Talk:Criticism of democracy

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It seems to me that the inclusion of a subheading -"Timocracy and oligarchy" - is inappropriate, as the content of the section is a continuation of the discussion concerning Plato's views, as articulated through the character of Socrates in The Republic, of the merits of various forms of government. It also appears that the content following the subsequent subheading "Role of republicanism" merely resumes what is in fact a linear, continuous discussion of Plato's critique and how the Founding Fathers of the United States allegedly responded to it. Only the content of the fourth and final subheading, titled "Moral Decay," finally moves on from Plato to introduce some eastern views about the effect democracy has on traditional authoritative striations in society. In other words, while I appreciate subheadings that help break up lengthy material and make it easier to read, this section of the article gives the mistaken impression, at first glance, that what appears under the subheadings "Timocracy and oligarchy" and "Role of republicanism" will independently pertain to the major heading of "Philosophical criticisms." Instead of demarcating novel, uniform, and independent themes under "Philosophical criticisms," the subheadings confusingly interrupt the flow of what is otherwise a linear discussion of Plato's views on government, particularly his criticisms of democracy, (assuming that the character Socrates' views accurately reflect those of the author) and the Founding Fathers of the United States' alleged response to this opposing view. The structure of the section should be rethought.

Perhaps the best ultimate way to do this would be to expand the material. Who else offered philosophical criticisms of democracy? Do the views of Machiavelli or Friedman not count as "philosophical"? What evidence is there that the Founding Fathers of the United States "intended to address" Plato's concerns in particular? The citation of James Madison's Federalist No. 10 is a good first step. Matt2h (talk) 23:35, 21 November 2009 (UTC)Reply

The opening line of the article asserts that some critics have charged that democracy is "...un-democratic in itself." Isn't that logically contradictory? Can democracy be anti-democratic? By definition: no! It can't be. Perhaps some citation can be given? Which critics? Who? My suspicion is that this line is a reference to the "oppression by the majority" in section 3.4, in which case I think we're dealing with an equivocation on the meaning of the word democracy. Perhaps what the author intends to suggest is that critics sometimes charge that there is sometimes a tension between democracy and majoritarianism, whereby the enacting of the "will of the majority" does not properly reflect the democratic principle of "rule by the people." The filibuster is one example of a tactic that is certainly not "majoritarian" in terms of allowing a simple majority to say what goes, but may still be democratic. Certain interpretations of what "democracy" means may at times contradict one another, but obviously it is logically contradictory to say that democracy - whatever it is - can be un-democratic! The substance of that argument lies in the fact that "democracy" is construed to entail so many different things. Matt2h (talk) 23:58, 21 November 2009 (UTC)Reply

We can't base an article on your view or what you 'think'. If we did I wouldn't read it.--209.80.246.3 (talk) 16:53, 2 December 2009 (UTC)Reply

Actually, I agree with Matt2h above. Saying 'democracy is undemocratic' makes as much sense as saying 'socialism is unsocialist' or 'capitalism is uncapitalist'. It's a self-contradiction, and I'm going to remove it. Robofish (talk) 20:25, 8 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

The term democracy is applied quite diverse range of systems - so yes, specific forms of 'democracy' might called 'democratic' by some yet considered 'undemocratic' by others. Chris Fynn (talk) 13:13, 2 July 2016 (UTC)Reply

The irrational voter section contains an opinion with no cited basis and should be revised. 2B or not 2B (talk) 17:33, 27 February 2012 (UTC)Reply

Shouldn't there be a section on "religious criticisms"? I can think of two:

1. Quite a few Islamic thinkers, especially but not only Wahabbis, see democracy as incompatible with Islamic law - I understand this is the official position of Saudi Arabia.
2. Some Haredi Orthodox Jews in Israel have argued that democracy violates halakah, and the halakhic system of government is rule by Rabbis (via a Sanhedrin)

Of course, many Muslims and Jews support democracy - but there are some of both religions who don't, and who don't for explicitly religious reasons. And I'm sure these are not the only two religions which are opposed to democracy. I know the Raelians are opposed to democracy, they believe in "geniocracy" instead (i.e. only those with above average intelligence, as measured on an IQ test, should be able to vote) 60.225.114.230 (talk) 05:48, 29 March 2012 (UTC)Reply

