Is democracy really the best form of government? | Steven Pinker | Big Think

Is democracy really the best form of government?
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"Now in practice," says Steven Pinker, "no one has ever developed a democracy that works particularly well if judged in absolute terms. Democracies are always messy, they’re always unequal. They always involve lobbying and power grabs. But all the alternatives so far have been worse. Democracies seldom go to war with each other. They have higher standards of living. They have higher levels of happiness. They have higher levels of health. And they’re the obvious preferred destinations for people who vote with their feet. The whole world wants to live in a democracy. It’s an ongoing project. It’s currently under threat from a number of directions, but there’s never been a time in which we’ve had a well-functioning democracy in terms of meeting all the criteria in a high school civics class."
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STEVEN PINKER:

Steven Pinker is an experimental psychologist who conducts research in visual cognition, psycholinguistics, and social relations. He grew up in Montreal and earned his BA from McGill and his Ph.D. from Harvard. Currently Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard, he has also taught at Stanford and MIT. He has won numerous prizes for his research, his teaching, and his nine books, including The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate, The Better Angels of Our Nature, and The Sense of Style. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, a Humanist of the Year, a recipient of nine honorary doctorates, and one of Foreign Policy’s “World’s Top 100 Public Intellectuals” and Time’s “100 Most Influential People in the World Today.” He is Chair of the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary, and writes frequently for The New York Times, The Guardian, and other publications.
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TRANSCRIPT:

STEVEN PINKER: Probably the most famous product of the Enlightenment was the American Declaration of Independence and Constitution, a blueprint for a form of governance that tried to get the benefits of government—seeing as how anarchy is worse because you get spirals of vendetta and feuding and violence. You don’t get the coordination of large-scale economies without some kind of governance. Trying to get the benefits of governance without the perennial hazard that anyone given a bit of power will aggrandize their power and become despotic.

So the checks and balances of American democracy were a way of – I think of it as negotiating a middle route between the violence of anarchy (and anarchy does lead to violence—We were never noble savages that lived in harmony. Regions of the world without government are almost invariably violent) but also avoiding the violence of tyranny. Mainly you give someone power, they’re going to use it to maximize their benefits, their power, their longevity of their reign at the expense of people. Democracy is a way of steering between these extremes, of having a government that exerts just enough violence to prevent people from preying on each other without preying on the people itself.

Now in practice no one has ever developed a democracy that works particularly well if judged in absolute terms. Democracies are always messy, they’re always unequal. They always involve lobbying and power grabs. But all the alternatives so far have been worse. Democracies seldom go to war with each other. They have higher standards of living. They have higher levels of happiness. They have higher levels of health. And they’re the obvious preferred destinations for people who vote with their feet. The whole world wants to live in a democracy. It’s an ongoing project. It’s currently under threat from a number of directions, but there’s never been a time in which we’ve had a well-functioning democracy in terms of meeting all the criteria in a high school civics class.

[CJ_]

"The best part of democracy, everyone can vote. The worst part of democracy, *everyone can vote."*

- A wise man

[ELGtheMAN]

The problem is most people in the democratic world would not want their voting rights to be abolished because they think they can influence the government. The fact is, no matter who you voted for, policies will remain pretty much the same because of corporate interest. The ones who could influence the government are NOT the voters, but the super rich aka lobbyists and corporate giants.

[pongop]

Anarchy is peace. Anarchy is freedom. We have lived for hundreds of thousands of years without government, and it wasn't always violent.

[kpkgdlh]

You absolutely CANNOT just say that the whole world wants to live in a democracy. Where I live in SE Asia, there are plenty of people who outright hate it. How did he come to such a gross assumption?!

[KUNGFFUPANDAOLKJ]

To all those people who are against democracy visit countries that don't have democracy then you will never complain, I know its not perfect but its better than others believe me

[Roar]

Real democracy is based on meritocracy, people get what they earn. Social democracy is based on who you know and getting votes.

[olearris]

America is not an example of a democracy. America is an oligarchy at best. We need to make America a democracy and make the votes count. Fight for the people not the 1%

[Eric_D_]

“It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government, except all those others that have been tried” – Winston Churchill.

[angelic]

I think the takeaway from this is that if you want something good and long lasting, there are no shortcuts.
No one person will come and fix all your problems. We all have to shoulder the burden together, and fight for something that benefits as many as possible without making individual lives pointless.

[SteveLedger]

I find those tiles that appear while speaker is still talking 20 seconds before the end of the video to be very rude indeed.

[floyd]

Maybe Socrates was right when he said that not just everyone can choose good leaders. You need well-qualified people. Who is well educated on his job. Democracy only works well if you have highly intelligent people voting. If people are under-educated or not well informed, they will make poor choices. When people start selecting candidates by qualification instead of popularity, they will have that perfect government that they wish for. Like the candy man who gives you candy compared to the dentist who makes you suffer pain to make you well again. Selecting good leaders is an art and not born into you. You must know all about who you are voting for.

[kokigami]

In the history of the human civilisation, democracy is still new.

It might take another thousand years before it balances out but I have to agree, it's the better version of governing thus far.

[jonah]

There is no “coordination” in American democracy.

[Craznar]

Common democracy isn't a form of government, it is a form of selecting a government. I think in Switzerland they actually have a democratic form of government - but what most of us think of as democracy is not a form of government.

[Dominikmj]

This hasn’t been really a “big thought”. I could have summed up the same points, without much thinking about it: democracy is not perfect, but at this point the best system we do have...

[Woopor]

I think the best form of government would be to have an AI. Not a true robot or sentient being, but a system of algorithms so complex and designed to know exactly how to ensure all people can get their necessary things in life, without the issue of corrupted people to ruin it all. Add science and math to anything and it will make things a million times better.

[lhayles]

We are a Republic (rule of law) with a representative democracy(few chosen to represent the many). With a Constitution and a Bill of (human)Rights, our founder's set a strong base to build on. A 2 party system has distorted governments role as George Washington warned parties would.

[masterphillips]

"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."

America's a republic, thank God.

[er]

One of the statements made : "You don't get the coordination of a large scale economy without some kind of governance".
It seems crypto-currencies tend to prove the other way around.

[tylercarter]

I love democracies! I mean, in what other political system could a linguist pass as an expert on governance?