🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation: 06:29 🗳️ *Liberal democracy faces a fundamental contradiction between the principles of the social contract (health of the people) and the general will, creating inherent tension.* 10:34 📰 *The Overton window, controlled by the press, determines the range of acceptable opinions in society, shaping public perception and influencing political correctness.* 13:37 💰 *Political decisions in liberal democracies are often influenced by the need to please the electorate, making it challenging to address complex issues like budget deficits and make unpopular decisions.* 15:15 🤖 *Liberal democracies may struggle to make decisive decisions when facing significant challenges, such as the impact of advanced artificial intelligence on employment and societal structure.* 17:44 ⏳ *The speaker expresses doubt about the long-term sustainability of liberal democracies in the face of challenges like demographic decline, resource scarcities, and geopolitical pressures.* Made with HARPA AI
Every time the topic of democracy comes up I like to talk about a series of informal practice “debates” that my teacher held in my grade 6 class. Essentially the teacher would pose a question and the class would split up to stand on either side of the room to argue the side they agreed with. One of the questions was “which is better dictatorship, or democracy?” Nearly every person in the class (including myself) went to stand on the democracy side of the room the exception being a few of the boys in the class who made gestures as though they were shooting guns into the air. Now a few of us on the democracy side (including myself) made some arguments against dictatorship and that convinced the boys to come over to the side of democracy. I was dissatisfied with this outcome, so immediately I walked over to the other side of the room and made an argument that amounts to “people don’t know what they really want and need so parties and policies will constantly be flipped back and forth leading to very slow real improvement if any is accomplished to begin with. Under a dictatorship you at least have consistency in knowing what the leader will do and if they are the right person they can actually take the time to improve society.” This was enough to convince the entire rest of the class to join the dictator side. Sure we were a bunch of children but I think this example shows that as people we don’t really care about democracy and what we really want is freedom from tyranny.
Not so much an inherent contradiction, but an inner tension. No system has yet lived forever? No system ever will, because forever can never be reached, even in principle.
Solving this is a paradox, because you end up with one extreme or another, and it no longer being a liberal democracy. You either have popular rule that inevitably violates the real or perceived rights of a minority, or you end up with a minority government that does the same for the masses. The only answer is a balancing act. Imo, it would be better to toss out the democracy and elections and rule by coinflip and term limits, or set term limits and simply letting "the other side" rule for the term and then arbitrarily switch. I'm hobbsian in that I don't believe people are capable of being well informed enough or capable of reasoning fully to govern themselves; but also Roussouean in that they still need to be given the chance to succeed or make fatal mistakes. The "schizophrenia" isn't a bug of the system, it's a feature of it, it's not a problem of the system, it's a problem with your ability to cope with the reality of this schism; which perhaps lies within human psychology and biology, or even our spirit or essence. You can't actually grasp it, if you did it would disappear.
Funny that you mention “coin flip” since random selection as a basis for appointment to a democratic assembly is the basis for Athenian democracy, as I pointed out in my post above/below.
@@marktilley7222 Some countries have way more than 2 political parties. Some have coalitions that oust the majority party...coin flip can never work in a real Democracy, when some parties are for outright Communism, whilst other are for Freemarket Capitalism, South Africa being a case in point.
This is why the right wing is losing, because it pretends to want freedom, but it really wants security, from anything threatening a narrowly codified way of life
@@enzocg9103 That’s called paradise and it doesn’t exist. People claim to value freedom but they draw the line at all sorts of freedoms that violate their value system, their religious beliefs or their traditions. Some people believe that freedom includes having access to guns as it’s their right to defend themselves. Others believe that such access to firearms creates a threat to the larger society. In most of the world this means guns are well regulated. In America it means that people have easy access to firearms. This is an example of security at odds with freedom. Who is right? Which side is actually advocating for freedom as one side considers gun ownership an important freedom while the other considers regulating guns as a freedom from unnecessary violence. This is the case on all sorts of issues. Vaccine mandates, abortion, speech, taxes, regulations on industry…
They don't want to be civily engaged.. unless it's a nimby thing, ie self interest wins out,or they are in a small minority of politically active people.. after all who wants to go to another meeting in their lives...not me.
Im your 175 subscriber. Don't usually make an announcement but i was genuinely surprised such a quality video doesn't ha e more engagement. Good stuff my guy
The essay refers to “Athenian democracy” but later implies (though in its defence, more by not providing the distinction between that and “modern liberal democracy”) that democracy as currently practiced, i.e. electoral democracy, is the same thing. Yes, current democracy is intended to represent The General Will through free and fair elections, but that’s not necessarily what Athenian democracy provides. Athenian democracy was obtained through appointment by lot, not through election. Current work in sortition theory (which is what an “election lottery” is called now) sees the deliberations of a randomly appointed assembly as being more what the general will should or would be, if the appointed members actually had the responsibility and time to deliberate the issues at hand. Edmund Burke had a similar view of representative democracy: “Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion." Thus, true democratic deliberation may put The Health of the People first without actually trying to reflect The General Will, but also without being described as anything like a benign dictatorship. So, the inherent paradox is really a characteristic of electoral democracy, which, funnily enough, Aristotle didn’t consider to be democracy at all. There’s far more to this topic than can be expressed here, so I would strongly encourage readers to see the Wikipedia entry for “sortition” and especially the work of Prof.’s Helene Landemore (Open Democracy: Reinventing Popular Rule for the Twenty-First Century) and Josiah Ober (Democracy and Knowledge: Innovation and Learning in Classical Athens) and author David van Reybrouck (Against Elections) for more. It’s only by education that this ideal can be brought into the Overton window, as it’s pretty clearly outside it now, from my observation. I firmly believe that efforts toward returning to this form of democracy would go a long way toward curing the ills of partisan politics.
We have not seen if liberal democracies can survive a world where power between nations is balanced. Will they survive and lift all out of poverty, maximizing distribution and sufficiently funding welfare,, or will wealth be funneled into a functional oligarchy that guarantees third-world status for a fixed proportion of people, despite living in a liberal democratic hegemony,? And if that happens, what will have to be done to prevent the masses from banding together and expropriating from the rich on the threat of a general strike?
What makes us believe those who don't work for a wage that is taxed don't provide value ? There are many forms of productivity that are not considered productive. One of the three pillars of society are non profits that are manned by volunteers. Approximately 63 million volunteers generate $ 193 billion dollars in labor annually to non profits who provide services to the public. Because they are not compensated doesn't follow they are not working. How many single house hold parents work day and night to support their children ? How we view productivity is in reference to GDP. Is that all there is ?
One constraint on "the general will" is the Bill of Rights, which helps to ensure the rights of individuals against the tyranny of the mob. In our Western democracies, the most powerful institutions are the economic interests of major corporations that basically fund political campaigns. This has the biggest constraint on the Overton Window as far as I can see.