For example, democracy has led to violence in World war 1, 2, Vietnam war, Pakistan vs India, Iraq war and many other war scenarios. Also internal police violence against peaceful protestors and general public . Teaksmitty (talk) 16:34, 9 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

• Bulleted list item

I don't think that "economic, political, philosophical, administrative, psychological and intellectual" make much sense. In fact, criticism of democracy seems grounded in criticism of democracy's 1) purpose, 2) form, and 3) outcomes. All of the existing information and criticism can neatly fit into these categories. What do people think about changing the sub-headings to these three things: purpose, form, and outcomes? I would also be happy to add a new lead section that reflects these changes. Pntxpntx (talk) 02:57, 10 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

I don't think any criticism of democracy is complete until the affects of federalism are considered. There is a conflict between federalism and democracy of significant proportions. Many people claim that federalism obstructs the risks of tyranny but equally obstructs the legitimate democratic aspirations of the citizens. I think most points of criticism and most points of democratic flaws are better blamed on federalism rather than features inherent to democracy. According to the Democracy Index, the very top six democracies are unitary and not federal; the top thirty democracies includes only six federations but 24 unitary nations There are 27 federations in today's world yet only six of them rise up to the top thirty. There are no standards of federalism and real world applications often result in conflicting principles from one federation to the next. Take the example of the US federal presidential republic where the obstructive nature is glorified and claimed to be "intended" and "good". Why would anyone design a organizational structure that is intentionally obstructive rather than efficient? In reality, the US gets either a "do nothing" congress or a "destructive" congress only able to rescind previous legislation. The current congress is unable to solve public problems that are obvious to most observers such as healthcare simply because of the obstructive nature of federalism. I'm only familiar with the US and notice a lot of these topics of politics and government fail to be "Neutral Point of View". In other words, the authors are unable to explain federalism or democracy in ways that don't rely upon US models and US jingoism. An excellent source for starters is Federalism (chap.3) of "America's Democratic Republic" by Greenberg and Page ISBN 978-0205-64681-4. -- Calif.DonTracy (talk) 21:55, 26 May 2018 (UTC)Reply

In the conversation about critiques of democracy, I think that it could be beneficial to talk about and suggest alternative solutions to modern democracies. I think that the article does a great job of explaining the concerns people have with democracies, but it fails to suggest any other options that might work better. I suggest adding an additional section where the article discusses various proposals for replacing democracy. Three alternatives that I think could be included in this section would be 1.) Jason Brennan's epistocracy, 2.) Thomas Mulligan's plural voting, and 3.) Alexander Guerrero's lottocracy. These three political systems are alternative solutions to modern democracies. I think by adding this section the reader would be able to analyze the information and consider the possible alternatives. This would make for a more developed article. I will be using the following articles from the philosophers stated above in creating this additional section. Those articles include. . .^{[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]}

This is pretty obviously a pov fork. VineFynn (talk) 10:53, 16 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

@VineFynn: you mean of Democracy? Can I ask why you think this is an inappropriate article, given that "democracy" is such a broad term, and as per Wikipedia:Criticism#Philosophy, religion, or politics and Wikipedia:Criticism#Separate articles devoted to criticism, Dedicated "Criticism of ..." articles are sometimes appropriate for organizations, businesses, philosophies, religions, or political outlooks, provided the sources justify it. In this case, I would argue that for "democracy", the sources do justify it: both the references and further reading section in this article, and a quick search on Google scholar, shows quite a lot of RS's about this topic. Seagull123 Φ 18:36, 26 January 2021 (UTC)Reply

Agreed. Kill the merge proposal VineFynn (talk) 23:20, 26 January 2021 (UTC)Reply

I added a 'Main Article' template back to the Democracy article at the top of the page Superb Owl (talk) 20:28, 13 June 2023 (UTC)Reply

It seems sketchy for Wikipedia to point readers towards this far right publisher. 72.95.130.125 (talk) 11:16, 13 August 2022 (UTC)Reply

Should this include literary works that have criticised democracy? The first work that comes to my mind here is An Enemy of the People, that brilliant satire on Democracy by Henrik Ibsen, but there must be other works of literature whose authors have not been afraid to attack democracy. YTKJ (talk) 20:49, 21 August 2022 (UTC)Reply

"Democracy" is not about the majority, "democracy" is about not very few. For specifically the majority there are other terms - "majoritarianism", "majority rule", or even "ochlocracy". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.144.245.82 (talk) 18:02, 20 March 2023 (UTC)Reply

This article includes mostly 'suggestions for improvement' to make democracy more democratic, not criticisms of the idea of democracy itself, as implied by the title.

