Forcing decisions into open view with informed residents converts hopelessness into winning power

Evidence

Inclusion and participation as indices of democracy have been separated off from the powers and the unbounded field of deliberation that would make them meaningful as terms of shared rule. Put another way, while inclusion and participation are certainly important elements of democracy, to be more than empty signifiers, they must be accompanied by modest control over setting parameters and constraints and by the capacity to decide fundamental values and directions. Absent these, they cannot be said to be democratic any more than providing a death row inmate with choices about the method of execution offers the inmate freedom. Rather, this is the language of democracy used against the demos. — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 247 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

The American system provided a voice, and a share in the economy, to more people, and to a greater percentage of the population, than most of the Old World countries. But decisively not everybody. Women lacked rights and were definitely the weaker sex, socially speaking. For blacks, for Native Americans, for the Chinese, for the unorganized and the powerless in general, this great democracy had little enough to offer. Their share was at best skimpy and begrudging. In a relatively open society, interest groups made politics, and politics made law. The squeaky wheels got the oil. Power led to privilege. … Tort law blossomed, corporation law swelled in pride, contract expanded, but the poor laws remained obscure, local, haphazard, backward, and cruel. — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 2786 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

One can see that what came most readily to hand in the process of development towards advanced societies was not the actual specialization of an appropriate decision-making power, but the claim that knowledge was identical to decision-making competence, and that truth was identical to power. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 634 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Participation itself changes participants’ self-conceptions before any external victory; Open interest-group politics rewarded organized voices while poor law stayed backward and cruel — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 2786; Wisdom from lived experience beats raw intelligence in policy judgment — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 2322 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Participation without control over parameters is not democracy but its evisceration #corroborates (0.85) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 247
• Open interest-group politics rewarded organized voices while poor law stayed backward and cruel #corroborates (0.78) — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 2786
• Advanced societies conflate knowledge with decision-competence and truth with power #corroborates (0.75) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 634
• Wisdom from lived experience beats raw intelligence in policy judgment #qualifies (0.72) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2322
• Freedom requires awareness of options, not just their existence #expands (0.72) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 422