Democracy: Social Organization for Dummies

Democracy for Dummies (statists, that is)

1. You need a ruling class. People who write laws as they want, own the guns and enforce their arbitrary rules by the gun, and extort you constantly to get the resources they need. A gang of criminals, then. But that's not all. You also need that ruling class to be smart enough to realize that they can rule over everyone without the need for violence or rebellions. As long as you can make people believe that they are in control, they will do whatever you want. This is the beauty of democracy.

Now hopefully you are engineering this democratic system, so if you are, let's continue.

2. You need to set a date where people will come to designated stations all over the country to check little boxes on pieces of paper.

3. You need to either motivate people to vote through propaganda, or pass a law saying they have to vote or they are criminals. Remember that you can make up whatever laws you want. Now, people know very well that their individual vote makes no difference whatsoever, so you need to use moral arguments to fool them into believing this is not the case. "Vote and make a difference", "if you don't vote, you can complain", or when you get more desperate, "vote or die", are all good choices.

4. You decide what choices they have and make sure that they can't choose between real alternatives, through bogus "election laws" and gerrymandering. And unless you're a complete idiot, you certainly don't give them any hope of a smaller government! You don't want to lose any power over this system. And you don't have to.

5. You want this process to select the best exploiter- which means the best smooth-talker and the best liar. So you set up a period where popular people in the parties you allow can compete against each other for popular acclaim. This long and expensive process also ensures that only people who have been corrupted and paid for will rise to the top.

6. You shouldn't pay a thing. The whole cost of this process should be put on the shoulders of the people. All the bribes ("campaign contributions") coming from big corporations are paid by the people in higher prices. The money given to them by your ruling class comes from taxation. And people will themselves work for your puppet candidates and volunteer their own time- simply because they believe they must get someone who represents their own values in power instead of other people's representants. Of course, they don't know that it doesn't matter one bit who gets elected, as the incentives of any politician are the same. They don't need to know that.

7. At the end of the process, people need to go to the voting booths and check little boxes on pieces of paper. The winner of the post is the person who got the most checkmarks. You may have a more complicated system, such as an "electoral college" which makes your democracy even more stable by ensuring that all regions are represented and you can't win just by appealing to a small area of the country. This not only makes the process more expensive, but also prevents unrest.

8. They say you need an educated population to have a good democracy. This is a total myth. The best population for your democracy is a stupid population. Intelligence is only necessary when actual dialogue is going on. Your system is based on social warfare and ability to deceive, therefore you need to bank on the stupidity of your population in order to succeed.

9. Over time, these elements may be dimly revealed to your population, and they may begin to doubt your democratic system. The most important thing to remember at this juncture is that at no moment can you permit open criticism of democracy itself. Your propaganda efforts must be turned towards constantly reaffirming the legitimacy of democracy. As long as people do not doubt democracy, they will continue to believe that their country's system can be overhauled "if we just get the right people in". So this change in popular opinion will in fact turn to your advantage.

10. If anyone actually does not believe in democracy and realizes that it is an absurd system of mob rule, social warfare and self-exploitation, they are lost to you. But don't worry, there'll probably never be enough of them to be a threat to you, as long as you keep points 1 to 9 above.

Good luck!