Are online anarchist groups actually saving democracy?

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Matthew Bennett Profile
Matthew Bennett answered

Firstly, let's define democracy for a moment - the word originally meant "rule of the people" (thanks, wikipedia.) Also from that article, you might be interested to know that the original democratic process involved randomly selecting citizens for the jobs and other citizens voting. Note that citizens here means "People who would be obligated to fight if war broke out" and thus excluded women and children.

Contrast that with what we have: Something between a meritocracy and an aristocracy, where people vote for the rich person with the smoothest tongue or the best PR campaign. (Dispute all you like - the number of rich politicians far outweigh the poor politicians)

Now the historical definition is not a canonical answer - after all, meanings change - but the spirit of the idea, that we mere citizens can shape our laws and the ethos of our country, remains in the word. Given the perpetual and increasing apathy at the poll booths, this idea is clearly no longer pervasive.

While we're being linguistically pedantic, my first association - and I hope I'm not alone - when faced with the term "online anarchist groups" was Lulzsec, Anonymous and other similar groups. While I'm not certain of the definition, I'm not sure these organisations fit the bill - they don't seem hell-bent on destroying government, merely highlighting their corruption and hoping to inspire or force others to bring responsible individuals to justice. At least that's my reading of the situation.

I think that concludes my answer. If my reading of the ethos and the question are correct, the aim is certainly there. I haven't touched on the biases within these organisations, or whether their subversions make them an ad-hoc ruling class, but for now, at this level, if their ethos and aims are in any way effective at attacking hypocrisy and corruption, it's hard to reject the statement that they are helping democracy, at least for now. The end result, whether they ultimately save democracy or just become a disruptive meritocracy is anyone's guess.

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Yo Kass
Yo Kass commented
Yeah, perhaps "anarchist groups" is more of a FOX News definition of the aforementioned... but it's kind of scary to think how much we'd have been ignorant to if it weren't for activist groups and brave individuals risking very serious consequences to reveal information.

Loved your breakdown of democracy's roots. It really makes you wonder, with all the communication facilities we have at our disposal, why we haven't evolved into a more egalitarian form of governance where people actually have a say.

Why don't we have X-Factor style voting and instant referendums on key issues so that the people (or the majority) can actually govern themselves?
Matthew Bennett
Matthew Bennett commented
I think that governments have started to tickle the edges of what our communication facilities can offer democracy, between services such as http://data.gov.uk/ and http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/ - but anyone who fights to gain power will ultimately fight to keep it and resist any erosion of power. As we've seen recently with the Snowden leaks, all it takes is for the people in power to come up with a plausible excuse for restricting access to information, especially if they can throw in a bit of fear mongering and the word "T*rr*r*sts".

I do like the idea of randomly selecting all the candidates though. Remove politics from the hands of politicians, all citizens become candidates for the top roles, and have to go through hoops to get out of it (much like Jury service). The only place where politicians are required is in foreign affairs, where having a good grounding in... "diplomatic and political speech"... is necessary in order to deal with all the other countries' deceitful politicians.

I don't see our government being the first to try this though.

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