SS blog Discussion-2

“Democracy creates stability in a society”

In my opinion, Democracy does not create stability. In fact, this system sometimes causes instability. Although many countries have this system, we cannot assume that it is the main key to a stable society. I will rebut the policies of certain types of democracy, occasionally making references to Jin Fu’s previous post. Firstly, let us view a hypothetical situation.

In an underdeveloped nation, let us refer to it as nation X. Nation X works on the concept of democracy, and has many political parties. Each promise many things for the people, but there is one that clearly stands above the rest. This party’s policies’ are grand, and will benefit the country greatly. However, the people, who are generally illiterate and do not have a good grasp of how policies work in countries, may not vote for the party. They may, instead be attracted by the other parties, who have policies that are imperfect but more appealing to the common citizen.

Jin Fu stated, “People now wish to grasp hold of their own lives and wants their voices heard during policy making of their own country”. But as seen above, what if what they want is unadvisable for the country?

The common citizen would not be able to choose what is best for the nation this way. In fact, many voters may be uninterested in policies of the nation, and may throw or waste his vote. This would result to an inaccurate representation of what the general public really wants. Another scenario would be that the policy is so complicated to the extent that many of the voters cannot understand it. If this is so, then how are they to vote on the issue? This would just result with many voters getting puzzled with the policy and would not know how to respond to it.

In order to stop voters from not voting, governments tend to carry out the policy of “compulsory voting”. Every citizen is forced to vote, and this goes against the whole idea of democracy, which is to emphasize the idea of freedom.

The common solution to this would be Representative democracy, where government officials are selected by the people to represent them. However, the representatives would have to be elected by the people, and would have to go through the flawed process of voting. The earlier paragraphs reflect the result of voting.

Take the example of Taiwan. In a previous occasion, Chen Shui Bian was shot. Firstly, it reflects on the fact that the country can descend into chaos when there is an attempted assassination. Secondly, it also reflects on how democracy may not be the best government. In the years that Chen Shui Bian took charge, the country’s economy suffered terrible losses, and the people were unhappy with the choices that he made. This shows that the majority vote is not always correct.

Popularity does not usually reflect the fact that the person elected is the best person for the job. A simple example can be seen in the Primary School classroom. When the teacher asks for nominations for the monitor, it is likely that the immature kids will vote someone who is funny, popular, ignoring the most important trait of all, the trait of good leadership and qualities of a leader.

In this case, it would be better for the teacher to pick who she knows is the most suited to be the monitor. However, we are of course assuming that the teacher is not biased towards any student.

In my opinion, the person most suited to the job should rise to the challenge. He/ She should be either chosen by an unbiased, wise leader of the country, and lead the country to glory. The important decisions should be done and handled by he or she. In the rare event that this person is corrupt with power, he or she will simply be replaced with someone new. This is similar to the concept of dictatorship, and I feel that it is a better choice rather than Democracy, as the leader can only be replaced by someone who is more efficient.

Chia Chen Wei
3B
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