Is Third World Democracy a bad thing?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Very true ranskaldan. Density doesn't make any country richer or poorer, HOWEVER, overpopulation has a bad effect.

[ranskaldan]

Originally posted by OzzyKP


Ahem. The grand ol' U S of A never imploded. Not counting England (which still had a king, and wasn't a real democracy/republic) we are the first modern democratic country and longest continuous. Does this mean we are just better than the rest of the world? hehe, as if anyone would admit that.

Some possible deal breakers:
After independence we had the Articles of Confederation which failed within 10 years and the Constitution was written. Since it was a transfer from democracy to democracy and it was entirely peaceful and voluntary I don't think there is much of a problem here.

The true question y'all will raise, and rightly so, is the Civil War. It was a big crisis for the nation, but not a sign of unstability and danger, it happened after 80 years of stable peaceful democratic rule, and even the war never threatened US democracy. We split and fought, but amazingly both halfs retained democracy on their own, and after the war was over democracy remained with no major changes. There was no period of anarchy, no government change, no dictator rising to power, no massive civil unrest (some riots, but nothing unusual).

Our government has been unbroken and largely unchanged for the last 220 years, meanwhile France went through 5 republics, 2 empires, and 2 or 3 monarchies, hehehe.

I don't know why this is, and I'm not attempting to create a universal model for forming successful democracies, just pointing out that it did happen, and came off quite splendidly.

You have such a weird country!

A reason that I can think of is that America started out as sparsely-populated plantations. That must have helped, since the people voting are the ones who have an interest in keeping the country moderate and stable. Also, as America grew exponentially, the pent-up frustrations like unemployment, overcrowding, civil unrest, etc were funneled westwards.

Few other countries have such luxuries. Most nations simply implode into themselves at the slightest opportunity.

[VetLegion]

It is a process. If populations grows faster then the economy, then populations gets poorer despite the economic growth. If it is the other way around, the population gets richer.

The starting density doesnt have much to do with it I think.

[Brizey]

Population density is only mildly related to economic conditions. For manufacturing type industry, density can be an asset. For agriculture, it is not. The US has both: very densely populated coasts and a sparsely populated interior.

I already have a Chinese hottie. My wife is Chinese, born and raised in Malaysia. One topic of discussion we had recently is how strongly Americans believe in democracy. You are going to see a lot of bullpoop on the web and in the media, but if you work and live among Americans for a while, you can see it. We really believe in democracy and protecting the rights of the individual from the group.

Malaysia is a great place to watch the development of a modern democracy. They are still in the very early stages. The are led by a strongman, but he is planning to stand down soon. They have a state religion, but people that are not ethnic Malay are free to worship as they choose. The economy is strongly capitalist, even moreso than most of western Europe. But it is controlled by ethnic Chinese. In some regards, ethnic Malays are systematically favored over others, but the government has recently been reforming in that regard.

Summary: Malaysia is a good example of a proto-democracy that may be on the verge of emerging as a true democracy. The biggest obstacle, is of course, the state religion.

Mahartu (sp?), the pseudo-elected prime minister/strongman, has stated in the press that he plans to retire soon. He also seems to be pushing a more democratic agenda. Is he the benevolent despot that Malaysia needs to push itself into a true democracy?

[Sava]

Some part of me thinks there should be a license to have children... in a post-industrial, over-populated society, this might be a reality.

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by Brizey
One topic of discussion we had recently is how strongly Americans believe in democracy. You are going to see a lot of bullpoop on the web and in the media, but if you work and live among Americans for a while, you can see it. We really believe in democracy and protecting the rights of the individual from the group.

Oh how I wish that were true. We believe more so in the snappy soundbites of "democracy" and "individual rights" but when it comes right down to it I am sickened by the policies that average Americans support. Most American laws now protect the group from the individual, not the other way around, and people like it that way. Sad but true.