Excellent work on this. Please make a video about Lee Kwan Yew to compliment this video. You may find it very rewarding to consider expanding your video repertoire about the contradictions of the Social Contract by skimming Machiavelli... and then studying Lee Kuan Yew's very successful pragmatic approach to those contradictions. I look forward to watching more expositions from you... Even though I did not find anything about who you are.
Great video, I love the editing style. Though I do have two nit picks. From what I've been taught, the nihilistic teachings of Hobbes aren't really considered liberalist. Since Hobbes argues that free will is evil and only the law keeps man to toe the line (which you do state). So why is the title Hobbes vs Rousseau? To me this isn't really a contradiction in liberalism, Hobbes and Rousseau are practically opposite ends of the playing field. With the example of AI; isn't one strength of democracy that fact that is allows for all options to be put on the table? While in a state of urgency, I can see the need for strong centralizing leaders like Lincoln, FDR or Reagan. But in most cases, rationalizing the situation seems the best to avoid radical solutions that lead to a failure of democracy. But overall is was a good video, I don't agree with the thesis, but I recognize rising talent!
I'm glad that you enjoyed it. The whole idea is that there is a fundamental contradiction between the ideas of the social contract and those of the general will and the idea of the social contract comes from Hobbes even if he was not a lib, he still built one of the foundations of liberal democratic thought. Although your nitpick is the reason that I included Locke in there and the title is "Hobbes vs Rousseau" because it is catchier than "the social contract vs the general will" But thanks for your observation! I could have been clearer with Hobbes' ideas.
"There can only be one main value", is not true. There is a range and a Dialectic that changes inside the system and it works when there is a cultural "Trust" in each other. The current anti-democratic thinking (is that your underlying, unspoken window?) seems to parallel a schism of "trust" in each other. The system described is actually the description of human behavior. The young are often pushing envelopes while the elders don't want change and don't want to danger their offspring and yet it happens. And yes, the Press or Media (or wherever information is delivered and groundswell occurs) determines the dialectic that can become conflict. But a healthy system is based on popular trust and that is being degraded by demagogues who thrive on conflict. Such always is the world but I still trust in the notion that the people, not God or Aristocracy, are the ultimate repository of power.
1:09 there are plenty of exceptions to this outside of Europe, as well as in Europe even when looking at the peasant republics of the HRE for example. You're repeating one of the big myths of the enlightenment here
@@courtssense I am not an expert on such topic, but wasn't there tradition of tribal council among germanic people? Assembly of free men of the local area, with power to make laws and even appoint leaders like princes and kings. Scandinavian parliaments still are referring to that tradition by their names. And I don't think it can be explained as inspired by Greko-Roman parliamentary tradition.
It’s actually harder for AI to replace manual laborers than it is for it to replace those in creative fields or office work. It’s the non-physical work that is the first to go
Former Fed Chair Volcker in his last book said we are run by Plutocrats. He didn’t soften that patronizing insight by saying, yeah, but they are motivated by good. Adjust the paradigm.
The crux of this video is the hypothesis that will/well-being of the people are incompatible. They are not, they can appear as contradictory, but democratic debate can find a synthesis, even in times of crisis. Liberal democracies, in which the majority rules, but constrained by checks and balances, rule of law and universal rights, have proved to be very resilient. They might appear to be in permanent crisis, but that is because problems are being vented out instantaneously and constantly. Better than in authoritarian systems, when problems just build up until all explodes.
The fall of the Weimar Republic actually falls on "The health of the people side" actually. The first thing to point out is that Hitler never got the majority of the vote, and just used the powers of state to remove his opposition. This was enables by, as John Locke put it, "People are not so easily got out of their old forms as some are apt to suggest." as a lot of people's understanding of government was still from pre-democratic days. A lot of its legal system was still from Kaiser Germany, because replacing those people in legal institutions takes at least a few generations. Also, the public itself was probably in the same situation of being just fine with being ruled. Culture moves much more slowly than politics. The Weimar Republic just did not have that time to change the culture of Germany. So, there is also a question to be asked if the public were really in the a situation to be thinking of the situation in a Liberal context yet. I'd guess that a good chunk of the Weimar Republic were still in an older school of thought.
Well, I would argue that the NSDAP grew in popularity because they channeled the general will of a very salty Germany that was tired of democracy. Sure the Prussian traditions did have an impact, but it did not propel the DNVP to power, so it cannot be the remnants of the Kaiser. Also, the NSDAP leadership were just fine with sending millions of soldiers to the meat grinder, H-man expected the western front to be another stalemate and was fine with it because it was all about national pride and that falls on the side of the general will.
@@courtssense However, don't you think that if the largest party in government arrested the whole of their official opposition then people would see that as undemocratic? The just going along with things plays more into Locke's idea of Tacit Consent, and the general inertia of culture. We can't forget that the proper interpretation of the General Will requires the majority. However, in this case, aren't we more counting on inaction? Rousseau's General Will needs all people to be active in the vote, and that was a reason he gave as to his idea of the General Will being almost impossible for something as large as a state to interpret. Locke idea of a representative government works better as that is what Germany was at the time, and Locke better describes cultural inertia and tacit consent of going along with things. I think I am remembering tacit consent. Though I have my doubts, I'm tired, and I haven't read it recently. I also didn't do great with Locke.
It's from a composition by Eric Satie, a French composer who died in 1925. I believe it to be one of the "Gymnopedie". He is too often neglected, but I find his music to be unique and beautiful.
Close enough, my friend, it is Satie but instead, it is Gnossienne no 1. Good stuff for when you're feeling melancholic th-cam.com/video/PLFVGwGQcB0/w-d-xo.html
It is unclear to me that this dilemma isn't just endemic to human societies. The Enlightenment thinkers were not unaware of the conflict between what they called "mob rule" and democracy. Like the Romans before them, the Enlightenment thinkers sought a blended system including the best elements of democracy, oligarchy and monarchy. The recognition of this dilemma is ancient, addressed also by Aristotle.
What is "the people"? When the "pilgrims" came ashore, were they "the people", and whose well-being was of concern, or were the millions of indeginious Americans "the people" whose well-being was of concern? Overton window: everyone likes the Romans, but, no one wants to be conquered by them. "Systems" do not think. People think. Sometimes badly.
The essay concentrates on the conflicts within a society, and the way that different people's relate to each other is another topic. When it comes to who the people are, the answer is that both groups thank that "the people" were themselves.
This is a big issue I see with liberal democracies. That of rights which undermines mere democracy and in our world is constantly used to ride roughshod over the people through the use of the minority or otherwise the same will threatening the repeal of rights which thus make life not worth living. It is a paradox which I do not believe the democracies can fix because it is not within the democratic paradigm but oligarchic in nature (I am not opposed to all aristocracies.).
