in ethnic identity and what benefits it gives us (over its negatives). If you tell me there is a plot of land available and I get enough people to agree I'd gladly jump in with peoples of liberal capitalistic democratic mindset with absolutely zero shits given about race or ethnicity or language to form a new country. We will set a common language but its simply a matter of common standards, not some emotional or historical appeal to thousands of years ago. I'd explicitly make it clear in the founding documents we are not founded on any race or ethnicity or religion.
I don't feel nationalism. I want good public infra, more housing because it simply makes life better. For example, have you ever released anything FOSS? I haven't yet but it is my aspiration to, I don't care which country or person it helps. I will happily support liberal democratic elements whether they be Germans in Germany or blacks in America or any other group. And conversely, I would absolutely fucking hate any of my tax money supporting far right wing elements in my own country/race or otherwise. But I am not stupid enough to deny improvements in my country just to spite these retards.
Sure, I use and contribute to some; and participate in international groups.
The key part for me though is the voluntary nature. I can participate as much or as little as I like, and my motivation to participate can be entirely individualistic, and the whole thing still works (more or less).
Taxation and policing is not voluntary however; and I frequently see the proceeds going to short term initiatives, that are promoted based on how much they impact some minority group specifically.
Advancing one group in a democracy is not often even a neutral action; its entirely possible to use resources so poorly that it's harmful overall. (Both in economic terms, but also in more abstract things like public trust in policing, or tolerance of corruption)
Eg I dislike mistreatment of a person of my race or any other race but its not due to racial kinship but distaste for mistreatment in general. I would say I am very low on race, you could say even deracinated and anti national overall in my worldview.
And for me the slicing in dicing happens for non-racial axes, I don't like certain racial minorities getting some subsidies but I don't "feel it in my bones" so to speak whereas I absolutely hate in my very bones the fact that eg conservative voting provinces are getting services from my tax money. Ideally of course I'd prefer not subsidizing any racial groups. Again, the concept of a country or nation defined without race or ethnicity is much closer to what I believe in anyways, except I want it at an even large scale.
So if not for nationalism. Why not roll over and let the other country take over you and then join their democracy? A single world government ruling over all the land?
They have a right to self defense like anyone else, illegal aggressors should be killed. Nationalism as in racialism. I have no problem with defining a country on principles you have agree to follow, in fact its one of the best forms of countries. I am ambivalent to apathetic to "Iran" remaining "Iranian race" or "France" remaining "French race".
Haven't defining country over "principles" been proven also as failed thing? Just look at most recent example. A illegal invasion of foreign country. Wouldn't you now agree that principles that that country is build on must be wrong and evil and world would be better off without any other country that says they rely on them?
I'd gladly agree all other countries should disengage from and route around Trump America because its sliding into ethnicism and its attendant stupidities. But I see your broader point how the USA has been having foreign adventures even before trump.
I will admit that the USA is a bit of a funny one. It has in some ways been nice to the people living there but its foreign policy has been very violent. I'd say again though its more of an indifferent to race reason they do all this bs in the middle east and latino countries.
Your example scenario is even funnier, show me one single currently ongoing conflict that involves two liberal democratic capitalist countries.
Israel: religion/nationalism
Russia: nationalism
Yemen: nationalism/racialism
etc etc
How would you now define USA?
Surely it is not anymore liberal democratic capitalist country?
It is sliding toward being a shithole precisely because of the rise of inferior ethnic nationalism. It had less of it relative to other countries until recently.
I don't have any problems living in any liberal capitalist democracy. I could be equally as happy living in say Germany as in Canada more or less. But then again, your example scenario is funny, how many times have liberal capitalistic democracies been attacking other liberal capitalistic democracies ever even happened vs wars fought over religion and nationalism since times immemorial and wars fought over fascism/nazism/communism in the WW2?
This.
It looks like it goes in cycles: after major catastrophic event subsequent generations that don't remember the catastrophe are willing to engage in another one (I think of WWI and WWII as one event). If the memory was stronger there would be more pressure to find other means of resolving issues.
Eg. as a "half boomer" European I remember well why EU was created. It looks like the reasons have been largely forgotten now.
