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[–] syntaxaxe ago  (edited ago)

I think democracies are at high risk for corruption in two particular cases:

1) In an extremely free-market capitalist nation, especially in modern times, because you end up with a culture addicted to materialism. I could give a long explanation for why I think this is, but regardless of my theories, it is clear that the West is living in a materialistic culture of me-me-me, where we are all addicted to TV and video games and junk food and porn and drugs and money. In such a culture, people are likely to be too distracted to pay much attention to their politicians, people will vote for any candidate that promises the most benefits and easiest answers, and everyone gets apathetic enough after all the political lies that nobody is shocked that their politicians are all corrupt, so uncovering it changes nothing. Political campaigns then go to the candidate who spends the most money on advertising, which means the laws and policies are made by whoever spends the most money on buying a candidate.

2) In a multicultural nation, because you end up with such conflicting interests within society, that there is no clear set of values that everyone sees benefit in. Because of that, you can't speak truth. For example, the candidate who is appealing to blue-collar white citizens in the Midwest, and a candidate who is appealing to working-class Latinos in the Southwest, they might as well be leaders of totally different countries. They couldn't focus too much on specific policies, because it would be clear that they aren't representing the interests of broad swaths of the country. They have to either give conflicting messages about policy, or give very vague speeches about non-specific, universally good sounding values, if not just running smear campaigns.

Of course, places like America have both of these issues right now, which is a big part of why we've got shit government. I think the only way to not have corrupted democracy is to have a homogeneous population that identifies as a single in-group, to have business regulated to what clearly benefits the society, and have leaders who are prohibited from getting wealthy from politics. And even then, you'll probably still need to have a revolution every once in a while to get rid of the people who figured out how to game the current system.

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[–] CaliforniaOrange [S] 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago 

Political campaigns then go to the candidate who spends the most money on advertising, which means the laws and policies are made by whoever spends the most money on buying a candidate.

True, until the internet went mainstream. Look at the special Georgia election. The democrats blew the republicans out of the water in advertising and spending, yet still lost.

n a multicultural nation, because you end up with such conflicting interests within society, that there is no clear set of values that everyone sees benefit in. Because of that, you can't speak truth.

Yes yes go on..

For example, the candidate who is appealing to blue-collar white citizens in the Midwest, and a candidate who is appealing to working-class Latinos in the Southwest, they might as well be leaders of totally different countries

Exactly. Which is why we have stupid as fuck California pretending they're their own country. Its quite funny actually, since I live here. I get to see it first had...so many are deluded.

They have to either give conflicting messages about policy, or give very vague speeches about non-specific, universally good sounding values, if not just running smear campaigns.

And so we get politicians in power that don't have to bow to any group of people, since the power is divided up between so many conflicting groups all the politican has to do is find the lowest common denominator which comes to, as you said, "good sounding values".

have a homogeneous population that identifies as a single in-group, to have business regulated to what clearly benefits the society, and have leaders who are prohibited from getting wealthy from politics. And even then, you'll probably still need to have a revolution every once in a while to get rid of the people who figured out how to game the current system.

Well put.

I love Voat. I think the intellectuals of our age (not all of them) but some of them...are here.

Thanks for the reply. Much appreciated.

Cheers.