This is a succinct and thoroughly understandable account of the most crucial of liberal contradictions. Guess when there's no God, we create our own versions. Far easier to accept God though.
De Tocqueville did not make the statement which you attribute to him. Please fact check. Oh…the comment about 90 IQ and plumbers is extremely insulting. Most plumbers I know are pretty smart.
I think the overarching idea is correct and the contradiction at the heart of liberalism, but I think impact you oversimplify some of the problems that the United States particular face and some of the strengths of liberalism
I did not mean that, I meant that manual labour can be done by most people and the first example that came to mind was plumbing. Maybe not the best example since it is not simple work, something like storehouse worker would be more fitting since it's the most swich-your-mind-off job i've ever done.
Imho this contradiction has come of age by now, since many circumstances changed and opened up opportunities to mingle both of them almost perfectly together: Switzerland demonstrates to us, that an educated people is very willing to make desicions which would be unpopular anywhere else, such as voting against an extra national holiday (which has really happened). Bottom line is that with enough education you get people to act as their own "benevolent dictator". I myself once voted for mandatory national service altough I had it ahead of me at that age back then, but I could see the advantage for society outdoing the disadvantage for the individual (myself). Also the savety of existence (daily needs, housing) plays a crucial role in how someone will decide politically, since poorer people tend to elect "populistic parties" which in turn tend to go parasitic on the state household and national industry. A third aspect is the ability to instantly access information and express your free opinion via the internet - one can't underestimate the resulting dynamics, but in short they can help us enormously in creating the optimal balance between the health of the people and the general will, as they automatically align with sufficient information and education of the people. So: 1. A secure existence 2. Education 3. The internet. Only when they come together I claim that the contradiction becomes obsolete. Which is a very big step me thinks.
PS: I just noticed that Mr Locke himself made education the foundation of his idea, since his premise is that the monarch is also (ideally) "the best" educated individual (or otherwise to be gone) to be able to act benevolent in the first place. Back in his days, with global iliteracy at high levels, it was literally impossible to think of the average individual as well-informed about detailed national politics and needs. If every people was as educated as the Swiss it would be really easy though (I'm not swiss by the way).
In America, the general will is more important because we are governed by a bureaucratic class that has its own agenda which is to expand government agencies and increase the power of the bureaucracy. We have an opioid crisis because a sedated population is easier to control. Since not everybody is going to fall sway to the drug culture, the bureaucrats are looking for ways to influence the general will. That is the big thing. If they can do that, they have got it made. People talk about term limits for politicians, while ignoring bureaucrats, like Dr. Fauci who have been in Washington since Reagan was president.
While it may be true that there are two competing fundamental values underlying liberal democracy, it does not logically follow that liberal democracies cannot be decisive. In the example you provided regarding AI replacing jobs, a liberal democracy can decide to implement a universal basic income. Your argument is invalid.
It can also choose to allow the vast majority of citizens to live impoverished existences while the capitalist class and a relatively small technocratic live in opulence
Full of problems, unclarities , mistakes (3:50 … how did “Hume” end up in the discussion) and misinterpretations and tangential inclusions (I don’t think introducing the Overton Window helps you … and then transitioning the Overton Window into “political correctness” and a critique of the news media? … your reach exceeds your grasp here). Have you considered the more essential and perhaps more profitable way of approaching this material … the contradiction within liberal democracy of the two competing concepts of freedom and equality? Or how two contradictory strains of thought emerged from the 18th century … the Enlightenment of Locke et al and the Counter-Enlightenment of Rousseau and those who followed him (particularly in German philosophy and the romantics). Thanks for the video!
Neglected is another source of danger to liberal democracy, which is not only a danger to liberal democracy but a danger to human civilization in our age of nuclear weapons. That is imperialism. As we learn from Marx, imperialism is a late stage development of capitalism in a liberal democracy, but it also arises in systems that are blatantly authoritarian - where popular will is suppressed. Since imperialism requires imposition on the will of its objects, it is necessarily accompanied by militarism, and the latter produces deficits and the neglect of the "health" of the empire's citizens. Eventually, the mounting deficits become unmanageable. This now true of the United States of America, which has become the world's most ambitious pursuer of empire. Its growth has divided the world into its vassals, which is not too strong a word because they no longer pursue their own peoples' interests but rather those of the empire, and countries that have not been successfully included. They are considered enemies of the empire and provide a justification for increasing militarism in the empire's foreign relations, accelerating the pace of the empire's insolvency and eventual decline. The question then is can that decline be managed without a globally destructive nuclear war?
I agree with the USA as an empire take, but I would not say that its imperialism comes from its capitalism, but instead from its position of power. Throught history we can see that strong states bully and use weak states for their purpuses. This has been the case for all economic systems feudalism (Spain & the Aztecs), socialism (USSR & the balitcs in 1940), capitalism (USA & Iraq), etc. I think that it comes from the fact that it is in our nature to abuse our power over other people, the whole power corrupts thing. I'm pessimistic on the whole thing because I can't think of an example where a powerful nation did not use and abuse other less powerful states, can you?
@@courtssense Would you agree that the need for power is implied when the subjugation of others is the program, but the motivation for the imperial subjugation in the contemporary world is the capitalist's need for opportunities?
@@alvin8391 Sure, capitalism is an ideology that has a desire to expand, but when it comes to wars, I think that it is about national glory and presige. The US pumped trillions into the war in Afghanistan but what economic use did they get out of it? (Excluding selling themselves weapons)
@@courtssense If the US had achieved a victory in Afghanistan and established a friendly government that would have permitted the US exploitation of minerals, and the war would have been a success for our capitalists. Even if it resulted only in allowing the US to build pipelines through that country and preventing Russia from doing that, it would have been a geopolitical success. Did the US go to war in Grenada and in Panama to achieve national glory and prestige? I don't think so. The US did win those wars, the only victories since WW2.
@Alvin Citing Marx in a political response is the dumbest thing you can do. I agree with the Court sense that stronger states always bully and subjugate smaller ones, that’s human nature and no ideology is changing that fact.
"Liberalism has become the ideological hegemon of the world, through military and economic conquest". In som cases this is true, but the vast majority of working democracies today were born bye th peoples of these countries wanting a government that could ensure their freedom and right to contribute, and fighting endlessly to get it. The idea that liberal democracies were imposed, like your wording would indicate, is the favourite line of modern dictators. Its mostly innacurate, and most countries that had it imposed, stopped being democracies pretty quickly. It must come from the bottom up for it to work.
