In Liberalism Against Populism (1982), William Riker argued that democratic decision making was chaotic, arbitrary, meaningless and impossible. This was nothing new, various thinkers have been poking theoretical holes in democracy since before Plato’s Republic. Socrates thought democracy was cute, but “full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequaled alike" (Plato 558). Voting – one of the essential foundations of a democracy - is problematic. In the late 1700’s, the Condorcet voting paradox only paved the way for Arrow's impossibility theorem (Arrow 2012). A variety of dangers, including mob rule, cycling, Continue reading...