I propose we limit suggestions to improve democracy to a paragraph each with a 'main article' template above it and place in a section entitled something like "Incomplete democracy" that doesn't suggest that this critique is of the idea of democracy, but of only the lack of full implementation of the idea. Superb Owl (talk) 18:00, 10 November 2023 (UTC)Reply

Actually, after further cleaning-up the article, it appears this should be moved to a more precise title like "Criticism of representative democracy" - the critiques are of elections and the solutions offered include other more democratic fixes and forms of government like sortition. A further reorganization is needed to specify shortcomings of representative democracy and provide space for proposed solutions (which are essentially either more or less democracy) Superb Owl (talk) 20:02, 11 November 2023 (UTC)Reply

The scope of this article, to me, is an extensive collection of historic arguments on democracy. It seems to me that Debate on democracy, with redirects, would fit. Or Maybe Arguments on democracy. JackTheSecond (talk) 20:14, 25 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

I like that approach - I took a look at the main Democracy article and did a renovation on the criticism section: Democracy#Debates about aspects of democracy. Let me know what you think @JackTheSecond (and anyone else watching) Superb Owl (talk) 21:31, 25 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Not sure if I'd move forward that fast. Let's see what the editors more familiar with that article have to say, I guess. JackTheSecond (talk) 22:07, 25 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Seems "Debate on democracy" is more used in literature than "Arguments on democracy". "Debates about aspects of democracy" seems to me wordy. "Criticism of representative democracy" seems to me more narrow than necessary here. Support "Debate on democracy" HudecEmil (talk) 23:12, 25 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

"Debate on democracy" would be a big improvement -> support Superb Owl (talk) 23:21, 25 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Another idea for an alternative title would be naming it akin to Critical Theory: Critical democratic theory; but that too is maybe too much and outside the scope of this particular article. JackTheSecond (talk) 22:09, 25 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

There exist a couple references mentioning "Critical democratic theory", but that does not cover all the topics in this article. Could be a subtitle. HudecEmil (talk) 23:07, 25 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Do what CCP and other autocrats think of democracy add anything to this discussion?

If we continue to quote their positions, should we give context to make the article more encyclopedic? Superb Owl (talk) 20:59, 26 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Yes, Chinese views including government views and the CPC's views criticizing democracy (or liberal/Western/procedural democracy) are patently within the scope of the page. Editors' positions do not have any bearing on this point. It would be strange indeed to imagine a "Criticism of (Government or Ideological Structure)" page that did not include views from "outside" the structure or ideology. If it helps conceptualize this - imagine how strange it would seem to argue the inverse proposition -- that views from within a liberal democracy are not encyclopedically fit to respond to other systems.

Although it is an essay and not a policy per se, I encourage reading Wikipedia:Systemic bias to help adopt a more global perspective.

The specifically unnecessarily questioned edit here is a secondary source, an academic text. These are ideal sources. JArthur1984 (talk) 21:15, 26 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Someone tagged the section on 'Further reading' as out of date, and @Superb Owl removed quite a lot of content there. I strongly disagree with the section needing an update for recency and think the change should be reverted, as the article is 'about' those historical arguments.

Related to that, I would like to reinstate the list of people associated as a good reference point for people who want to learn more about the subject. Maybe not in the lead but as an extra section on 'Philosophers and associated thinkers'. JackTheSecond (talk) 12:48, 6 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

Adding references how these people are associated would be good. Also, for further reading explaining why that is relevant. HudecEmil (talk) 13:04, 6 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

@JacktheSecond, without sources highlighting a list of authors that seems like WP: No Original Research

As for WP:Further Reading, it suggests keeping sections short and focused on the most recent works. Recent works have the advantage of quoting and referencing older works, building upon their ideas. I feel very strongly about both edits. Superb Owl (talk) 17:24, 6 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

WP:Further reading does in fact not say that the most recent works should be given priority when deciding on retention. It says that they should be listed first, so the most recent things are found first, but in section Limited is says:

When the list needs to be trimmed, preference in retention should normally be given to notable works over non-notable works. (Depending on the medium of the work, see a specific notability guideline.)