Liberal Democracy is running up against it's contradictions again, that of it's Values and that of it's Economic System, the proposed Values of Liberalism (individual liberty, freedom of expression/speech, diversity, freedom of opportunity) are often at odds with Capitalism (private property, wealth extraction/accumulation, the freedom of capital to move wherever it wants so long as labor cannot do likewise through strict National Borders). It will either result in Social Democracy or Fascism, both tools used to reboot the system (both social and economic) and to be dissolved away back to Liberal Democracy once the crisis is controlled, or so they will attempt. I for one am more concerned that the Fascist path is going to be happening rather than the Social Democracy one, mostly because the world doesn't have a Soviet Union equivalent to compete with on its radical social programs, which pushed the general public around the world to pressure their Liberal institutions to adopt such programs to stave off the far Right; there are good reasons to believe that the US Civil Rights Movement wouldn't have made the relatively quick gains if the US government wasn't afraid of the Soviet Union providing direct assistance to the African American community, which wasn't out of the question. Also, I think you missed Sade's Liberalism as a part of the equation, as his total libertinism is another, very dark, facet of Liberalism; the Italian Marxist filmmaker Pier Pallo Pasolini, in adapting Sade's incomplete book 120 Days of Sodom (under the title of Salo), called out the fact that Fascism is the natural outcome of Liberalism, in the fact that the Bourgeoise (capitalist class), because of their wealth and power, gets to be Sade libertines, because that's the freedom that capitalism affords them.
@@courtssense No government in the global north including the UK is acting to protect the people from climate change, they are acting primarily to protect the interests of big business. Therefore, according to the social contract established by Hobbes and Locke the people have the right to rebel. It is both in the interests of the people and the will of the people (over 80% in the UK) for the government to act effectively on climate.
Because Fox News has no institutional weight and is not seen as reliable, sure a lot of proles might see it, but that does not matter at an institutional level. And indeed, for that reason, they have less power to move the Overton window than CNN or the NY times. The issues that the press establishment pushes become the popular opinion in 10 years, just look at gay marriage and see that Fox tried their all to stop that but utterly failed.
Fox News is not registered as a news network with the FCC as is CNN. Fox News is an entertainment network posing as journalism. No comparison, only the sycophants are fooled into thinking it is truth.
@@courtssense "carries more weight" .. Is euphemism for influence gained (& projected) through its strategic platforming by vested interests (including ' the state') & advertising by its ecosystem.
Hi, you say cutting deficits means defunding existing programs but it could mean raising tax on the wealthy. Why would you leave this out? I do think the failures you mention are not because of democracy or one person one vote, but because of the kleptocracy of one dollar one vote. Get money out of politics and let's have a more real democracy.
My point was that it's not about the amount of money that we can get through taxes, but instead it's about the fact that the deficit is so high because politicians make promises to gain the favor of the General will without taking into account the implications or the price. You could tax every cent out of the rich and that would not be enough because the general will, like people in general, is never satisfied and politicians will use this newfound money to make larger electoral promises and end up with a deficit. Again.
You missed the third way adopted by our founding fathers. The will of the people, constrained by the rights of the individual. But even that could be overridden by a constitutional amendment. Which is very difficult to do by design. Our founders made it possible for us to vote our way into slavery to an all powerful state if we want to. They were not going to make any future decision for us. Where we have strayed from protecting the rights of individual citizens... we've failed. We should always err on the side of more freedom that doesn't infringe on the freedoms of others.
what will stop this dialectic is every body being educated but govts dont want that As it keeps them in power .ie govt not individual political parties as they come and go - govt makes decisions on 2 fronts social like equality of ethnicities and sex etc and of economic - the economic system is capitalism and untill we have better education on its problems and their causes and the alternatives we have no chance of solving this dilema
Non Democratic governments have taken decisive action but it has turned out to be disastrous like Operation Bárbaros. Liberal democracies do take decisive action and some times that has been disastrous like Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. So difficulty in taking decisive action and a preference for piecemeal measures is not necessarily bad. In retrospect does union resistance to job cuts look so wrong. Close downs on a massive scale have generated new problems like the lack of dynamism that a de industrialised economy has. Decisive action can be reflexive action which is not always good. The thing about artificial intelligence and all these low IQ people is rubbish or at least governed by guesses influenced by thinkers who are anti Democratic in the first place. The middle people who can do computers sometimes get into the wrong relationship with the true elite and are underfoot and so it is they who benefit from revolts of the proles sometimes. If there was just the middle and the elite the middle might be worse off. In the past the middle has benefited from below the common salt pressures and so it might be in the future. So democracy in some form might be the answer. Especially if you do not make wild guesses based on unproven beliefs about IQ and intelligence.
I think the AI problem can be largely solved with UBI (Universal Basic Income). Think of it like in the Star Trek universe. Of course, this can only work in highly developed countries.
Well, what do you mean by solved? Sure, they won't starve, but living on welfare your entire life is not a recipe for being a healthy. There is no reason to think that the lifestyle of living on welfare and wasting your life in front of the TV cannot spread to a large percentage of the population if they don't have to work. Why would this not be the case with UBI?
"I think the AI problem can be largely solved with UBI (Universal Basic Income). " No. UBI won't solve it. That is because, the AI problem is not only about the disappearance of income for many people. It is also disappearance of meaning, of belonging. and many other things. This is the same reason why people who won lotteries, and invest wisely, after some years of partying is looking for work again. They feel displeasure answering the question "What are you doing now?" with "I am just partying, enjoying my lottery money man!" They take ANY job just to provide meaning, belonging, etc. to their life.
@thecourtssense why do you assume that people would simply waste away sitting in front of the TV rather than pursuing activities that bring them joy and self fulfillment
A UBI that provides only some portion of poverty level income (say, 50%), implemented via a negative income tax that had a reasonable clawback rate (say 40%) would provide both support and incentive to work without costing the state an excessive amount.
🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation:
06:29 🗳️ *Liberal democracy faces a fundamental contradiction between the principles of the social contract (health of the people) and the general will, creating inherent tension.*
10:34 📰 *The Overton window, controlled by the press, determines the range of acceptable opinions in society, shaping public perception and influencing political correctness.*
13:37 💰 *Political decisions in liberal democracies are often influenced by the need to please the electorate, making it challenging to address complex issues like budget deficits and make unpopular decisions.*
15:15 🤖 *Liberal democracies may struggle to make decisive decisions when facing significant challenges, such as the impact of advanced artificial intelligence on employment and societal structure.*
17:44 ⏳ *The speaker expresses doubt about the long-term sustainability of liberal democracies in the face of challenges like demographic decline, resource scarcities, and geopolitical pressures.*
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Every time the topic of democracy comes up I like to talk about a series of informal practice “debates” that my teacher held in my grade 6 class. Essentially the teacher would pose a question and the class would split up to stand on either side of the room to argue the side they agreed with. One of the questions was “which is better dictatorship, or democracy?” Nearly every person in the class (including myself) went to stand on the democracy side of the room the exception being a few of the boys in the class who made gestures as though they were shooting guns into the air. Now a few of us on the democracy side (including myself) made some arguments against dictatorship and that convinced the boys to come over to the side of democracy. I was dissatisfied with this outcome, so immediately I walked over to the other side of the room and made an argument that amounts to “people don’t know what they really want and need so parties and policies will constantly be flipped back and forth leading to very slow real improvement if any is accomplished to begin with. Under a dictatorship you at least have consistency in knowing what the leader will do and if they are the right person they can actually take the time to improve society.” This was enough to convince the entire rest of the class to join the dictator side. Sure we were a bunch of children but I think this example shows that as people we don’t really care about democracy and what we really want is freedom from tyranny.
