On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 2:49 AM, lukhman_khan<[email protected]> wrote:
>> 2. Is there any evidence of correlation between levels of educational >> attainment and quality of democratic governance for countries? > With the present policy of one person one vote, throwing up all sorts of > lousy people into office, > (for the past few decades,) is it so difficult to imagine handing over the > responsibility to the educated > for a change? (at least for a few years)? It's not difficult to imagine, what is difficult to imagine is that it will improve things. Literacy requirements (for example) have been tried in the past. The actual effect is to disenfranchise minorities and lower classes (even more than before.) Further, once a privileged class gets into power it's rare that they relinquish it voluntarily. So your "at least for a few years" is a chimera. Old people want to restrict the vote to "more mature" voters. Rich people want to restrict the vote to "self sufficient" or "propertied" voters. Technical people want to restrict the vote to "educated" voters. Incumbents want to restrict the vote to "generous" voters. It was ever thus. The trick is not to restrict the franchise, but restrict the concentration of power that results from voting and the pandering to popular taste that is a consequence. "iam pridem, ex quo suffragia nulli uendimus, effudit curas; nam qui dabat olim imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se continet atque duas tantum res anxius optat, panem et circenses." -- Juvenal, Satire 10.77–81 -- Charles
