We have this fantasy that if every country in the world was a democracy, we would have a workable world. Democracy cannot make good government policy. Was Brexit good policy, did the Tump administration make good policy, is Netanyahu making good policy? We nor our democratically elected reps know what good policy is or have any hope of implementing good policy.

Let’s take a critical look at democracy. Where did the idea that the majority is “right” in any sense of the word come from? We can theorize that if the majority gets what they want, then the most people will be happy but happy is not synonymous with right. Right must be engineered and we can take a lot of pages from the engineering book to create “right” policy as will be explored in this blog.

More about democracy, it is very hackable. Individuals, groups and even AI like Cambridge Analytica can hack it. Control is not in the hands of the majority. Control is elusive, it shifts as power players try different tactics. We don’t know what impact Russian meddling had on the US election, only that there is not a clear majority control.

Democracy had a hey day when it replaced the concept of kingship and birth right. Elected representative were from the educated and economic nobility. Their status allowed them to show some altruism and implement some right policies. This hey day started the dream that democracy was “right”. Today it has become a path to power, not “right”. The concept of wisely chosen people engaged in an objective debate to determine a best policy is captivating. Political debate however is mostly about changing minds to support partisan views, not about best.

Democracy has a lot of mechanics. Proportional representation, first past the post, referendums, suffrage which all affect the winner outcome but not the “right” outcome. The mechanics should be a proven thing by now, not a “Hail Mary” thing.

Lobbyists have more control than the electorate. Governments like Russia’s are only pretend democracies, the voters have no control.

The need and desire of a representative to be re-elected creates an automatic conflict of interest for any policy decisions that need to be made. In engineering, decisions are made by certified experts who don’t need to make decisions to retain influence.

One vote every 4 years is not control. We vote according to ideology. Ideology can guide our reasoning about policy but should never be the final straw. We may feel strong about free trade, but a policy that starves a large number of people can’t be right. Ideology can be a direction guidepost but never a decision maker.

Referendums don’t work. The voting agents don’t take the time or have the motivation or the facts to understand and rationalize about an issue before they vote. Brexit was mostly about one issue, immigration and all the other factors needed a lot more expertise to analyze. We have the technology to implement a true democracy, every evening the issues are presented on TV and everyone votes with a special button. This would be real control but would be a disaster.

Engineering has made some very good decisons in the past. In 1905 the Wright brothers had an idea about how to make a machine that flies. By 1970 it hade evolved to a Boing 747 aircraft that could take hundreds of people around the world in a very safe, multi country infrastructure of airports, navigation aids and safety standards all done by experts, non by democracy.

In contrast, democracy first appeared about 4000 BC in Greece but today in 2024 it has a very dismal record. My next post will be about looking at government from an engineering point of view. Can we create a government 747 by being smart?

It’s only a matter of time before the bad policy coming from the hodge-podge of current democracy results in a catastrophe such as a nuclear war. My next blog will look at how we might engineer good policy using an engineering approach. We can’t fix democracy, we must replace it.