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I mentioned such things as cost to the entity being dominated, but what if that costly
manner applies to the government as well? At any given time, the ruler in a society, due to its
power, may annihilate such independent associations, but is it worth it or not? Sometimes it is,
sometimes it is not and such moment is that one when the resources needed doing so are higher
than what the ruler earns after annihilating such an association. The trick in such a relationship is
for the dominated association to raise the cost of domination as high as possible so that the ruler
would consider it not worth annihilating it. In such situations, the ruler would rather let
something out of his control and accept a certain level of unreliability than destroying such an
association and empty his pockets. And it is not only about the money or resources. It is also
about the global scale impact among societies. If an association fights for a certain goal against
the government, lets say freedom to education, and the government tries to annihilate it without
even taking in consideration the associations points of views, other interest groups may team up
and come up even stronger. The political and social impact of such actions are bigger than the
benefits the ruler earn from destroying an independent organization. It is all about mutual control
between the government and the interest groups in certain areas, one may dominate the other
when it comes to given aspects in their relationship. But the danger is that domination is not only
present in relation to the government, but may also be present among the leader of an
independent organization and its members, since the initial goals of the group may change in
relation to its leader over time.
Democracy is based on such pluralism, on such independent organizations and interest
groups, since elections are impossible to be contested without these organizations. By forbidding
the existence of such associations several rights would be violated: the criteria of voting equality
and effective participation, the criteria of effective participation and enlightened understanding.
Without these independent organization, or political parties, people wouldnt be able to
coordinate their efforts to support their candidate properly, and since theres such a huge
advantage, the formation of interest groups and independent associations is inevitable.
Democracy is defined by diversity, by pluralism and by the freedom given to form and
join organizations of several branches like: agricultural, professional, cultural or even religious.
From this point and until someone notices the advantages of joining or forming such
organizations is just a little. In developed countries, the number of such organizations is
continuously rising, and it would be impossible for a government to destroy all these
independent associations without using so many resources that in the end would not be worth it.
But even so, the danger is not coming only from the government, but also part from other
organizations. Lets assume that in time the barriers will slowly go down, and one organization
that is more powerful than the others will emerge and impose domination over the government
and the other organizations. Then the democratic regime may slowly move to an authoritarian
one if the other organizations do not find a way to diminish or control the domination.
In my opinion the organized pluralism works like a cold war state or like a modern day
nuclear war, but only without launching the missiles. Anyone knows that everyone has a nuclear
missile, and that is why no one is trying to attack the others, since it is, be default, known that
they will both be destroyed in the process. Thats exactly what happens in a pluralist democracy.
No entity is trying at any time to destroy the other, since they know that the resources needed
will exceed the benefits. There will be tensions and conflicts, but in the end, mostly, they will
accommodate with each other. They will prevent each other to make decisions that will
drastically redistribute control within a country.
Pluralism does not only mean diversity, but it also means various interests. While citizens
may freely express such interests, organizations form to advance, strengthen or even create new
interests in the process. Most of the organizations are wise enough to promote and strengthen
only particular interests of their members. Why did I say wise enough? Because due to a limited
level of resources it is impossible for such organizations to promote a broader range of interests
or the interests of each member without, in the end, getting handicapped and giving birth to
internal conflicts or public distrust. I consider that the biggest goal of an organization is to do so
that the interests of some members or of the leader would eventually become the general interest
of the entire organization, because doing so, the organization will be more powerful and earn
more influence.
Conclusively, in a democratic state we should expect diversity, no matter how it may be,
cultural, religious, political, social etc. There will also be organized independent institutions that
will support their own interests in terms of these categories against the higher rulers, where it
may be the government itself or other more powerful associations. In other words, in a pluralist
democracy there will be two sides, or more, mostly constructed in terms of ruler and the ruled.
These two or more entities will continuously fight each other for domination, but most of the
time none will totally dominate the other, but instead will establish a state of mutual control in
certain areas of their activity. Democracy is built on equality and that is why there is freedom to
form and join such organizations, and in doing so an authoritarian system of power may be
avoided. Even so, there are also disadvantages: we talked about equality, but there will always be
some people or entities left aside, not everyone will be able to join an organization to support his
own interest, there is some criteria to meet, some resources to bring to join them. Even though
most of the organizations find a way that the interests of some members become the general
promoted interest of the whole association, some of them do not, and if they are not annihilated
by the ruler, they will destroy themselves via internal tensions and conflict and public distrust
due to lack of resources to promote and advance a broader set of interests. The annihilation by
the hand of the ruler do not happen so often, since the well-organized institutions will always
find a way to make the rulers needed resources exceed its benefits in doing so. In other words, a
pluralist democracy, in my opinion, is a state of cold nuclear war, where everyone possesses a
nuclear missile, but no one launches it, since they know they will all be destroyed, not only the
ruled or the ruler, a state of mind characterized by a melting pot constructed of various people,
associations and interests.