Reply #30: Number four would turn into a nightmare

[jpgray]

Whoever runs security might ask himself if he wouldn't rather have double the regular wage and own more than everyone else, and I wager many of his/her compatriots would be hip to the same idea. I imagine whoever keeps the peace (obviously through some form of force) would eventually crush the genteel committees very quickly. There are some people who are more ambitious than others, and they will stomp all over the meek people in the society, because all people are not equal in every attribute. If you set them all up to get an equal share, those who are unhappy with an equal share will stop at nothing to debase others for their own profit, and they would boast a substantial amount of like-minded followers very quickly. Who wouldn't want more than their fair share? Take a look at music piracy in our country, or the ghastly salaries of CEOs.

And anyway, direct democracy can do some terrible things--I doubt anyone who voted for number four was imagining the killing of Socrates in a bit of postwar spite. If the society didn't collapse through oppression via force, it would collapse through someone fooling the populace into destroying their freedoms via the very system that is meant to protect them. Look at our situation, or read Animal Farm.