Does democracy require economic prosperity?

[Wernazuma III]

Originally posted by Boddington's
Democracy certainly needs an educated populace in order to be successful, which in turn does requires economic propserity.

Wow, I actually agree with Boddington's.
However, I recall Boddington arguing for education becoming a "deregulated", privatized "service" for which you pay.
I wonder whether this correlates with his attitude towards democracy.

[Solly]

However, I recall Boddington arguing for education becoming a "deregulated", privatized "service" for which you pay.

As this provides a better education for those that go. Of course you have temporary liquidity constraints, but these can be dealt with through either student loans or a graduate tax (effectively the same thing).

For those that don't have the educational merit, Western nations, particularly the UK, seem to be lacking in skilled labourers right now; good and valuable apprenticeships would apply.

[orange]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


democracy = bureaucracy?

If everyone votes on every issue? Hell yeah.

[Timexwatch]

Originally posted by Wernazuma III


Wow, I actually agree with Boddington's.
However, I recall Boddington arguing for education becoming a "deregulated", privatized "service" for which you pay.
I wonder whether this correlates with his attitude towards democracy.

And this doesn't work for the United States....how?

[Sava]

Democracy died a long time ago in the United States.

[DanS]

No, democracy, or what we know it to be nowadays, does not require economic prosperity. It survives in places with persistent unemployment rates of 30% and negative economic growth. It survives in places with largely illiterate populations.

In the US, it survived abject poverty for about 10 years in the Great Depression and several very bad depressions prior.

[GePap]

Costa Rica is a sucessful democracy, and certainly not rich. Like DanS said, economic sucess and democracy are not linked. You can be rich and a dictatorship. After all, in the 1980's SArabia had a PCI as high as that of the US and an incredible stardard of living. yet that did nothing for democracy.

I think more important than how wealthy a society is is how the wealth is distributed and achieved. If everyone is relatively poor, but the overall differnces is welath are not too high, and more importantly, the economy has variuous secotrs in which small private business can prosper, then democracy does well; A place were a small caabl controls a huge proportion fo the wealth (no matter how much filters down) and where the sources of income are very limited, and thus easy to control, then democracy suffers.

[Mattaba]

Well I think it does, if you look to what happened to the Weimar republic after the crisis.

[DuncanK]

Originally posted by Sava
Democracy died a long time ago in the United States.

It never existed, and wasn't set up initially. I have no idea why people keep calling it a Democracy.

[DuncanK]

Originally posted by DanS
No, democracy, or what we know it to be nowadays, does not require economic prosperity. It survives in places with persistent unemployment rates of 30% and negative economic growth. It survives in places with largely illiterate populations.

In the US, it survived abject poverty for about 10 years in the Great Depression and several very bad depressions prior.

Barely

[DuncanK]

Originally posted by Mattaba
Well I think it does, if you look to what happened to the Weimar republic after the crisis.