Democracy�good or bad?

“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”

Winston Churchill

Timocracy is the answer. Or 42. I forget which.

Democracy (or Tyranny) are good, or bad, depending on who is running it. The advantage of a democracy is that it requires many people to agree, and a large number of people are unlikely to go off on some horrible policy compared to a single man who can simply be deraged. Any policy you complain about under a democracy, and and does occur under tyranny, and is usually much worse (e.g. you complain about “intermarriage” in a democracy, but what about in tyrannies where they saw intermarriage of different groups as a social goal, such as the Greeks in Eretz Yisrael).

a typical method of election was to choose be at random and ask them to pick the leaders – since a leader in Jewish tradition is responsible for paying the community’s financial needs this was alway a very rich person – in fact in some communities they had a “CEO” with the title “Parnas”).

That’s what I said. A timocracy.

Democracy — meaning multi-party elections, checks and balances (executive, courts, legislature), freedom of speech, association and religion for everyone — is good. It is good because it protects unpopular minorities from harm, and ensures that an open discussion takes place about the country’s problems, rather than the closed group-think characteristic of dictatorships. For this reason, there has never been a famine in a democracy, though there have been plenty in dictatorships or colonial possessions.

Democracy has existed in the history of Yiddishkeit. In Jewish communities in Europe, for example, it was common for taxpayers to vote on how taxes should be levied and what they would be spent on. It is not alien.

Why do such regimes as the Taliban and Iran exist? In part, to show us that theocracy (even when partially or nominally combined with democracy, as in Iran) is inherently oppressive and dysfunctional, and prone to war and harmful nationalism.

If the charedim, in a few decades when they become a majority, try to set up an Iranian-style regime (in which a council of gedolim hold all the real power but elections still occur and have some influence, and in which vice squads roam around arresting people for holding hands or looking too Western), this will lead to disaster — civil war (the dati leumi would rather die than be ruled by charedi mullahs), mass emigration by the chilonim, economic collapse, etc. This is why we should value democracy, as a peaceful way of settling our differences and coming to deliberative solutions to our problems.

Even when Moshiach comes, who is to say there won’t be democracy (as in a constitutional monarchy, in which the monarch has certain powers and other powers are reserved for the legislature)? Even if Moshiach has ruach hakodesh and so on, he will not have unlimited time, and may not be able to decide personally on all aspects of how society should be run (what times should the local parks close, who should be the head dogcatcher of Tiberias, etc.)

Many view the beginning of the United States as more of an aristocracy than a democracy. That’s why the Jacksonian Era, rather than the period of the founding Fathers, is more commonly associated with the rise of democracy.

‘A “king” who goes against Torah can be overthrown.’

Not al pi halachah. Rechovam was a rasha, but it is clear from the text of Tanakh and the rabbinic writings that Yeravam ben Navat should not have rebelled. The Naviim are blistering in their criticism of the kings of Israel and Judah, but how many times did they call for a popular rebellion to overthrow those kings?