The EU? Or a prior institution with different goals and aims?
Indeed. The organization changed in the passing years.
My worry is that there is more will to just dissolve it instead of working on improving it.
Didn't WW2 largely lead to a "cleaning up" of minorities across state lines in Europe? Maybe it's the population importers who forgot the reasons for post war prosperity. https://www.dday.center/the-impact-of-wwii-on-european-borde...
I think more broadly, we're (re?)discovering various weak spots in democratic governments, and all at once globally.
Ones that strike me include:
- Most crucially, democracy relies on an educated electorate, but access to really excellent education is minimal globally. This exposes democracies to disinformation and populism
- Democracies are not great at long-term investment and planning, due to the rapid election cycle and politicians needing to manage polls in ~real time
- We long relied on media as gatekeepers and curators of sound political analysis and facts, but a revenue race to the bottom means media now chase ragebait and owner politics instead
- The uncomfortable truth is that a lot of successes of Western Democracies happened when they weren't all that democratic. Anything prior to 20th century was really plutocratic at best, then there was a slow expansion of the vote, but even then, there simply weren't that many terrible options to vote for. Even an uneducated electorate can make a good choice when all you can do is choose between two decent options
- Not entirely related, but I think shift from values-based societies to consumption/hedonistic societies broke the unwritten contract of democratic systems, where you vote not for your immediate benefit, but for some kind of societal one.
As Churchill supposedly quipped, democracy still seems like the least bad option, but that shouldn't mean we don't discuss improvements. I don't really know where we go from here - pumping lots of money into education would possibly do it eventually - but awareness is a good first step to fixing.
> Most crucially, democracy relies on an educated electorate, but access to really excellent education is minimal globally. This exposes democracies to disinformation and populism
Not so sure about that. Some of today’s autocratic leaders are incredibly smart and educated people and still took the wrong turn. If education doesn’t work for these leaders why should it work for the electorate?
Hence, I’m leaning more towards your last point that it’s maybe more about values and morals? A common understanding of what is „good?“ You can certainly sharpen these through education but there seems to be more at play. Our world also seems to have moved beyond some of the simplistic moral frameworks of the past… Maybe the current times of turbulence are the precursor to the development of new moral frameworks?
The world hasn't gotten better informed. More than 90% of the world still believes in absurd fairy tales.
I don't think we're lacking intelligent and motivated people who want to be elected to implement their agenda - for good or bad reasons.
Rather, the electorate is not equipped to tell the good ones from the bad ones. And I don't even mean, they aren't voting the way I'd like. Trump is doing everything he said he'll do, and his popularity is so low. Why? We see this over and over again.
Otherwise, I cannot reconcile how people are genuinely voting for terrible politicians and falling for blatant populism and propaganda.
Because we all do. There is a limit to all of us how much we can process and how much we truly want to challenge rather than just accept. In personal life, at work, in politics, and even more so for the big questions of humanity. All of us accept a lot of things at face value and move on. Some put maybe more attention to politics, others have maybe better heuristics, and some select few are maybe smart enough that they can constructively challenge more than others
> Some of today’s autocratic leaders are incredibly smart and educated people and still took the wrong turn
This assumes every person has the same goals. The reality is that the privileged (autocrats at the extreme end of the spectrum) have completely different incentives and objectives. E.g. a person who gets most of their income through salaried work benefits from completely different (often opposite policies) than a person who gets most of their income from renting real property or from taking a cut from the profit of companies he "owns".
> Maybe the current times of turbulence are the precursor to the development of new moral frameworks?
Hopefully.
I for one would like to see a consistent (without contradictions) moral system not based on "authority" (religion or state).
Good points, though I have some other thoughts (note that this is coming from an American; I don’t know the situation in other democratic countries):
1. More people have access to a university education today than in previous generations. Granted, not everybody goes to college, and I’m concerned about the relatively low standards of today’s high schools outside of highly-ranked ones that serve as feeders to elite universities.
