this post was submitted on 20 May 2026
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[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 14 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Sure. When I mean comparison, I mean in trends. If a country scores lower in one year while another scores higher, and this trend repeats, it's a sign of improving and decaying conditions. Democracy isn't really something you can measure directly, which makes the entire subject pretty muddy.

[–] AnarchoEngineer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (1 children)

that’s why I put quotes around “level of democracy.” If everyone in a country had to vote directly for any and all government action, that is kind of the purest democracy possible, but it would not be a very effective method of government especially for large countries.

In order to rank democracy in a meaningful way, one would need to decide on what the desired outcomes of a “good”democracy are and which outcomes are most important etc. which would make the scale subjective.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 15 points 23 hours ago

Even that would not be democratic, as it ignores the role of ownership of production and distribution. In a capitalist economy, such would still be subject to the same mechanisms preventing bourgeois democracy from following the will of the proletariat.