Does democracy lead to the tyranny of the majority?

[Vastatosaurus Rex]

I was reading Henry David Thoreau's Civil Disobedience for an English class, and I found that near the beginning of his essay, Thoreau states an old criticism against democracy: namely, that democracy is unjust because of majority rule. You know, the old "tyranny in the majority" argument.

I think it's a bullshit argument. One advantage of democracy is that you can always persuade people to change their minds on an issue and vote differently. Let's say, for instance, that Obama wanted to start a genocidal war against Venezuela in order to obtain their oil, and the majority of American voters supported him. The minority who disagreed with Obama could always start a campaign to convince the electorate that massacring Venezuelans to steal their resources is wrong, therefore leading said electorate to vote against Obama. The voters' consensus is not unchangeable in democracy.

I wonder what kind of government Thoreau would have advocated. Earlier in the essay, he asserts that the best government is that which governs least, an anarchist-like sentiment, but even true anarchists believe that workplaces and other institutions should be run democratically by workers.

[sketerpot]

Maybe he would have advocated a government with constitutional protections to reduce the tyranny of the majority. Like we have today.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to persuade a majority to change their opinions? If we had to get the Jim Crow laws taken down by majority vote in each community, we'd still be fighting against segregation. If we didn't have protections for minority rights, much of the US would be theocratic right now. And don't tell me that I'm exaggerating; I've lived in some of these places, and they're that religious. And don't get me started on the censorship that you can get a lot of support for. As soon as you persuade people that Judy Blume books are okay, the censors will have moved on to stirring up fear about unpatriotic messages in 1984, or the dangers of Dungeons and Dragons, or whatever idiotic crap they're successfully selling this year.

The tyranny of the majority is a problem, and you can't get around that just by happily assuming that people will be anything like reasonable. Now that is a bullshit argument.

[septesix]

"Democracy is two wolves and one sheep voting on what's for lunch. Liberty is the sheep having the means to defend itself"
I forgot where I saw this quote, but I'm always remind of this whenever anyone brought up the Tyranny of Majority issue.

[Crossroads Inc.]

"Democracy is two wolves and one sheep voting on what's for lunch. Liberty is the sheep having the means to defend itself"
I forgot where I saw this quote, but I'm always remind of this whenever anyone brought up the Tyranny of Majority issue.

Sorry but that statement is the sort of meaningless Dreck I hear from the right all the time, what the hell is "Liberty" in this statement? How does it help the situation? How do you define "Liberty" in general, Its an empty buzzwords that Conservative just ike to masturbate to.

[open_sketchbook]

Of course it does. Democracy is a system for enforcing the most popular set of viewpoints. A democracy is only as good as the people in it.

[CmdrWilkens]

The main thing is that people disagree, for a society to function there must be some method of dispute resolution and a means to enforce such resolutions upon the whole. This can take any form from utter anarchy where the weak prey on the strong with no rules save those they make for themselves to autocracies where one man or woman's word is law that all follow. Democracy and Federalism (the US system we call democracy) tries to balance these by giving power to those who can command a majority and grants them authority over everyone until such time as a majority chooses against them/ There is another one of those great quotes that Democracy is the worst system expect for all the others which have been tried, I think constitutional democracies (and parliamentary systems) do the best job of balancing against either the rule of the minority (by birth, strength, wealth, or status) and rule by nobody.

[Majin Gojira]

"Democracy is two wolves and one sheep voting on what's for lunch. Liberty is the sheep having the means to defend itself"
I forgot where I saw this quote, but I'm always remind of this whenever anyone brought up the Tyranny of Majority issue.

Sorry but that statement is the sort of meaningless Dreck I hear from the right all the time, what the hell is "Liberty" in this statement? How does it help the situation? How do you define "Liberty" in general, Its an empty buzzwords that Conservative just ike to masturbate to.

It's a bad misquote of Ben Franklin. I believe Liberty is replaced with "Constitutional republic" in the original, but I could be wrong.

[Bakustra]

The point with Thoreau's criticism was to point out the possibility of the tyranny of the majority, which is something that has been advanced since the naming of democracy itself. The problem lies not in its existence, but in its potentiality, and thus any democratic system must advance a means to counter or prevent it, or else become vulnerable to becoming unjust and tyrannical. Regardless of the plausibility of convincing people through reasoned argument, it is better to never have that become an issue in the first place, wouldn't you agree? While this is essentially impossible, providing safeguards against tyranny of the majority is equally important as protecting against the tyranny of the minority, aka oligarchy.

