[afro-nets] Eliminating world poverty: making governance work forthe poor (18)

["Christopher Zielinski" <zielinskic@who.int>]

Eliminating world poverty: making governance work for the poor (18)
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To expand a little on Craig's posting, a pure democracy is basically 49 people saying, "OK, you win," when 51 people vote against them, on the prudent principle that 51 people would probably, in a majority of cases, beat 49 people in a fair fight. Voting is a proxy for a fight. Instead of removing our jackets and trading punches, we accept the verdict of the ballot box. This "more of them than there are of us" concept is the heart of democracy. Of course, democracy guarantees nothing in terms of validity of outcome. One person could be right and 99 wrong, and democracy would thus pick the wrong path every time.

However, any attempt to temper democracy by introducing quality conditions (e.g., "she gets two votes because she knows twice as much about the problem than he does") tends to favour the creation of elites (as in the aristos of ancient Greece).

Christopher Zielinski
mailto:zielinskic@who.int