The Genius of James Madison was to see that a large country with many
factions would be freer from factionalism that a small country would be.
The factions would cancel each other out. Factionalism was the greatest
threat to democracy that the founders saw. Much the same applies to
corporations and the marketplace -- we are saturated with islands of self
interest, but have a system which has them cancel each other out -- except
insofar as they mostly line up, i.e. except for the widely held positions.
It's like filtering out all but the DC signal.
Democracy as an evolutionary matter, once it is well established, is pretty
good at allowing agreement to emerge from the cacophony of viewpoints. It's
rapid spread (from one to more than 100 democracies in two centuries)
attests to it's evolutionary superiority.
There has never been a time when those in power didn't believe in
suppressing all other viewpoints. It is the essence of all non-democracies.
In democracies people always want to achieve that, but they they are
structurally inhibited. If they ever succeed, then they are no longer have
a democracy. "Democracy is Well Established" == "No One can Suppress all
other Points of View"
Mike Oliker
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Thu, 07 Dec 2006 08:15:31 -0700
From: "Marcus G. Daniels" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] US intelligence agencies "discover" blogs and
wikis
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
<friam@redfish.com>
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Phil Henshaw wrote:
> The ideal product of democracy is decision making that reflects a whole
understanding of things by integrating all points of view. Trouble
develops when the points of view that believe in suppressing all others take
over.
>
I have my doubts about the evolutionary value of democracy in the modern
world. For example, in the corporate world the motivation is supplied
by stockholders and the points of view are supplied by employees.
Worse, the corporate leaders, workers, and stockholders are all
different people, disinterested in the welfare of one another.
Complicating matters is that the corporations have the ear of
government. Democracy in these kinds of conditions requires individual
courage and idealism.
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