Not so much an inherent contradiction, but an inner tension.
No system has yet lived forever? No system ever will, because forever can never be reached, even in principle.
Solving this is a paradox, because you end up with one extreme or another, and it no longer being a liberal democracy. You either have popular rule that inevitably violates the real or perceived rights of a minority, or you end up with a minority government that does the same for the masses. The only answer is a balancing act. Imo, it would be better to toss out the democracy and elections and rule by coinflip and term limits, or set term limits and simply letting "the other side" rule for the term and then arbitrarily switch. I'm hobbsian in that I don't believe people are capable of being well informed enough or capable of reasoning fully to govern themselves; but also Roussouean in that they still need to be given the chance to succeed or make fatal mistakes. The "schizophrenia" isn't a bug of the system, it's a feature of it, it's not a problem of the system, it's a problem with your ability to cope with the reality of this schism; which perhaps lies within human psychology and biology, or even our spirit or essence. You can't actually grasp it, if you did it would disappear.
Very excellent response that I wholeheartedly agree with it. Ultimately, it’s like ying and yang. There not adversarial, but instead complimentary.
Coin-flip? In South Africa we have about 40 political parties....???
Funny that you mention “coin flip” since random selection as a basis for appointment to a democratic assembly is the basis for Athenian democracy, as I pointed out in my post above/below.
@@marktilley7222 Some countries have way more than 2 political parties. Some have coalitions that oust the majority party...coin flip can never work in a real Democracy, when some parties are for outright Communism, whilst other are for Freemarket Capitalism, South Africa being a case in point.
They tried that in Spain in the 19th Century, did not go well. Just have Monarchy.
Because people claim to want freedom but what they really want is security.
This is why the right wing is losing, because it pretends to want freedom, but it really wants security, from anything threatening a narrowly codified way of life
Can they not want both?
@@enzocg9103
That’s called paradise and it doesn’t exist. People claim to value freedom but they draw the line at all sorts of freedoms that violate their value system, their religious beliefs or their traditions. Some people believe that freedom includes having access to guns as it’s their right to defend themselves. Others believe that such access to firearms creates a threat to the larger society. In most of the world this means guns are well regulated. In America it means that people have easy access to firearms. This is an example of security at odds with freedom. Who is right? Which side is actually advocating for freedom as one side considers gun ownership an important freedom while the other considers regulating guns as a freedom from unnecessary violence. This is the case on all sorts of issues. Vaccine mandates, abortion, speech, taxes, regulations on industry…
They don't want to be civily engaged.. unless it's a nimby thing, ie self interest wins out,or they are in a small minority of politically active people.. after all who wants to go to another meeting in their lives...not me.
Earthlings and their little worries.
7:45 It's not difficult to *experience* a scenario where the health of a people and their general will are at odds!
Im your 175 subscriber. Don't usually make an announcement but i was genuinely surprised such a quality video doesn't ha e more engagement. Good stuff my guy
Thank you, my guy
The essay refers to “Athenian democracy” but later implies (though in its defence, more by not providing the distinction between that and “modern liberal democracy”) that democracy as currently practiced, i.e. electoral democracy, is the same thing.
Yes, current democracy is intended to represent The General Will through free and fair elections, but that’s not necessarily what Athenian democracy provides. Athenian democracy was obtained through appointment by lot, not through election. Current work in sortition theory (which is what an “election lottery” is called now) sees the deliberations of a randomly appointed assembly as being more what the general will should or would be, if the appointed members actually had the responsibility and time to deliberate the issues at hand. Edmund Burke had a similar view of representative democracy: “Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion."
Thus, true democratic deliberation may put The Health of the People first without actually trying to reflect The General Will, but also without being described as anything like a benign dictatorship.
So, the inherent paradox is really a characteristic of electoral democracy, which, funnily enough, Aristotle didn’t consider to be democracy at all.
There’s far more to this topic than can be expressed here, so I would strongly encourage readers to see the Wikipedia entry for “sortition” and especially the work of Prof.’s Helene Landemore (Open Democracy: Reinventing Popular Rule for the Twenty-First Century) and Josiah Ober (Democracy and Knowledge: Innovation and Learning in Classical Athens) and author David van Reybrouck (Against Elections) for more.
It’s only by education that this ideal can be brought into the Overton window, as it’s pretty clearly outside it now, from my observation.
I firmly believe that efforts toward returning to this form of democracy would go a long way toward curing the ills of partisan politics.
This is like spoon packaged for the masses. Good stuff man. Keep it up
Appreciate it.
We have not seen if liberal democracies can survive a world where power between nations is balanced. Will they survive and lift all out of poverty, maximizing distribution and sufficiently funding welfare,, or will wealth be funneled into a functional oligarchy that guarantees third-world status for a fixed proportion of people, despite living in a liberal democratic hegemony,? And if that happens, what will have to be done to prevent the masses from banding together and expropriating from the rich on the threat of a general strike?
What makes us believe those who don't work for a wage that is taxed don't provide value ? There are many forms of productivity that are not considered productive. One of the three pillars of society are non profits that are manned by volunteers. Approximately 63 million volunteers generate $ 193 billion dollars in labor annually to non profits who provide services to the public. Because they are not compensated doesn't follow they are not working. How many single house hold parents work day and night to support their children ? How we view productivity is in reference to GDP. Is that all there is ?
only Exceptions not via divine right Rome and Athens? What of the Iroquois nations? Venice was a Republic well before enlightenment.
One constraint on "the general will" is the Bill of Rights, which helps to ensure the rights of individuals against the tyranny of the mob. In our Western democracies, the most powerful institutions are the economic interests of major corporations that basically fund political campaigns. This has the biggest constraint on the Overton Window as far as I can see.
Excellent work on this. Please make a video about Lee Kwan Yew to compliment this video.
You may find it very rewarding to consider expanding your video repertoire about the contradictions of the Social Contract by skimming Machiavelli... and then studying Lee Kuan Yew's very successful pragmatic approach to those contradictions.
