RE: Direct Democracy?
May 21, 2015 at 5:52 pm
(This post was last modified: May 21, 2015 at 5:54 pm by nihilistcat.)
(May 21, 2015 at 5:20 pm)abaris Wrote:(May 20, 2015 at 8:10 pm)francismjenkins Wrote: Thoughts?
Look up the Swiss system. As far as I know it's the only country that has ballots about nearly everything. The results are a mixed bag. Direct democracy was directly responsible for women not being allowed to vote until the 80ies or even 90ies in certain cantons.
The Swiss system is arguably the most successful example of direct democracy in history (and I have studied the Swiss system to some extent). But yeah there can be undesirable outcomes, depending on how you structure the system. In a constitutional democracy, questions involving civil rights should never be subjected to democratic decision making. Our Bill of Rights is decidedly an undemocratic document. It is designed to protect the rights of the minority against a tyranny of the majority. And of course designation of majority status is not necessarily a numerical designation (it's all about which class holds the power).
But as of late, in its larger cities, the Swiss have been moving away from direct democracy. This is likely because of a large influx of new immigrants into its larger cities (Swiss culture has many attributes that would be considered offensive to Americans, like they are fairly racist and sexist).
