Aspiring Towards Mob Rule

A common exchange between a liberal and a conservative goes something like this.

liberal: You don't believe in democracy!
conservative: It's a republic!

On it's face, the dialogue shows the liberal as immature and dependent on emotions to navigate the world rather than reason. The conservative, on the other hand, displays an intellectual grasp of the reality of our social system. The founders intentionally architected a limited government to restrain the destructive anarchy of an empowered mob. These assertions are correct, but the larger question at hand is, is this actually better?

Lately, Vox Day has been making the argument that, as terrible as direct democracy may be, it's actually preferable to representative democracy. In a direct democracy, Brexit would not be getting sabotaged, illegal immigration would be all but halted with a wall built, banks would have never been bailed out (and crooks sent to jail), and the European Union wouldn't have passed Article 13, which effectively bans memes. As uninformed as the typical voter may be, public opinion polls tend to show a more favorable opinion on policies than what is enacted by our professional representatives. It's hard to think of counter-examples. Under direct democracy, we'd have elected Hillary, right? Well no, actually, because Trump's opponent would have been Bernie.

We normally think of democracy as some healthy balance between two extremes: unlimited mob rule and harsh autocracy. And yet, we can see that our compromise solution is actually worse than one of those extremes. It might also be worse than either extreme. There are many authoritarian nations that provide better governance. According to opinion polls, the Chinese hold their national government in high regard. That should give us some incentive to re-think the situation.

It seems that there is more to the debate than the degree to which decision making is centralized. What trait do the autocrat and mob have in common, which the elected representative lacks? They have skin in the game. They have ownership. The mob is easily misled, but voters will normally act in their own self-interest. They support policies that will benefit them. Autocrats and even plutocrats also have skin in the game. Alienate the people too far, and risk a coup. Weaken the country too far by indulging the people or by inefficient administration, and risk deposition by outside armies. A king won't normally plunder his own people and then bequeath his son a barren, resentful land.

Elected representatives, on the other hand, have much less skin in the game. Their fortunes come not from their service, but from bribes. Career politicians amass fortunes in the tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars. Their only tie to the people is to make whatever promises are needed to be elected so the embezzlement can continue another term. Their outcomes are not as dependent on the quality of legislation passed nor the long-term health of the country, so much as their willingness to sell out to whichever special interests can provide either cash or votes. The banks get bailed out at taxpayer expense, because they own everyone in Washington. The war the people disapprove of is still fought, only covertly and more indirectly.

Recent events show that the only thing that matters in this country is the corruption. In the Democrat primaries, the party stole the nomination from an anti-corruption crusader and gave it to - perhaps - the most corrupt family in America. Then, when emails leaked of the scandal, the corrupt system blamed it on her next candidate, another anti-corruption populist. Somehow he did it! Hillary was never indicted despite a mountain of public evidence. Trump committed no crime yet his presidency was neutered by a two-year publicly lauded shakedown. It's not because Trump is conservative and Hillary liberal, although that makes it easier to get the ideologically possessed media nutjobs roped in. No, the real reason was corruption. The griftocracy defends itself from all enemies, foreign and domestic. One would be hard-pressed to imagine a movie scenario with a more glaring example of a deep, systemic rule by corruption. America must be the most corrupt nation on earth, on the whole. It's right there, in plain sight. It's so normalized that the people hardly notice anymore.

The long-term prognosis, of course, is that our decision makers are not solving our problems. They are enriching themselves however they can. A country that doesn't solve problems will collapse. Whatever follows will be uncertain, minus one aspect: rulers will be made accountable for their decisions, one way or another. They will not be able to prop themselves up with a constant slew of lies while they plunder a great nation of its wealth. There will be nothing left to steal.