Israel goes from one restructuring crisis into another. Socialism, successive waves of aliyah, near-bankruptcy in the arms race, ideological changes from mini-state in 1948 to mini-empire in 1967 to defeatism since the 1990s strain government’s credibility and make Jews doubt if the nation has any ideology to sustain statehood. Democracy is a comfortable order for established societies, but in times of crises, Romans appointed dictators. Voting for personalities invokes more responsibility than for parties; Israelis who vote for Kadima might not vote for Olmert. Strong presidential republic where the president is elected directly by public weathers crises better.
Mass democracy, however, is inherently evil. Politically active, engaged populations seek to determine policies and control politicians, but such control is short-lived. People hate doing useless job, and the control of elected government soon proves useless. People hate responsibility, and political demagogues urge them to trust the government. When someone promises to care about you, and everyone around seems to concur, you also tend to concur.
Small groups are still reasoning entities, but reason disappears from large populations. The major reason for that is the mob tendency of adapting to the lowest common denominator: people shrink from offending others, realizing subconsciously that that may be dangerous, and seek the common points with them. The common point is the lowest common denominator, and for the large country such denominator is really low.
If the problems are both hard and not imminent, people prefer avoiding them. So, the sweetly talking demagogues are voted into the offices even though their promises are evidently absurd. "The dream of reason produces monsters." Any candidate who tells the unpleasant truth to the mob has no chances of being elected.
In the era of mass media, election campaigns are expensive. Grassroots financing is a fairy tale: once a candidate becomes widely known and his chances appear somewhat realistic, large donors flock to him. That is venture financing in political sphere: risks are large, but potential profits are staggering, as the first large donors would likely remain the new ruler’s closest confidants throughout his career. And so we saw German industrialists financing Hitler, and Jewish American businessmen – Obama. An honest candidate stands no chance of securing sufficient financing, as he is not sufficiently corrupt to shower his benefactors with government contracts and subsidies upon reaching the office.
In large countries with the history of freedom, mass media somewhat check the corrupt and obviously wrong policies. The minuscule Israel with a history of socialist oppression is exactly the opposite. A few oligarchs who control Israeli media critically depend on the government for contracts, permits, and non-extradition. Israeli media are therefore completely subservient to the establishment.
Democracy is a very accidental political system. It was never practiced on large scale in antiquity, but only in small cities where participatory democracy remains viable. In all cases, democracy quickly eroded into demagoguery, tyranny, and then monarchy. Modern states erroneously identified as democracies are actually republics, the difference being that some basic values in republics are closed to democratic discourse; on the other hand, even theocracy allows democratic decision-making on mundane issues while the core values are kept non-negotiable. Democracy gained popularity during the Renaissance when westerners marveled at everything ancient. Unlike the classic art, democracy remained popular because it allowed the ruling classes to rule as if by popular consent (manufacturing and twisting that consent) and provided academics with the opportunity to legitimately influence societies with social theories.
There are three viable alternatives to democracy. Two of them are biblically sanctioned: anarchy and monarchy, while the third was employed by Jews throughout most of our history - theocracy. Anarchy operates as a network of townships bonded together by mutual defense agreements, common and criminal law. The legal system is kept to a minimum, and people are free to a high extent.
Jewish monarchy is a constitutional one, where king is bounded by myriad restrictions. Short of a very bad king, such system is finely suited for opinionated Jews, whose perpetual debates and vacillations it crushes. If the king proves very bad, he can be removed both on religious grounds (as a traitor) or simply by the masses exercising their right of insurrection.
Theocracy is also not bad. Someone like Ovadia Yosef, for all his shortcomings, won’t be a worse leader of Israel than Olmert or Netanyahu. At least, Rabbi Ovadia has Jewish ideas and convictions. Theocracy served Jews well for the nineteen centuries. It wasn’t perfect, but enough that it is workable.
No realistically electable politician in Israel is better than Olmert. But there are viable forms of Jewish government better than democracy where the likes of Olmert would never succeed.
I completely disagree with you about "democracy quickly eroded into demagoguery, tyranny, and then monarchy". Read Aristotle, Xenophon, pseudo Aristotle and pseudo Xenophon (the pseudo prefix is used since the style of writing is in the general form of the aforementioned authors, but nobody's sure who actually penned these works), on the strength of democracy. Especially pseudo Xenophon (probably and aritocrat in classical Athens) wistfully describes the strength of the democratic regimes, and how it reinforces itself. Only after 404 BCE, when Athens lost the Peloponnesian War, was democracy forcibly replaced by Sparta with the Thirty Tyrants. A year later, the Spartans reneged and allowed Athens to have a limited deomcracy. As Sir Winston Churchill said "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."
Which democracies have lasted?
Fine, I will read pseudo-Xenophon and you will read history.
So, the Athenian Democracy was defeated by the Spartan Tyranny. Seems to me like what Obadiah wrote was correct.
I'm curious to hear Said's argument. Theoretically democracies can last, but we do not deal in theory.
What democracies have been as stable as oligarchies, empires, theocracies, despots or monarchies?
There more than three alternatives, perhaps there is infinity of them. No logical reason to assume that there are only three.
