Quote of the Day: Democracy is a Joke

People will tell you that democracy requires a well-informed citizenry. Some will tell you, with a straight face and an earnest tone, that you have a “duty” to keep up with the news so you can participate in public affairs. Some countries – notably Argentina and Australia – even require citizens to vote.

But this presumes people have access to some set of relevant facts… and then make up their minds intelligently, applying the known facts to the public policy alternatives.

It is nonsense for two fundamental reasons.

First, there are no facts in public life, just memes and BS.

Second, even if there were meaningful facts, the individual citizen is hardly equipped to evaluate them. After so many millennia with no public life of any sort, we don’t know how to judge or master it.

Let me give you an example…

Candidate X tells us he is in favor of cutting government spending. Candidate Y tells us he intends to make the government more efficient. Candidate Z tells us we will all be better off, if the government spends more money to stimulate the economy.

And President Obama says he has a plan to improve the nation’s health-care system.

These are all “facts” – reported in the news media and widely debated in opinion columns and talk shows. But is there any way for the poor voter to know what the politicians really believe… or which public policy is likely to produce the best result?

Nope.

We know, after decades of experience, that public policy rarely improves our private lives. The more ambitious it is – as in the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany – the more it subtracts from our own hopes and plans…

Now, a young man can graduate from a leading university with a head full of public facts… and know nothing at all.

This is from Bill Bonner at Bonner & Partners