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Why do we need deliberative democracy

From Deliberative Democracy Institiute Wiki

The needs for cooperation

The tragedy of the commons

The tragedy of the commons is an economic theory by Garrett Hardin, which states that individuals acting independently and rationally according to each's self-interest behave contrary to the best interests of the whole group by depleting some common resource[1].

Cummon Force

Groups can be more powerful then individuals, and therefore can force individuals to subject to their will, and force them to give up resources. Therefore powerful groups have an advantage in attaining resources over individuals, and keeping their members from harm.

Cummon Act

Groups can use their member's diverse specialties and joint forces to achieve better ROI and greater projects

How To Cooprate

Leadership

Due to problems of coordination, it is difficult for all members of the group to take part in the group process of decision making. Correspondingly, after the group arrived at decisions, there should be some way to make the group follow decisions and accomplish the tasks and projects. For this purpose, groups found that the easiest way to organize a group is to select smaller group of leaders, which is generally lead by a single leader.

The leader should be the one which is the most wise, to get the best decisions and the best motivator to get the group follow decisions. Yet groups found it is very hard to find such leaders. Leaders learned how to secure their power without the need for the constant consent of the people. Sometimes they are not the wisest, but the more swindler manipulative figures who know who to manipulate information and people to their own needs. (See the Principal–agent problem).

The Greater Good Problem

To elevate group over all goods, some of the actions or division of investment and resources may not be distributed equally. In some cases some members will gain more than others. In some cases, some will have to suffer or even parish. The question is how to make such decisions, which will make the group prosper in the long run, and how make some

This brings forward the problems of the majority rule and minority rule.

Private Sphere

Although members who join the group are obliged to the unwritten social contracts of their societies (see Rosu), it is a question to be answered, how much private life a member can have and where is the boundaries the between the influence of society and the private sphere (See Mill).

The need for interdependence

When a lot of power and resources are put in the hand of a small group or even in to the hands of a single member, this power will corrupt the group or the person. Most people have inner mind calculation that makes them want more resources and power all the time. These make leaders greedy, and make them try and take as much resources as they can from other members of the group. And as they have more power they can take more resources without the other members' ability to resist.

This is the reason the power to control need to be devised and create as much as you can between all members. Because of the problems of coordination, modern society divides the power between several elites (Montesque).


Yet if could somehow make the government equally depend on each and every member of the group, then it will assure that the interests of all the members will be considered on equal terms.

The need to solve the problems of coordination - Deliberation

Yet due to the problems of coordination, we still are very limited in size of the groups that we can consult and work to reach a common agreed decision. To solve this question, we need to understand deliberation in order to develop deliberative process which will enable larger and larger group to deliberate. We may gain also more knowledge which is distributed between lots of members. Each with its own specialty, and with good deliberation, the social capital of the group may raise.

Good deliberation will help make the government more responsible to the needs of each member of the group, it will add and multiply the wisdom of the group, help reach border consent, and will elevate the trust and social capital of the group.

References