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It seems that from know systems meritocracy is is an obvious choice:
We need to chose leaders with integrity,highest intelligence, courageous, dedicated, patriotic, good at leading team and negotiating. Other qualities could be selected. Methods of measuring these qualities can be developed. Of course they wont be perfect, but they will be better than democracy, monarchy, etc.
Perhaps meritocracy, is not incompatible with anarchy, monarchy in theocracy.
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Perhaps without switch to meritocracy not just Jews, but whole humanity will be destroyed.
Rabbi Ovadia - are you NUTS !!!???!
His party was "ahead of their time" in 1993 by supporting the Oslo disaster for $$$$$$$$.
With so many rabbis in Israel, you couldn't pick somebody better ?? For example, Rav Mordechai Eliyahu (or his son Rav Shmuel Eliyah) who believe in DEFENDING Israel more than allocating $$$$$ to a particular school system.
The argument is a fortiori. *Even* Ovadia Yosef is better than Olmert, and *all the more* any decent rabbi is better than any politician.
Ray,
Most systems attempt to be meritocracies. How would your meritocracy work?
Who decides which person is man has the most intelligence/integrity/bravery…etc?
It's unworkable in reality.
Albert,
Every problem can be approached with "how to solve it", or alternatively with giving up upon encountering a difficulty.
The first approach is leading to results. Part of searching for a better system is experimentation. When something does not work, change it.
There are many way by which we can measure a persons patriotic commitment, one for example would be to make sure that he/she is not there for the money. Make a rule that the leader must live on income equal to the average of his country. The leaders must must not use their position in the government for personal enrichment through any means. Anyone who does not like this arrangement clearly considers their personal benefits more important than their country.
The above is just an idea, perhaps worth trying, perhaps needing further refinement. I am just indicating a certain attitude of "CAN DO" versus your's "UNWORKABLE IN REALITY".
As for intelligence and problem solving skills there are already many tests. They are not perfect by far shot, and can be improved. Particularly most of them are not designed to measure someone's ability to stay focussed for long time on a difficult problem, rather they are designed to measure quick solutions. This can be improved. But even with current methods, America could do better that George Bush, of whom I am certain that he would not be able to pass 8 grades test in mathematics from his own state of Texas. (I have looked at the test on line). Likewise his almost complete lack of knowledge of Geography and History should disqualify him as a leader.
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When we hire services of a mechanic, we usually don't tell him how he is to perform the service. Instead we want to relay on his skill. Likewise, we may vote on what are our important goals, but we should not micromanage our leaders, we should have the best, smartest, most dedicated and most qualified people in the position and then we should support them, rather than undermine them.
Danny,
The defeat of Athenian democracy by Spartan tyranny did not last long. Athenians killed the tyrants and Spartans did not come do their defense. Athenian democracy committed suicide when they voted to kill Socrates for the crime of publicly challenging (and ridiculing)the authority.
To say that a system of government will last is the height of folly. No type of system lasts for very long, and even those that do last tend to change subtlely from the inside (eg feudalism and monarchies), else they stagnate and die. The idea of building a system to last, if not forever, then for the logest possible time, is flawed in and of itself. Humanity thrives on change and adaptation to new environments and ideas - case in point: democracy. Thus we should be building systems of government to adapt to the future. Danny the Admin, Rabbi Ovadia is discussing the destruction of democracy from the inside, I gave an example of it being focibly destroyed from the outside: losing the Pelopennesian War is not a testament against democracy's strength, but if you want to take it that way, then look at the Cold War as a counter-point to your argument. Thankfully, for all of mankind, democracy won - even if many think it was merely the lesser of two evils.
As for the meritocracy that others have talked about, then read Plato's Republic. Socrates goes about discussing things like the meaning of justice and so on, then describes (in his view and in many's) the perfect meritocracy. Yet even he admits that it will always remain theoretical and never truly materialise. Thus meritocracy is noble in essence, but the most difficult type (impossible) of system to implement. Virtue is not needed in democracy.
Albert, the richest person is the best one for the job, of course
Ah of course Erick! How naive of me!
Ray,
I would not object at all to a meritocracy. A system that manages to pick out the best, most skilled people for the job of leadership is one I would support.
As Said mentioned, meritocracy has been suggested since Plato. How often has it occurred?
If it hasn't we must ask why? We should not attempt to radically change societies, as Obadiah has often said, the better course would be to go along with tradition and change slowly.
Btw, Danny, are any articles forthcoming concerning the economic crisis of the US?
I think democracy is best. Unfortunately what we call democracy in most western "liberal democracies" isn't. It is a periodically elected oligarchic dictatorship.
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If we want real democracy, then allow any citizen vote on any legislation that citizen wants to vote on. (by, e.g. polling on the internet.) There are people who think real Democracy won't work, like Lee Kwan Yu. (as they argue, Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to eat for dinner).
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Voting responsibly is cultural. Compare the Swiss, who have strong participatory elements in their democracy. The Swiss voted for high taxes, intended as savings for their retirement. On the other hand, look at Californians, who have citizen initiated legislation. Californians are sending their state bankrupt by voting against taxes.
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In summary, it does not seem possible to prevent those that we elect to rule us from becoming corrupted. What we need is some way of attenuating their power, which will hopefully reduce the level of corruption.