Democracy - a counterexample

Back a few entries where I was discussing democracy, the general assumption is that many people who are able to independently check policy before voting on it will more likely get the right decision than a particular individual or expert could.

The corollary is that the more democracy and the more direct the democracy, the better general decisions will be made.

A counter-example to this corollary is immigration and trade policy. Democracies have a notorious habit of restricting immigration and trade when the economy deteriorates. Even though the concept is that as citizens, we have the right to make bad choices, and pay for them, democracies continue to make the wrong call due to the primacy of perception over facts in the political game. The causal relationship between restricting trade/immigration and a worsening economy is ignored over a very strong human instict to blame externalities over any systemic internal cause.

Thus people continue to promote fallacies such as "reducing immigration helps our unemployment rate" and "restricting imports helps our unemployment rate".

Maybe I am wrong. Maybe democratic countries will leave tariffs and immigration quotas untouched, while autocratic countries will clamp down on trade/immigration during the current downturn. I would be surprised.

In defence of usury

This economist article finds that a "consequentialist" analysis of the results of lending money at extortionate interest rates to the poor is better for the would be borrower than being refused the loan. An "Absolutist" would not believe such a one-off study to be relevant and defer to the scriptures, which probably state one way or another that usury is evil in general and should not be allowed. I for one, have come to the conclusion that usury IS evil, but possibly a necessary one for modern civilisation to keep prospering.