I look forward to watching more expositions from you... Even though I did not find anything about who you are.
Right on. Thanks for sharing.
Great video, I love the editing style. Though I do have two nit picks.
From what I've been taught, the nihilistic teachings of Hobbes aren't really considered liberalist. Since Hobbes argues that free will is evil and only the law keeps man to toe the line (which you do state). So why is the title Hobbes vs Rousseau? To me this isn't really a contradiction in liberalism, Hobbes and Rousseau are practically opposite ends of the playing field.
With the example of AI; isn't one strength of democracy that fact that is allows for all options to be put on the table? While in a state of urgency, I can see the need for strong centralizing leaders like Lincoln, FDR or Reagan. But in most cases, rationalizing the situation seems the best to avoid radical solutions that lead to a failure of democracy.
But overall is was a good video, I don't agree with the thesis, but I recognize rising talent!
I'm glad that you enjoyed it.
The whole idea is that there is a fundamental contradiction between the ideas of the social contract and those of the general will and the idea of the social contract comes from Hobbes even if he was not a lib, he still built one of the foundations of liberal democratic thought.
Although your nitpick is the reason that I included Locke in there and the title is "Hobbes vs Rousseau" because it is catchier than "the social contract vs the general will"
But thanks for your observation! I could have been clearer with Hobbes' ideas.
What is the intro piano song?
"There can only be one main value", is not true. There is a range and a Dialectic that changes inside the system and it works when there is a cultural "Trust" in each other. The current anti-democratic thinking (is that your underlying, unspoken window?) seems to parallel a schism of "trust" in each other. The system described is actually the description of human behavior. The young are often pushing envelopes while the elders don't want change and don't want to danger their offspring and yet it happens. And yes, the Press or Media (or wherever information is delivered and groundswell occurs) determines the dialectic that can become conflict. But a healthy system is based on popular trust and that is being degraded by demagogues who thrive on conflict. Such always is the world but I still trust in the notion that the people, not God or Aristocracy, are the ultimate repository of power.
1:09 there are plenty of exceptions to this outside of Europe, as well as in Europe even when looking at the peasant republics of the HRE for example. You're repeating one of the big myths of the enlightenment here
Well, I am not aware of many republics that were not inspired by Greece or Rome, but that might just be my ignorance on the subject.
@@courtssense I am not an expert on such topic, but wasn't there tradition of tribal council among germanic people? Assembly of free men of the local area, with power to make laws and even appoint leaders like princes and kings. Scandinavian parliaments still are referring to that tradition by their names. And I don't think it can be explained as inspired by Greko-Roman parliamentary tradition.
@@ukaszgrzesik7231 Yeah there were democratic tendencies but as the actual governing system? But fair enough, I will cede the point
It’s actually harder for AI to replace manual laborers than it is for it to replace those in creative fields or office work. It’s the non-physical work that is the first to go
Former Fed Chair Volcker in his last book said we are run by Plutocrats. He didn’t soften that patronizing insight by saying, yeah, but they are motivated by good.
Adjust the paradigm.
The crux of this video is the hypothesis that will/well-being of the people are incompatible. They are not, they can appear as contradictory, but democratic debate can find a synthesis, even in times of crisis. Liberal democracies, in which the majority rules, but constrained by checks and balances, rule of law and universal rights, have proved to be very resilient. They might appear to be in permanent crisis, but that is because problems are being vented out instantaneously and constantly. Better than in authoritarian systems, when problems just build up until all explodes.
The fall of the Weimar Republic actually falls on "The health of the people side" actually. The first thing to point out is that Hitler never got the majority of the vote, and just used the powers of state to remove his opposition. This was enables by, as John Locke put it, "People are not so easily got out of their old forms as some are apt to suggest." as a lot of people's understanding of government was still from pre-democratic days. A lot of its legal system was still from Kaiser Germany, because replacing those people in legal institutions takes at least a few generations. Also, the public itself was probably in the same situation of being just fine with being ruled.
Culture moves much more slowly than politics. The Weimar Republic just did not have that time to change the culture of Germany. So, there is also a question to be asked if the public were really in the a situation to be thinking of the situation in a Liberal context yet. I'd guess that a good chunk of the Weimar Republic were still in an older school of thought.
Well, I would argue that the NSDAP grew in popularity because they channeled the general will of a very salty Germany that was tired of democracy.
Sure the Prussian traditions did have an impact, but it did not propel the DNVP to power, so it cannot be the remnants of the Kaiser.
Also, the NSDAP leadership were just fine with sending millions of soldiers to the meat grinder, H-man expected the western front to be another stalemate and was fine with it because it was all about national pride and that falls on the side of the general will.
@@courtssense However, don't you think that if the largest party in government arrested the whole of their official opposition then people would see that as undemocratic?
The just going along with things plays more into Locke's idea of Tacit Consent, and the general inertia of culture. We can't forget that the proper interpretation of the General Will requires the majority. However, in this case, aren't we more counting on inaction? Rousseau's General Will needs all people to be active in the vote, and that was a reason he gave as to his idea of the General Will being almost impossible for something as large as a state to interpret. Locke idea of a representative government works better as that is what Germany was at the time, and Locke better describes cultural inertia and tacit consent of going along with things.
I think I am remembering tacit consent. Though I have my doubts, I'm tired, and I haven't read it recently. I also didn't do great with Locke.
What’s the piano tune at the beginning?
It's from a composition by Eric Satie, a French composer who died in 1925. I believe it to be one of the "Gymnopedie". He is too often neglected, but I find his music to be unique and beautiful.
Close enough, my friend, it is Satie but instead, it is Gnossienne no 1.
Good stuff for when you're feeling melancholic
th-cam.com/video/PLFVGwGQcB0/w-d-xo.html
It is unclear to me that this dilemma isn't just endemic to human societies. The Enlightenment thinkers were not unaware of the conflict between what they called "mob rule" and democracy. Like the Romans before them, the Enlightenment thinkers sought a blended system including the best elements of democracy, oligarchy and monarchy. The recognition of this dilemma is ancient, addressed also by Aristotle.
Indeed, but not much by modern thinkers.
Excellent job
What is "the people"? When the "pilgrims" came ashore, were they "the people", and whose well-being was of concern, or were the millions of indeginious Americans "the people" whose well-being was of concern?
Overton window: everyone likes the Romans, but, no one wants to be conquered by them.
"Systems" do not think. People think. Sometimes badly.
The essay concentrates on the conflicts within a society, and the way that different people's relate to each other is another topic. When it comes to who the people are, the answer is that both groups thank that "the people" were themselves.
This is a big issue I see with liberal democracies. That of rights which undermines mere democracy and in our world is constantly used to ride roughshod over the people through the use of the minority or otherwise the same will threatening the repeal of rights which thus make life not worth living. It is a paradox which I do not believe the democracies can fix because it is not within the democratic paradigm but oligarchic in nature (I am not opposed to all aristocracies.).
