[EM] it's pleocracy, not democracy

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 04:32 PM 3/6/2007, Juho wrote:

>My intention was to point out also that when the "carry over points"
>are tied to the parties that doesn't yet reveal who voted those parties.

What I noted was that a political party is not an individual member 
of the society. By giving "carry over points" to parties, they are 
not given to individuals, and it is entirely possible that an 
individual who shifts votes between parties, perhaps an independent, 
gets no benefit at all from "carryover points" and, in fact, loses on 
all sides.

My essential point is that the purpose of elections is to make 
choices, and the theory behind democracy is that choices made by true 
majority vote are more likely to be correct.

As to the definition of "correct," I will punt. "Correct" is as 
defined by the majority. But it is defined post-facto. That is, a 
decision is correct if the results are considered beneficial. Not 
necessarily the immediate results, but the ultimate results.

If voters intend to maximize prosperity by some measure, say 
unemployment rates, and they thus vote for this or that measure, does 
it actually reduce unemployment rates? The theory is that the 
informed opinion of a majority (and to some extent the *hunch* of a 
majority) is more likely to be correct than that of a minority.

This factors in things like knowledge, because the majority, in 
theory, has access to advice from experts; it decides what experts to trust.

Now, of course, it doesn't always work that way! Majorities can err, 
and, in particular, they can be misled. However, with democracy, we 
are betting that such situations aren't stable and they will be 
corrected with time.