galenrox

Well this is certainly a debatable claim, I mean, by what standard do you define "work better"? Is it citizen happiness, success at expanding your borders, economics, person to dog ratio, blueness of the skies, freedom, quality of television shows created, etc.? I mean it's a very difficult thing to state in an objective manner that this is the best system of government for us, let alone for everyone universally.
It's very difficult in America because so much of our identity centers around our belief in the greatness of freedom and democracy (which of course I share), but when it comes to actual policy analysis you have to recognize that democracy is just a specific administrative structure where the members of the government are made accountable to the citizens by their ability to keep their jobs depending on being elected again in the future. In terms of the pragmatic distinctions between democracy and monarchy, military dictatorships, etc. is not as big or fundamental as we like to believe. A reality of human governments is ultimately citizens are going to have their opinions, and without means of expression it becomes like a pressure cooker, meaning regardless of system of government public opinion has to be to some degree either respected or violently dominated (usually a combination of the two). We use a combination of the two with heavy emphasis on respecting public opinion because of our administrative structure, but certain aspects of public opinion, for example those who are of the opinion that their private money is best used investing in al Qaeda infrastructure, is violently suppressed by either literal violence or the violence of confinement.

And each system has its ups and its downs. For example, it could be fair to argue that it is unreasonable to expect a population of any reasonable size to make good economic decisions, that good economic decisions only come out of elite dominated systems. You could point to America's history as an example, the purely pragmatic approach to dealing with economic problems diminished every time suffrage was extended to a new group. When economic policy was dictated by land holding white men, who definitely constituted the elite in America (because of the violent suppression of the attempts at becoming elite by just about every other group of people, but whatever) the aim was free enterprise, they had the political will to deal with issues of trade as issues of trade, not as some sort of vague moralistic issue, and that ability declined with every extension of suffrage, first to non-landholders, then to racial minorities, then to women, etc. On the other hand, it also could be argued that this curbed some of the excesses of those who treat trade as solely being trade, but what we've seen a lot more of is an expansion in the forms of corruption.

Or, if you were of the Japanese school of thought that it is the government's responsibility to manage the economy into the greatest in the world, then genuine democracy would not work out best for you, as having such control over the economy requires strict and powerful authoritarian rule. And so the Japanese have a system that's essentially rigged based off of disproportionate representation of the agriculture interests which has left the LDP in power for like 90% of the post-war era. They need to be able to make businesses fail and businesses succeed, and they need to be able to do so based on an extremely powerful and well organized bureaucracy, which they achieve by having almost complete control over who will succeed in politics and can afterwards procure amazing jobs in the "private" industries for retiring bureaucrats. They can only do this because their democracy isn't really democracy.

I mean, do you see what I'm getting at? Different cultures define success differently. I mean, hell, the Taliban almost completely eliminated the drug trade while they ruled Afghanistan (which is tantamount to Colombia being able to entirely stamp out the cocaine market, it's a major feat). If that's how you define success, then it doesn't matter to you that they achieved that goal through the violent domination of their people. To us, it matters more that the people are granted opportunities to freely express themselves, but how do we know we just don't take the heroin threat seriously enough? What if Allah really exists and really likes Shariah law? Then democracy would be the least successful form of government.

I like democracy the most, federalist democracy is the best for me, but beyond that it's really hard to state objectively that any form of government works out best.

And that's what he's saying, depending on how you define "better" all of those systems at some point could be said to have been better than current incarnations of democracy.

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What about all of the democracies that have let to brutal dictatorships?

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Kandahar

Yes! Democracy has served us well (meaning Europe, Japan, and the Anglosphere). It is nothing more than an article of faith (and a BAD article of faith at that) to believe that just because it works in the United States, it will work everywhere in the world in any era.

The best form of government for Iraq would probably be no Iraqi government at all. The Kurds would be best-suited for true democracy, the Sunni Arabs would be best suited for a Jordanian-type monarchy, and the Shiite Arabs would probably be best suited for an Iranian-style sort-of-democracy (minus the brutality and theocracy).

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Kandahar

Only because of the evolutionary mechanism at work. Countries where it DOESN'T work well cease to be democracies for very long. And then people like you can simply say "Well those counterexamples don't count, because they weren't REAL democracies."

Dictatorship seems to work a lot better than democracy in Russia. Dictatorship worked a lot better than democracy does in many parts of Africa. And let's not forget that Venezuelans voted a neo-Marxist into power, or that Algerians voted Islamic fundamentalists into power.

Hatuey

I'm scared to ask which dictatorship in Africa has worked better then a democracy or are you comparing different countries? Like say Liberia to Somalia?

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Kandahar

Ghana and Nigeria come to mind. Although I would say that the vast majority of African states were better off under colonialism (or before that, under tribal strongmen) than they have been under post-colonial democracy.

Hatuey

John Kufuor & Umaru were both democratically elected. What dictatorships are you talking about?

But this is not because of democracy it's because the people they put in power failed to continue or work on their respective democratic systems.

Kandahar

Potato, po-tah-to. You might need to explain that distinction to me. If the people consistently elect bad governments, how can you say that the democracy is working?

For a perfect example of a monarchy being superior to a democracy, look at Jordan. Jordan is ruled by an intelligent, benevolent king. The Jordanian people, in contrast, are some of the most hysterical, ass-backward people in the Middle East (and that's really saying a lot).

Is there anyone here who thinks that Jordan would be better off with free elections than with their king?

DeeJayH

except many benevolent monarchies are followed by brutal dictators
I am proud of the non violent revolution we have every 2 years
although i think we need more of a shake up among the incumbents

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Kandahar

Many democracies are followed by brutal dictators as well.

Right, democracy works for the United States. That doesn't translate into democracy working everywhere in the world during every era in the country's history.