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Assuming that humans are essentially submissive, we both want and need to be governed by one exterior force or another. This is contradicted by the human need of feeling that we are intelligent beings superior to others and able to lead ourselves. This paradox is satisfied by democracy: a form of government which allows human beings to have the impression of being involved in the decision making process while also being sufficiently dominated.
This essay is going to analyse the strengths and weaknesses of the implemented democracy in our society in comparison to totalitarianism and anarchy. It will also define the areas to which the authors of this essay think that the rule of democracy should be confined.
To start with the latter, the authors of this essay think that the government should control the things that are to do with the large, collective parts of society that go beyond the needs of individuals and small groups. These collective parts of society are things such as issues concerning the majority of the population of the state, agendas addressing global cooperation, and policies of phenomena that are meant to be the same for every citizen of the state (e.g. healthcare, education etc). Thus the democratic state should work mainly as a nightwatcher state, where things concerning the minority or the single individual are left to be determined on that level.
To move on, one of the major problems with democracy is that there is a great risk for minorities of becoming oppressed, since the majority is the ruling body in a democratic society. This is the complete opposite from a totalitarian regime, in which it is usually the minority oppressing the majority; in an anarchist society, this issue is nonexistent because in such a society, nobody has the right to govern anybody else. Another apparent issue with democracy is that of making everybody take their share in the decision making process; there is no means dominant enough to force every individual in a society to take their responsibility and voice their opinion when that is needed, meaning that the results obtained in, for example, an election could be shifted from what the opinion of the actual majority is. Neither of the species of government in comparison have this problem: when the popular opinion is never needed or asked for, there is no way that it may be false due to possible passivity. Furthermore, assuming that humans are, apart from submissive and wishing to feel able, also selfish, it is reasonable to say that decisions made democratically may not always be in the best interest of the majority of the affected entities. Assuming further that humans also have the wish to not exert more energy than is absolutely crucial, it is also possible to argue that the decisions made sometimes are ill-informed: as John Simon has expressed it, “Democracy encourages the majority to decide things about which the majority is ignorant”.
Although problems like the above mentioned exist, democracy is still considered the superior form of government. This is due to the strengths of democracy, which heavily outweigh its weaknesses. If our assumptions concerning the human nature are correct, democracy satisfies all our essential needs. It allows us to feel like we contribute to society when we take part in the public displays of affection that referendums and elections really are, while providing us with a sufficient amount of rules and regulations and dependence; in short, it allows us to fool ourselves that we are independent beings in a really sophisticated way. It also enables us to elect a smaller group of people that are to take the larger part of the responsibility for our society. This lets a group of people with a larger need of feeling involved and a smaller need of being submissive satisfy their needs while also taking unwanted responsibility off the plates of the others. Finally, the administrative part of democracy provides jobs which are not in any way needed in anarchist or totalitarian societies; makes people aware of the world around them because they need to be reasonably informed in order to take part in the democratic process; and largely decreases the risk for war, as two true democracies never hitherto have been known to fight a war against one another.
As Winston Churchill has expressed it, “has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those others that have been tried from time to time”. This sentence shows that, despite a certain number of weaknesses, democracy is still the form of government which is the most likely to function properly.
Creds: the iPebble. Uppsats skriven för ToK, i par.
There is this thing with ideologies. Even though they are very different, they claim to have the same goals and to some extent the same values and beliefs.
Every ideology existing has the goal of a better world, however this better world will be created differently. When looking closely and examining the ideologies, you notice how they differ in almost every vital question, and yet the same they says to reach for freedom of mankind, equality for the humanity, a better world for every man on earth.
This essay will examine further how these political ideas and beliefs can alter to that extent and still be so alike. I will look into two of the main ideologies of the world and one that might not be as known and spread amongst the people. This will hopefully illumine the reasons to why our political world tends to be such a strange arena of the global debate.
Freedom is something that we all want and wishes for, but how are we supposed to get it?
To understand the different views of liberty, democracy and equality, we have to understand the different ideologies and why they look like they do.
Take equality. The term equality has different meanings for different people depending on how they view the world and what stand they take politically. Liberals believes that people are created differently, with different possibilities and different abilities. That people are different from the very beginning. Therefore a perfect equality will be created, not by making everyone having the same possibilities, but by making everyone have the same opportunities.
Socialists on the other hand, they believe that the perfect equality is created by giving everyone the exact same possibilities. This because they think that every person is created equal, everyone having the same structure. That all of mankind have the same starting point, and from there develop differently because of our upbringing, our circumstances in life and not to mention our material standard. Then, if everyone has the same references in life, then everyone will develop in a way that the society will gain of, and hence be allowed to do what they want to do.
Freedom is also a term that can be discussed. It can be the protection of the little person, because by protecting her you give her freedom, not only the freedom to choose, but freedom in general. Both socialism and liberalism can be said to protect the little person, but in different ways and for different reasons.
A liberalist would protect the little person from the state, which has no business in the little persons’ everyday life or choices. It’ll be made certain that the state can’t interfere by making the government small, and that the said government only deals with essential things, and thus having a government that works when the people are asleep.
A socialist would say that they too protect the little person. But they would protect the same person as the liberal, and for the same reason, to give the little person the freedom of choice, but the protection would be completely different. What the socialist would do is allowing the person to dance on the ropes, but providing the person in question with a safety net underneath so that it won’t be a disaster if the little person falls.
To put it another way, the liberal wants everyone to have the possibilities to put their rope wherever they want to, and dance upon it, whilst the socialist want the little person to put their ropes within a restricted area, and provides with a safety net underneath.
But what says that it’s just the things exposed above that can be the truth? Nothing really. Because what is truth for one person might just be a lie for another. An anarchist wouldn’t agree with a socialist. They would have some opinions in common, but they would disagree about other points. Socialism has a view of the human nature, as the name of the ideology implies, that humans are social beings, and therefore the best for mankind is to do what is best for the society as a whole, because then it’ll work out the best for everyone within the group, the society. And since mankind is a social being everyone is a part of the society.
However the anarchist would say that the thought of someone else deciding what is best for you is absurd. The anarchist ideology, “Anarchy" is named after a word in ancient Greek, meaning “no rule”. An anarchist counters authority. This is not very compatible with socialism which believes that a state should have a strong government. Neither is it very attuned with liberalism, even though it’s closer to liberalism then socialism. There are two main fractions of anarchism, one is an “ultra-liberal” fraction and the other one is more of an extreme socialistic point of view. The fraction that is closer to the socialists opposes liberalism at the economic level. The left-wing anarchist thinks that the means of production should be owned by everyone, however the right-wing anarchist takes free market economy to its extreme, and therefore opposes the socialistic point of view.
The main thing anarchists say is that if you abolish any authority existing, humans will work everything out by themselves.
Politics in general is a difficult subject to understand, and it’s not getting any easier when people with completely different opinions claims to have the same goal, the same values and the same beliefs. But it is to a quite big part all about what meaning you put into different words. And if some thinking about it makes people understand each other and makes the world a more peaceful place, then I which people would think about it more often.
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