Submitted by Stolenfromreddit in Anarchism

I've come to the conclusion that democracy is actually a form of dictatorship. Here are my reasons (tl;dr at the end):

(1) Democracy is about the Group's Power rather than the Individual's Liberty -

Crowd psychology works differently than individual psychology. We can witness this when we go to any place with a large crowd, from concerts to festivals. Groups of people can start to move almost like rivers and any particular person must move with the crowd - in extreme cases you can get trampled if you don't. It works similarly with cognition - individual minds are erased and a collective group mind is created. This group-mind starts to behave like its own person, and some of this behaviour can be abhorrent even if many of its constituent individuals wouldn't behave in such a way. The group-mind is thus a different entity than the sum of its parts. Group-minds are often more deranged and insane than individuals are.

In a democracy, the group-persons have absolute power and the individual's power is extremely limited. The mobs, the large and mostly unorganized group-minds command some serious raw power. They stand in contrast with the institutions (e.g. political parties), organized group-minds that are less primal but still dehumanizing.

In essence democracy is a circus with the mobs being a lion, powerful and primal yet dangerous, and the institutions are the ringmasters, cruel and greedy yet vulnerable. Once in a while the lion lashes out against its master and does something unpredictable (2016 election). Democracy is the dictatorship of the group-minds, of the lion and the ringmaster, and it's all a circus spectacle.

(2) Propaganda supports the state structure

In all modern governments since the 1700s (and many even before) some sort of propaganda is utilized that indoctrinates a large segment of the population to believe the current government system is the best. From the Absolute Monarchies with the Divine Right to rule, to the Communist and Fascist states of the 20th century. Criticizing the government was met with some sort of suppression.

However Democracies have also utilized this form of propaganda and we can see this everyday. Democracy has been deeply indoctrinated into the collective unconscious of its citizens (and by virtue of American hegemony, extended to non-Democracies) to be equated with freedom. The most obvious manifestation of this is the fact that many people have not actually sat down and critically thought about democracy and its pros and cons; yet they still believe it is morally good. It has become a dogma, an assumed and unquestionable truth.

Criticizing Democracy is also met with suppression of the most powerful form: everyone around you will think you are weird/idiotic/crazy for questioning democracy. Groupthink is more powerful propaganda than coercion, the latter incites hateful resistance, the former incites conformity.

(3) Democracy's inherent problems aren't blamed on the government system itself -

Democracy advocates and dogmatists alike easily place the faults of states such as the fascists and communists with their government structure but are blind to see the problems with democracy as being inherent to its system.

Whether left or right, you can clearly see some inherent problems with democracy in the form of partisan tribalism. The political parties, say for e.g. in the US, often conduct policy not for the benefit of the country or people but for electoral and partisan success. Democrats encourage immigration because minorities tend to vote democrat, and Republicans defund education because it has statistically shown to improve their success.

Whether the policy is good or bad is irrelevant - it's done for the wrong reason and it's short-termism. Democracy has the perfect setup however: tribalist spectacle. If something goes wrong, blame the other party! People are somewhat aware the system might be wrong (as was the cases in other dictatorships) but don't question the government system itself because (2).

We are now at the dawn of a major time period in human history and Democracy's problem (3) is going to implode. Climate change is a policy that democracies are already struggling with. Hopefully Democracy's obsolescence will come not following the disasters of climate change, but before them so that the world is more prepared.

TL;DR (1) Democracy is the dictatorship of groups: the masses and the institutions.

(2) Democracy indoctrinates the population to never question the government system, just like other dictatorships.

(3) Democracy has inherent problems that are never addressed through questioning the government model.

I believe the solution is to erode the legitimacy of democracy. But before doing so it is important to know that this is potentially dangerous as some other anti-democratic movements are even worse than democracy (e.g. fascism).


Democracy referred above is representative: A system of state whereby the public select government officials through an electoral process.

Dictatorship is absolute rule of state by 1 person (autocracy) or a small group of persons (oligarchy or some other polity).

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kore wrote (edited )

This is a classic topic in ancient Greek political theory. In addition to warnings throughout poetry (plays, elegies, epic) of the dangers of letting a demagogue sway the minds of the people, Aristotle (and later Polybius) have discussions about the two natures of democracy. The first so-called "democracy" or "people-rule", is where educated people make informed decisions (a so-called "ideal citizen"). The second, so-called "ochlocracy" or "mob-rule" is more like what you are describing, a dictatorship of the brainwashed masses.

EDIT: this isn't to say that their democracy is particularly anarchic. It was heavily influenced by patriarchy and religious tradition among other things.

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throwaway wrote

Thanks for the post, very well written.

Take care not to misuse the word democracy though. Consensus decision-making is democracy too. What you're writing about is representative democracy.

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ziq wrote (edited )

I'd argue all democracy can be subverted by those that crave power. Direct democracy still depends on the wielders of it being impervious to propaganda, fearmongering, selfishness, etc.

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[deleted] wrote

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throwaway wrote

Sure it will, but compromises has to be made when making decisions in a community. If no form of democracy is good enough (that includes flat consensus decision-making), then the only alternatives left would be not joining a community/society to begin with, or fascism. Those two aren't viable.

Unless there is a better way that I haven't thought about - if so, I'm all ears.

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[deleted] wrote

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throwaway wrote

Fuck, you're right... It's a complex issue. I saw a book in my local anarchist book café a few weeks ago on this topic, I think I'll buy it and see what i can learn from that.

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