JackTheSecond (talk) 18:32, 6 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

So the question is notability - this doesn't seem like a history page to me as it has one section devoted to history and there is already a History of democracy page. Newer works seem to be on average, more notable, but if there are specific older texts I won't object to including those too but a revert seems extreme.

I agree that we don't need the section flag and will remove that. Superb Owl (talk) 18:48, 6 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

@JackTheSecond, I have come around to your side after seeing your explanation in the reversion.

I tried wikilinking the authors to see which ones had Wikipedia pages as a crude way to assess notability. I propose first removing the references where neither the author nor the work has its own Wikipedia page. Superb Owl (talk) 01:35, 17 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

I built citations and agree with deleting the ones not having wiki pages as probable to be not worth including. I'd also agree on removing:

• Coomaraswamy (looks like a fringe case to me)
• Karsten Frank (self-publishing)
• all non-english works moved to the respective wiki pages

strong keeps for:

• Hoppe (cited often)
• Briggs (known, wrote for the BBC)
• Newcastle (Member of Parliament in his time)

some works seem to have been lost somewhere between my revert and my latest edit, the list seems longer again now~ JackTheSecond (talk) 02:27, 17 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

@JackTheSecond I removed a handful (3-5?) that were cited in the article (Brennan, Von Reybrouck and a couple others). This is a suggestion per WP:Further reading but not a requirement. I tend to lean towards removing these Superb Owl (talk) 02:32, 17 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

I also agree with your additional suggestions for removal/keeping except might lean towards keeping newer sources even without a Wikipedia page Superb Owl (talk) 02:33, 17 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

Keep on:

• Mackinder (member of parliament)
• Ludovici (massive nutcase, keep for perspective)
• Mencken (renowned, by my impression)
• Nickerson
• Pobedonostsev (same as Ludovici)

and I agree with your removal of the works already cited, though they are usually listed in a simlilar manner. see Template:sfn and pages that already use that style of citation like Albert Einstein JackTheSecond (talk) 02:45, 17 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

The rest I don't have an opinion on, I'm going to stop for today.

Anything that's removed here should be moved to the author's pages if not already referenced there, if possible. I'm going to do that tomorrow, if you haven't got to it already by then. JackTheSecond (talk) 02:56, 17 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

I removed Ludovici and Pobedonostsev and Blackie since they had so few citations (all less than 20) - we have some works in the thousands on this section and I'd like to propose 50 as a cutoff point for this article (there are a few I left in the 30's).

I agree with the removal of the template but it still feels a bit too long and could benefit from a more distilled list of further reading Superb Owl (talk) 17:44, 17 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

I don't think we should remove any more material. Unless some of the works written prior to 1900 have below 50 cites, I guess.

For everything else, a larger consensus should be reached. (Which might not happen, due to lack of engagement... In which case, things get revisited once somebody want to add to the section again, probably.) JackTheSecond (talk) 18:58, 17 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

@JackTheSecond, I removed 2 more 100+ yo sources with <50 cites. Seems like a good stopping place for us unless others want to weigh-in. I will look deeper into WP:Further Reading and see how other articles have handled it but the sense I have is that this is an optional section that should be used judiciously (ie air on the side of fewer sources) - if the support is there for it, I think we should remove all sources <1000 cites that are more than 20 years old (and <500 cites for 10-20 yo) unless we determine some of the sources to not be wholly about this topic, in which case they should be removed regardless and we may want to adjust the bar for inclusion downward.

I also am not sure about the inclusion of a 'works cited' section as it seems simpler and more accessible to have all the references together in the same format, but if the consensus is to keep it, then we should go through all the works and add them to that section Superb Owl (talk) 21:45, 17 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

In doing some research I found that "most editors object to more than half a dozen publications" (see Template:Further reading cleanup) so I'm going to add the template to the section since we currently have 13 articles (I plan to make the case for keeping it under 5 sources in order to allow room for newer notable sources to be comfortable added and welcomed while showcasing the most notable sources already added with thousands of citations) Superb Owl (talk) 23:43, 17 March 2024 (UTC)Reply