At TCS Daily, two views of Google's decision to agree to allow censorship of search results in exchange for doing business in China: James DeLong shows considerable sympathy for Google and for the Chinese government in Google is Right ; Glenn Reynolds does not, in Judging Google.

My piece also argues that democracy in the U.S. is in serious long-term jeopardy, largely because our collective thinking about democracy has become simplistic:

Democracy in the U.S. was founded on a sophisticated interlayering of different types of governance in different situations, with the types appropriate to the decisions and interests involved. It is an irony of successful democracy that the whole must be subject to democratic control, but within this framework there must be many undemocratic decision processes, ranging from representative assemblies to market-driven businesses to law-bound adjudication.

The U.S. is increasingly in thrall to a kind of plebiscitary democracy, often by public opinion poll, a residue of the mindless 1960s, where every decision, right down to guilt or innocence in a criminal case, should be decided by vote.

posted by James DeLong @ 7:20 AM | International

Link to this Entry | Printer-Friendly | Email a Comment | Post a Comment(0)