This is a succinct and thoroughly understandable account of the most crucial of liberal contradictions.
Guess when there's no God, we create our own versions. Far easier to accept God though.
De Tocqueville did not make the statement which you attribute to him. Please fact check. Oh…the comment about 90 IQ and plumbers is extremely insulting. Most plumbers I know are pretty smart.
I think the overarching idea is correct and the contradiction at the heart of liberalism, but I think impact you oversimplify some of the problems that the United States particular face and some of the strengths of liberalism
Plumbers are not low IQ workers.
I did not mean that, I meant that manual labour can be done by most people and the first example that came to mind was plumbing.
Maybe not the best example since it is not simple work, something like storehouse worker would be more fitting since it's the most swich-your-mind-off job i've ever done.
Most plumbers aren’t intellectuals. It isn’t technically complex work.
Imho this contradiction has come of age by now, since many circumstances changed and opened up opportunities to mingle both of them almost perfectly together:
Switzerland demonstrates to us, that an educated people is very willing to make desicions which would be unpopular anywhere else, such as voting against an extra national holiday (which has really happened). Bottom line is that with enough education you get people to act as their own "benevolent dictator". I myself once voted for mandatory national service altough I had it ahead of me at that age back then, but I could see the advantage for society outdoing the disadvantage for the individual (myself). Also the savety of existence (daily needs, housing) plays a crucial role in how someone will decide politically, since poorer people tend to elect "populistic parties" which in turn tend to go parasitic on the state household and national industry. A third aspect is the ability to instantly access information and express your free opinion via the internet - one can't underestimate the resulting dynamics, but in short they can help us enormously in creating the optimal balance between the health of the people and the general will, as they automatically align with sufficient information and education of the people.
So: 1. A secure existence 2. Education 3. The internet. Only when they come together I claim that the contradiction becomes obsolete. Which is a very big step me thinks.
PS: I just noticed that Mr Locke himself made education the foundation of his idea, since his premise is that the monarch is also (ideally) "the best" educated individual (or otherwise to be gone) to be able to act benevolent in the first place.
Back in his days, with global iliteracy at high levels, it was literally impossible to think of the average individual as well-informed about detailed national politics and needs. If every people was as educated as the Swiss it would be really easy though (I'm not swiss by the way).
In America, the general will is more important because we are governed by a bureaucratic class that has its own agenda which is to expand government agencies and increase the power of the bureaucracy. We have an opioid crisis because a sedated population is easier to control. Since not everybody is going to fall sway to the drug culture, the bureaucrats are looking for ways to influence the general will. That is the big thing. If they can do that, they have got it made. People talk about term limits for politicians, while ignoring bureaucrats, like Dr. Fauci who have been in Washington since Reagan was president.
I take it the sorts of plumbers you know of are not very experienced plumbers 😅😂
While it may be true that there are two competing fundamental values underlying liberal democracy, it does not logically follow that liberal democracies cannot be decisive. In the example you provided regarding AI replacing jobs, a liberal democracy can decide to implement a universal basic income. Your argument is invalid.
It can also choose to allow the vast majority of citizens to live impoverished existences while the capitalist class and a relatively small technocratic live in opulence
I wonder which one we will choose?
Full of problems, unclarities , mistakes (3:50 … how did “Hume” end up in the discussion) and misinterpretations and tangential inclusions (I don’t think introducing the Overton Window helps you … and then transitioning the Overton Window into “political correctness” and a critique of the news media? … your reach exceeds your grasp here).
Have you considered the more essential and perhaps more profitable way of approaching this material … the contradiction within liberal democracy of the two competing concepts of freedom and equality?
Or how two contradictory strains of thought emerged from the 18th century … the Enlightenment of Locke et al and the Counter-Enlightenment of Rousseau and those who followed him (particularly in German philosophy and the romantics).
Thanks for the video!
Found at 407 subscribers.
Neglected is another source of danger to liberal democracy, which is not only a danger to liberal democracy but a danger to human civilization in our age of nuclear weapons. That is imperialism. As we learn from Marx, imperialism is a late stage development of capitalism in a liberal democracy, but it also arises in systems that are blatantly authoritarian - where popular will is suppressed. Since imperialism requires imposition on the will of its objects, it is necessarily accompanied by militarism, and the latter produces deficits and the neglect of the "health" of the empire's citizens. Eventually, the mounting deficits become unmanageable. This now true of the United States of America, which has become the world's most ambitious pursuer of empire. Its growth has divided the world into its vassals, which is not too strong a word because they no longer pursue their own peoples' interests but rather those of the empire, and countries that have not been successfully included. They are considered enemies of the empire and provide a justification for increasing militarism in the empire's foreign relations, accelerating the pace of the empire's insolvency and eventual decline. The question then is can that decline be managed without a globally destructive nuclear war?
I agree with the USA as an empire take, but I would not say that its imperialism comes from its capitalism, but instead from its position of power.
Throught history we can see that strong states bully and use weak states for their purpuses. This has been the case for all economic systems feudalism (Spain & the Aztecs), socialism (USSR & the balitcs in 1940), capitalism (USA & Iraq), etc.
I think that it comes from the fact that it is in our nature to abuse our power over other people, the whole power corrupts thing.
I'm pessimistic on the whole thing because I can't think of an example where a powerful nation did not use and abuse other less powerful states, can you?
@@courtssense Would you agree that the need for power is implied when the subjugation of others is the program, but the motivation for the imperial subjugation in the contemporary world is the capitalist's need for opportunities?
@@alvin8391 Sure, capitalism is an ideology that has a desire to expand, but when it comes to wars, I think that it is about national glory and presige. The US pumped trillions into the war in Afghanistan but what economic use did they get out of it? (Excluding selling themselves weapons)
@@courtssense If the US had achieved a victory in Afghanistan and established a friendly government that would have permitted the US exploitation of minerals, and the war would have been a success for our capitalists. Even if it resulted only in allowing the US to build pipelines through that country and preventing Russia from doing that, it would have been a geopolitical success. Did the US go to war in Grenada and in Panama to achieve national glory and prestige? I don't think so. The US did win those wars, the only victories since WW2.
@Alvin Citing Marx in a political response is the dumbest thing you can do. I agree with the Court sense that stronger states always bully and subjugate smaller ones, that’s human nature and no ideology is changing that fact.
And....we are back to Plato. But he had no solution either.
"Liberalism has become the ideological hegemon of the world, through military and economic conquest". In som cases this is true, but the vast majority of working democracies today were born bye th peoples of these countries wanting a government that could ensure their freedom and right to contribute, and fighting endlessly to get it. The idea that liberal democracies were imposed, like your wording would indicate, is the favourite line of modern dictators. Its mostly innacurate, and most countries that had it imposed, stopped being democracies pretty quickly. It must come from the bottom up for it to work.
