Is everyone really prepared for democracy?

[otiosedodge]

Hi All,

I moved to Lima, Peru about a year ago. Full disclosure: I consider myself an anarcho-syndicalist, and I firmly believe in the power of democracy to effect change, whether it be in government or in the workplace. In fact, I suspect that workplace democracy, if widespread, would lead to momentous and positive changes in society, given that it would attack what is, in my view, the root of global society's current problems: the power of hierarchically organized, unaccountable, and large transnational corporations maximizing profit.

All this said, I've been struggling with a conundrum since coming down here. Due to my family background, most of my associations since I've come here have been with fairly wealthy people. When we begin to talk about social progress and the like, and I tell them my ideas, especially focusing on democracy, their answers are usually the same. Democracy, they say, is only useful when people have education. Otherwise, they go on to claim, people are easily manipulated by demagogues and populists.

This claim incenses me to no end. What I usually say to counter it is that while a farmer in the Peruvian highlands may have little to no knowledge of the workings of the international financial system or other national or international issues, he or she certainly knows what's good for his or her next harvest. And if Peru had a political system which allowed for election of direct representatives (it currently doesn't), then this farmer could vote for someone from his or her community who would, in his or her opinion, truly represent the best interests of the community.

This may seem to solve the problem. But an argument I've gotten sometimes against my point is that farmers in the Peruvian highlands sometimes don't even know what's best for them on a local level, evidenced by the fact that sometimes NGOs come in and teach these farmers advanced scientific cultivation techniques and/or provide them with advanced fertilizers that double or triple their crop yields. What I usually counter with is that these techniques and/or fertilizers may inadvertently upset the biodiversity of the micro-environments where they are introduced, and farmers are not made aware of this risk.

But this, of course, leaves me with a conundrum: some farmers clearly accept these new techniques and innovations, and of course they are free to do so. But maybe it's enough to say to my opponents that in many cases, the NGOs don't explain that there are possible medium and long-term consequences which they don't share with the farmers, namely, the biodiversity issue I mentioned above, and that appropriate measures should be put in place to protect farmers from misinformation.

But this lands me in what seems like a gray area: is it condescending on my part to suggest that farmers need to be protected from misinformed NGOs? And doesn't this seem to land me squarely in the camp of those that I sought to refute, since I'm suggesting that by protecting these farmers that they are somehow not ready to make their own decisions? That they somehow need more education? I suppose that I'm only suggesting that they be protected from the depredations of would-be do-gooders, not that they lose their vote, like I think some of my opponents would prefer, so it's different. And additionally, since they are dealing with these iffy new technologies, I could simply re-calibrate my argument by stating from the beginning that I believe that people really know what's good for them on a local level as long as there isn't unreasonable intervention in their local communities from the outside.

As you may have noticed, just writing this message has helped me to think more clearly about these issues, and I hope it illuminates some of the thorny issues that I've been forced to face since getting here. I guess I just want to fish around for other suggestions out there as to how to counter what I consider to be the blatant elitism of the people who are presumptuous enough to claim that people don't what's best for them on a local level. Any suggestions are welcome.

Best

[The Voice of Time]

Prepared? Democracy is a bit like evolution: you try and error until you come up with something good. At that point your country experience a sort-of golden age with flourishing, or alternatively is saved out of an existing or incoming disaster.

Besides that, there are plenty of means available to increase the quality of democracy. These include bettering representative systems to increase the diversity of voices in parliament, have an extensive and mostly neutral or alternatively multi-perspective mass media, free access to information like internet and libraries so people can learn before they make decisions, increase literacy and literary knowledge, and so forth.

[Skip]

Everyone has always been prepared for democracy. Expressing their local interests and desires, and being strongly represented in government, doesn't mean every citizen needs to be an expert on all facets of economy, industry or biology. Government by the urban upper middle class isn't justified by the ignorance of the rural population: financiers don't usually know about sewage treatment, nor lawyers about military ordnance, yet these kinds of people run governments all over the world.
A government can (and does) employ experts to administer its various functions, and one of those function should certainly be expanding public education, so that farmers (eg) can be better informed about their own long-term welfare.

[bobevenson]

As it has been said, democracy is one step above mob rule. On the one hand, it provides a check against oppressive government, but on the other hand, it is worthless if not grounded in a constitution that protects human rights.