[Darth Wong]

I was reading Henry David Thoreau's Civil Disobedience for an English class, and I found that near the beginning of his essay, Thoreau states an old criticism against democracy: namely, that democracy is unjust because of majority rule. You know, the old "tyranny in the majority" argument.

I'm sure the black slaves in the pre-Civil War era would have agreed with you. Oops, no they wouldn't.

I think it's a bullshit argument. One advantage of democracy is that you can always persuade people to change their minds on an issue and vote differently.

Yes, with a sufficiently intransigent and intolerant majority you can "persuade" them to change ... General Sherman style. I wouldn't count on any other technique working.

Let's say, for instance, that Obama wanted to start a genocidal war against Venezuela in order to obtain their oil, and the majority of American voters supported him. The minority who disagreed with Obama could always start a campaign to convince the electorate that massacring Venezuelans to steal their resources is wrong, therefore leading said electorate to vote against Obama. The voters' consensus is not unchangeable in democracy.

So? It doesn't mean that democracy can't lead to tyranny of the majority. That's one of the justifications for a system of written law and judicial interpretation. Voters vote on broad over-arching principles which sound good, but they don't get to vote on specific applications of those principles because people are often bigoted assholes who would not even try to be consistent about it.

I wonder what kind of government Thoreau would have advocated. Earlier in the essay, he asserts that the best government is that which governs least, an anarchist-like sentiment, but even true anarchists believe that workplaces and other institutions should be run democratically by workers.

Thoreau claimed to love nature, but in reality he just hated humanity. Any society designed by him would be a nightmare.

[Flagg]

The problem with democracy, even with checks and balances, codified law, and a republican system is that at the end of the day, the success or failure of it rests in the hands of the people who vote. It's all well and good to say that the people we elect to represent us should be more intelligent, have political skills, etc, but when public misinformation and willful ignorance runs rampant as it does in modern America, you end with fucking psycho retards in office.

[Simon_Jester]

I think the real question is: is there any system that doesn't lead to tyranny of someone?

Democracy gives you tyranny of the majority. Monarchy gives you tyranny of the one guy. A lot of other models give you tyranny of the oligarchs. Technocracy gives you tyranny of the central planners.

There is no tyrant-proof form of government except for no government at all... which takes you straight back to tyranny of the oligarchs because the most powerful people in an anarchy will try to assemble their own governments for self-aggrandizement.

[Shroom Man 777]

So what you're looking for is to decrease the effects of this tyranny, while overall improving the living standards and lives of the proles. Out of all the systems so far, democracy seems the most workable.

[Darth Wong]

Yes, democracy is the best of a bad bunch of systems. However, the problem is when people start acting as if "democracy" is synonymous with "morality", by declaring things to be right just becaues they are popular. You see this a lot when people cite polls in order to support their ideological beliefs about health care or gay marriage.

Democracy tells us what the majority thinks. I'm just sick of people assuming that everything a democracy does must necessarily be moral, or fair. Democracies are quite capable of severe oppression.

[Rogue 9]

"Democracy is two wolves and one sheep voting on what's for lunch. Liberty is the sheep having the means to defend itself"
I forgot where I saw this quote, but I'm always remind of this whenever anyone brought up the Tyranny of Majority issue.

Sorry but that statement is the sort of meaningless Dreck I hear from the right all the time, what the hell is "Liberty" in this statement? How does it help the situation? How do you define "Liberty" in general, Its an empty buzzwords that Conservative just ike to masturbate to.

Well, if you'd think about it for two seconds, "liberty" in this statement is the sheep refusing to just lie down and die because the vote said he must. As for "in general," come the fuck on.

the quality or state of being free: a : the power to do as one pleases b : freedom from physical restraint c : freedom from arbitrary or despotic control d : the positive enjoyment of various social, political, or economic rights and privileges e : the power of choice

Bolded the sense relevant to the expression you're bitching about. Really, is looking in the fucking dictionary so difficult?

But you're right that it is lacking when phrased that way. The way I first encountered it, it went, "In a democracy, two wolves and a sheep vote on what's for dinner. In a constitutional republic, the wolves are forbidden from bringing the issue to ballot and the sheep are well armed." It's a statement on the comparative merits of democracy and (lowercase r) republicanism. And is falsely attributed to Benjamin Franklin either way.