2. I wholeheartedly agree. Moreover, I feel modern American culture as a whole, and not just politics, is very short-term driven compared to previous generations, though this is a perception and I have no data to back this up. I feel so many businesses, for example, are hyper-focused on achieving the next quarter’s targets. To put it in computer science terms, sometimes a greedy approach isn’t optimal.
3. I sympathize, but this is not the first time America has dealt with a reckless media landscape. I remember reading in high school about “yellow journalism” and its role in instigating the Spanish-American War.
4. I wonder if modern presidential primary elections helped contribute to polarization as opposed to the old, pre-George McGovern methods of choosing presidential nominees? The Democratic and Republican parties used to be less uniform ideologically, and party bosses often picked compromise candidates to try to appeal to different factions of each party. The pre-Civil Rights Democratic Party was an alliance of Northern pro-union, moderate-to-liberal politicians and Southern conservatives. The Republican Party had Northeastern moderates (like Nelson Rockefeller and Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.) and conservatives from other parts of the country (like Robert Taft and Barry Goldwater). On one hand primaries are arguably more democratic, but on the other hand they’ve fueled polarization.
5. I’ll have to think about this some more.
I see the real problem as having a president in the first place. Politics is about compromise and achieving mutual benefit. Electing a singular person is contrary to both.
> democracy relies on an educated electorate, but access to really excellent education is minimal globally
1) Even locally in countries where education is decent, democracy seems to be weakening, with authoritarianism rising.
2) People talk about education is a general thing but really, a lot of the stuff is biology, chemistry, memorizing book and author names in literature without deeper understanding, etc. What we're missing is education focused on logic and reasoning, both formal and the so called critical thinking - the ability to detect biases, manipulative ("rhetorical") techniques, lying etc. There's focus on "presentation skills" but nothing about "anti-presnetation skills" - detecting nicely packaged bullshit and detecting poorly presented good ideas. And what's completely missing is basic psychology and psychopathology (many politicians have blatant NPD or ASPD, yet people still vote for them).
3) There's no requirement for voting except age. Maybe voters should have to answer a few questions about math and formal logic and their vote weighted by how much they get right. Or simple questions about the party they're voting for.
> 1) Even locally in countries where education is decent, democracy seems to be weakening, with authoritarianism rising.
I mean, either these voters are right and are seeing something I don't. Or they aren't smart enough to vote. I'm not trying to be elitist but the world does feel a bit like a bus where the people are increasingly voting to go down the cliff, just to shake things up a bit.
> Maybe voters should have to answer a few questions
I think about it from time to time. I guess the concern would be that the flat earthers & co will be more motivated and organised, grit their teeth, pass the tests (since political pressure will stop them from being too hard) and educated people will be less keen. I can totally imagine this in my native Poland, where the populist right is actually polling consistently around only 35% but is very organised and has the highest turnouts.
> the people are increasingly voting to go down the cliff, just to shake things up a bit.
1) I think a lot of people (correctly) feel that their quality of life is not improving the way it should be according to the (so often discussed) technological progress and growing economy, yet don't have the ability to think about the system as a whole and the root causes.
I could be wrong too but the way I see it is that an increasingly large cut of wealth goes to the already massively rich.
Any kind of passive income is IMO exploitation by a different name. If you're not putting in work, then the money coming out has to come from other people's work. Finite investment should yield finite reward. Owning companies should be illegal just like it's illegal to own humans already (at least in the civilized world but it took even us a long time to get here).
> since political pressure will stop them from being too hard
Calibrating the difficulty correctly will be hard but we won't know until we try. Politics is adversarial so the way of coming up with questions probably(?) has to be as well.
I think people should be able to vote on laws directly - see my other comments. That would hopefully cut down on some populism and also incentivize not voting on stuff you don't understand.
But as long as we're stuck with political parties, we could try systems where each candidate party provides a list of questions+answers (with a maximum amount). Or where anybody can submit a question if they collect enough signatures.
Acid House music arose around the end of the Cold War.
If, for some reason, a handful of influential figures had blamed Acid House for all society's problems instead of globalization, then presumably the author would have written:
This century, we have landed on a whole framework for explaining what we don't like about the world - involving 'elites', globalism, immigrants, etc etc - and it is a pretty useless as a framework.[dead]