No mention at all of the economic system. As though capitalism and democracy can work together. Spoiler alert: they can't.
Liberal Democracy is running up against it's contradictions again, that of it's Values and that of it's Economic System, the proposed Values of Liberalism (individual liberty, freedom of expression/speech, diversity, freedom of opportunity) are often at odds with Capitalism (private property, wealth extraction/accumulation, the freedom of capital to move wherever it wants so long as labor cannot do likewise through strict National Borders). It will either result in Social Democracy or Fascism, both tools used to reboot the system (both social and economic) and to be dissolved away back to Liberal Democracy once the crisis is controlled, or so they will attempt.
I for one am more concerned that the Fascist path is going to be happening rather than the Social Democracy one, mostly because the world doesn't have a Soviet Union equivalent to compete with on its radical social programs, which pushed the general public around the world to pressure their Liberal institutions to adopt such programs to stave off the far Right; there are good reasons to believe that the US Civil Rights Movement wouldn't have made the relatively quick gains if the US government wasn't afraid of the Soviet Union providing direct assistance to the African American community, which wasn't out of the question.
Also, I think you missed Sade's Liberalism as a part of the equation, as his total libertinism is another, very dark, facet of Liberalism; the Italian Marxist filmmaker Pier Pallo Pasolini, in adapting Sade's incomplete book 120 Days of Sodom (under the title of Salo), called out the fact that Fascism is the natural outcome of Liberalism, in the fact that the Bourgeoise (capitalist class), because of their wealth and power, gets to be Sade libertines, because that's the freedom that capitalism affords them.
Corporatism with a democratic veneer... May be where we are heading..or are we there?
Brilliant! You didn't mention climate change but hey. Your general thesis is sound.
Thanks for the comment!
But I am curious, how you would implement climate change in this video?
@@courtssense No government in the global north including the UK is acting to protect the people from climate change, they are acting primarily to protect the interests of big business. Therefore, according to the social contract established by Hobbes and Locke the people have the right to rebel. It is both in the interests of the people and the will of the people (over 80% in the UK) for the government to act effectively on climate.
How can you say CNN carries more weight when Fox News is the most watched cable network in the USA?
Because Fox News has no institutional weight and is not seen as reliable, sure a lot of proles might see it, but that does not matter at an institutional level.
And indeed, for that reason, they have less power to move the Overton window than CNN or the NY times. The issues that the press establishment pushes become the popular opinion in 10 years, just look at gay marriage and see that Fox tried their all to stop that but utterly failed.
Fox News is not registered as a news network with the FCC as is CNN. Fox News is an entertainment network posing as journalism. No comparison, only the sycophants are fooled into thinking it is truth.
@@courtssense "carries more weight" .. Is euphemism for influence gained (& projected) through its strategic platforming by vested interests (including ' the state') & advertising by its ecosystem.
Hi, you say cutting deficits means defunding existing programs but it could mean raising tax on the wealthy. Why would you leave this out? I do think the failures you mention are not because of democracy or one person one vote, but because of the kleptocracy of one dollar one vote. Get money out of politics and let's have a more real democracy.
My point was that it's not about the amount of money that we can get through taxes, but instead it's about the fact that the deficit is so high because politicians make promises to gain the favor of the General will without taking into account the implications or the price.
You could tax every cent out of the rich and that would not be enough because the general will, like people in general, is never satisfied and politicians will use this newfound money to make larger electoral promises and end up with a deficit. Again.
You missed the third way adopted by our founding fathers. The will of the people, constrained by the rights of the individual. But even that could be overridden by a constitutional amendment. Which is very difficult to do by design. Our founders made it possible for us to vote our way into slavery to an all powerful state if we want to. They were not going to make any future decision for us. Where we have strayed from protecting the rights of individual citizens... we've failed. We should always err on the side of more freedom that doesn't infringe on the freedoms of others.
what will stop this dialectic is every body being educated but govts dont want that
As it keeps them in power .ie govt not individual political parties as they come and go - govt makes decisions on 2 fronts social like equality of ethnicities and sex etc and of economic - the economic system is capitalism and untill we have better education on its problems and their causes and the alternatives we have no chance of solving this dilema
Non Democratic governments have taken decisive action but it has turned out to be disastrous like Operation Bárbaros. Liberal democracies do take decisive action and some times that has been disastrous like Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. So difficulty in taking decisive action and a preference for piecemeal measures is not necessarily bad. In retrospect does union resistance to job cuts look so wrong. Close downs on a massive scale have generated new problems like the lack of dynamism that a de industrialised economy has. Decisive action can be reflexive action which is not always good. The thing about artificial intelligence and all these low IQ people is rubbish or at least governed by guesses influenced by thinkers who are anti Democratic in the first place. The middle people who can do computers sometimes get into the wrong relationship with the true elite and are underfoot and so it is they who benefit from revolts of the proles sometimes. If there was just the middle and the elite the middle might be worse off. In the past the middle has benefited from below the common salt pressures and so it might be in the future. So democracy in some form might be the answer. Especially if you do not make wild guesses based on unproven beliefs about IQ and intelligence.
Your historical account is completely wrong.
What DOES "LiBERAL" even mean? I don't get it 😩
I think the AI problem can be largely solved with UBI (Universal Basic Income). Think of it like in the Star Trek universe. Of course, this can only work in highly developed countries.
Well, what do you mean by solved?
Sure, they won't starve, but living on welfare your entire life is not a recipe for being a healthy. There is no reason to think that the lifestyle of living on welfare and wasting your life in front of the TV cannot spread to a large percentage of the population if they don't have to work.
Why would this not be the case with UBI?
"I think the AI problem can be largely solved with UBI (Universal Basic Income). "
No. UBI won't solve it.
That is because, the AI problem is not only about the disappearance of income for many people. It is also disappearance of meaning, of belonging. and many other things. This is the same reason why people who won lotteries, and invest wisely, after some years of partying is looking for work again. They feel displeasure answering the question "What are you doing now?" with "I am just partying, enjoying my lottery money man!" They take ANY job just to provide meaning, belonging, etc. to their life.
@thecourtssense why do you assume that people would simply waste away sitting in front of the TV rather than pursuing activities that bring them joy and self fulfillment
That would be a perfect recipe to manufacture deadly zombies.
A UBI that provides only some portion of poverty level income (say, 50%), implemented via a negative income tax that had a reasonable clawback rate (say 40%) would provide both support and incentive to work without costing the state an excessive amount.
Seeing Trump at Waco shows how fragile the US Constitution really is, USA could easily go the way of post Soviet Russia .