Democracy and them

[rzr]

Re: Democracy and them

There would be no perfect government. There is (that I can think of) no conceivable way to treat millions of people perfectly fairly and appease their every whim. However, history has showed the democracy tends to be the most effective of the thus-far theorized and practiced governments. I mean, just off the top of my head I can think of only a few forms of practice(d) governments that were not as productive as democracy: dictatorship, monarchy, empire- republic (closest runner-up), religious, kingdoms, communism, etc. Almost none of these have lasted any special amount of time.

@ Corbin: Are you refering to the book Aristotle, or another book with a similar title? If so, I have read the book.

[Corbin Wells]

Re: Democracy and them

I am referring to the politics by Aristotle. The only flaw with this philosophers thinking is that he speaks in ideals. Meaning everything has to fit his (damn good) requirements in order for a certain something to work. But if people were educated to be this certain way, it is something that could work. But reaching such a goal would take such a mammoth task and such. I know I'm speaking vaguely here...

[devonin]

Re: Democracy and them

treat millions of people perfectly fairly and appease their every whim.

What leads you to believe that these two things go hand-in-hand? Why is it the job of politics to appease the whims of the people? Shouldn't government be acting in the best interests of their constituants?

If you read The Politics alongside a reading of Plato's Republic I think you'll find a lot more practical application going on instead of just high-minded ideals. The biggest function of the Republic is the idea that the correct way to live is for everybody to know their place and their role in society and to do it happily and well. The usual flaw with reading Plato/Aristotle is that the scale they are working on is very small. They deal in the polis, and how the polis should be run, and at the time, you aren't looking at very large populations at all. Tens of thousands as a high end. As a result a lot of their ideas become very unwieldy if you try to expand them up to countries with hundreds of millions of peopl.