What’s gone wrong with democracy?

[noxibox]

In first-world countries, it's impossible to get anywhere in politics unless you have funding; the only way to get that funding is go begging to corporations. This means that those who rise to the top are beholden to their corporate sponsors, whether they admit it or not.

Result: corruption.
Solution: political parties should be entirely government-funded; no donations should be allowed from any person or corporation.

In third-world countries, the majority of the voters aren't educated/informed enough to make objective decisions about who is best suited to lead them, but rather vote on ethnic/historical lines.

Result: the wrong people get voted into power, which causes all sorts of problems (see: Africa).
Solution: ensure only those who can satisfactorily answer various questions about the political candidates, may vote. This ensures that a government actually working for the people gets voted into power, which will solve the education problem over time.

It's important to note that in both cases, it is not democracy that is the issue, but the people who are abusing it.

I find no evidence that in first world countries voters are making objective decisions when voting. Thus no evidence that better education would lead to a greater quality of leadership.

There is a need for funding reform in first world countries, but that alone won't stop the rot because it does not remove other ways to influence a politician which are at least as corrupting.

Invariably the wrong people get into power because politics attracts the sort of people who shouldn't be in power.

We know people are going to abuse power and use democracy for their own ends. That is why we seek to put checks in place.

One trick that has become popular in the first world is to tack a piece of legislation that would never pass onto the end of another piece of totally unrelated legislation that has broad support. This is typically done at the last minute, knowing that even if the representatives do normally read the entire document they are unlikely to do so again close to voting time, and also that there will be reluctance to delay a popular measure merely to prevent some iniquitous additional legislation.

 

[Albereth]

The first problem with democracy is the notion of universal franchise.