In 2016, I wrote an article titled The Role of “Majority Rule” in the Collapse of Democracy. It was for a writer’s workshop called Medium.com. Most articles written for Medium just capture the attention of a few dozen other authors. This one was different. To date, it has drawn over 5,500 views. I think its message is very appropriate for the purpose of my new book Collapse 2020 Vol. 1: Fall of the First Global Civilization. Take a look at the link above.
In short, the book and the article make the following points:
• “Majority rule” is one of the great flaws of modern democracy. It can only work for societies where a strong and broad consensus of beliefs already exists. The clash of so many cultures in modern society makes this impossible.
• “Majority rule” doesn’t work where there are a lot of candidates representing different causes.
• “Majority rule” allows huge injustices to be perpetrated on “minorities”. An extreme example is the case of a “lynch mob”. Majority rule justifies these atrocities.
• “Majority rule” is directly at odds with the principle of a “Bill of Rights”.
• “Majority rule” rests on a simple-minded belief in sayings like, “The Greatest Good for the Greatest Number”. While this sounds fine in the world of “Single Sentence Logic”, when the issue of complexity is included, it quickly falls apart.
The article closes with the following summary. For a complex MODERN society:
1. A majority-vote democracy should not be the goal. The goal should be FREEDOM and individual LIBERTY.
2. A majority-vote democracy, even with a theoretically perfect implementation, is a failed functional model for a complex modern society.
3. The goal of freedom, however, can’t be sought through anarchy. That would only lead back to struggles for power, dictatorship and the equivalent of slavery.
4. When many candidates are involved, the process must still be designed to involve all citizens uniformly in every step of the vote.
5. The issue of individual rights must be protected above majority rule.
These principles are also discussed on the A3 Society website under the headings: Philosophy / Truth; Government; and Personalized Democracy.
