October 13th, 2018 4:18 PM
UNPACKING “DEMOCRACY REQUIRES HOMOGENEITY”
by Richard Nikoley
—“Markets allow us to cooperate on means despite disparate ends. Democracy, only on same ends. Democracy requires homogeneity.”— CD
Let me unpack this a bit for those unfamiliar.
Markets, or trade, is inherently win-win or the trade doesnâ??t happen and there is no market. When you buy a pound of apples for $1, itâ??s because you want the apples more than you want the dollar and the tradesman wants the dollar more than he wants the pound of apples.
This happens billions of times a day, globally. How many trades do you do in a single day, on average? 5-10, maybe? Multiply that by 7 Billion. Thatâ??s upwards of 70 billion trades daily and as a win-win, thatâ??s a lot of happiness. We should be thankful.
Moreover, markets are typically ideologically, racially, gender, culturally, etc. agnostic or neutral. Itâ??s the great mediator. Traders tend not to care a bit who the other person is or what they believe, and yet they serve each other. How amazing. How fortunate we are.
Now, contrast that with democracy. Democracy is winner take all. Either you keep your dollar AND get his pound of apples, or he keeps his apples and gets your dollar. Itâ??s windfall win-lose.
It only tends to work reasonably well in homogenous populations or institutions. Think Japan and Scandinavian counties (as they used to be before the Muslim influx). Relatively small populations of largely the same race, culture, national history. Or, consider a large public company where directors are elected quasi-democratically by shareholders, but everyone is more or less on the same page of making capital gains and paying dividends.
Democracy does not scale to something like a European Union or a United States.
Totally dumb idea, especially extending the franchise to those with no stake (no property, no financial assets, no business concern with employees, etc.).