Socrates and Democracy

"If you want to foresee what the future will look like for humanity, imagine a boot stamping on a man's face forever."

— George Orwell

The tax system was created for rich people to pay money for the development of society. But the tables have turned. Tax-paying is a curse for employed people, whereas the same rich people that the system was made for avoid taxes via various methods. They take loans where tax cannot be applied.

Should the majority ever decide what should happen or what the constitution should be like?

As everybody knows, Socrates had noticed a fatal flaw in democracy. It hints that democracy makes an easier path to dictatorship than republicanism.

Only those who study and are intelligent are capable of knowing what is best at a given time in a given situation. Because, for all of humankind, the thinking people have always been fewer in number, and they don't need to be numerous. They just need to be thinking. That's what makes a difference.

Of course, if that intelligence eventually leads to dictatorship and genocide, it cannot be regarded as good.

Imagine there is an election going on where one person will be elected from two candidates. One sells sweets to the villagers, and the other is a doctor. The sweet seller would say, "I give you delicious sweets and pleasure, whereas the doctor inflicts pain on you." In response, the doctor would say, "Oh, I do that because I want good for you. Even though it's painful at first, it's good for you in the end."

An average person will be persuaded by the sweet seller and charge at the doctor.

And yes, times have changed. The average person is more intelligent, and the sweet seller has learned more persuasion skills.

The majority can, of course, by sheer common sense, decide what's right and what's not. But when it comes to rational decisions, it's more likely that every person would follow what the next person ought to.

I have got a terrific psychological story to tell:

In the early hours of March 13, 1964, Kitty Genovese was attacked outside her home in Queens. According to widely circulated reports at the time, dozens of neighbors witnessed or heard the assault. Yet no one stepped forward right away. Each person, seeing others remain still, assumed there was no real danger or that someone else would act. And so, in a crowd full of witnesses, no one moved.

Democracy's fatal flaw lies in collectivism, where everybody thinks alike and no one thinks much.

The only reason the republic fails is by gaining authority over a large place or constitution, which makes them go crazy, just like Napoleon was narrated in Animal Farm, written by George Orwell.