Reviews for Agreement and the stability of democracy

The average rating for Agreement and the stability of democracy based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2010-03-23 00:00:00 Erica Duvall Dahl is a wonderfully careful and precise thinker. I only wish he would liven up his prose with more actual examples from history to illustrate his points. My eyes glazed over at certain points, but he asks some great questions. For the most part, he seeks to demonstrate that society requires multiple levels of authority and multiple criteria for decision making and apportioning resources. A market economy is generally good for democracy, but we don't want the market to decide everything, like who gets a kidney transplant. Democracy values personal choice, but individuals inevitably must cede some authority to the community, i.e. kids have to go school, you can't smoke in hospitals, etc. We also need to give experts authority in certain areas. Ultimately, what he calls polyarchy, or representative democracy, is for him the best path, but that path also creates problems that are almost impossible for these governments to solve, such as the almost inevitable remoteness of government from everyday citizens. We have to accept the problems along with the benefits, because 'solutions' to these issues will probably create greater problems, i.e. French and Russian revolutions, etc.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-08-04 00:00:00 Scott Bykerk Fundamental