The British referendum exposed the disadvantages of "direct democracy". What is the situation of the referendum?

Recently, the result of Britain's referendum on Britain's withdrawal from the European Union shocked the world and Britain. Many people who supported Britain's exit from the EU began to regret it. Millions of people signed up for the second referendum, and many people directly took to the streets to "vote" against Britain's withdrawal from the EU.

Why is the world shocked and Britain shocked? Because, if Britain really leaves the European Union, it will be an international event, which will not only have an important impact on Britain and the European Union, but also have a far-reaching impact on the global economic and political order, causing the global economy to further decline and have an important impact on the global political order. For example, both Scotland and Northern Ireland demanded to leave Britain by referendum. This will have a domino effect. Many countries may demand an independent referendum, many countries may disintegrate and be in turmoil, and the international order may undergo great changes. (See WeChat official account's article yesterday for the specific impact.)

As many observers have said, there are many problems in this referendum in Britain. Most voters are elderly people. Many voters think that their votes are irrelevant, even just to oppose immigration. They don't even know what the EU is. After the British referendum on Brexit, the second most popular search turned out to be "What is the EU?" . Most young people, experts and authorities do not support Britain's withdrawal from the EU. Therefore, it is doubtful whether this British referendum really reflects public opinion, let alone "true" (the interest of Britain in staying in the EU).

Therefore, this British referendum is by no means a simple British "internal affair", as the famous scholar Zhou Lian said: "This British referendum undoubtedly exposed the disadvantages of" direct democracy ". Voters either lack knowledge of professional issues or think that their votes are meaningless to the results, so the sacred vote becomes an emotional vote, and everyone may know best where their real interests lie (really? ), but I don't know where the real interests of * * * are. Viewpoint VS knowledge, mass VS experts, majority VS minority, youth VS old age, the problems are still those old problems. You have to admit that the two thousand-year tradition of western philosophy is really annotating Plato. "

Indeed, the British referendum exposed the world as a form of direct democracy, showing its drawbacks, and also raised an ancient and modern question to the world: when should a referendum be held and when should it not be held?

As we all know, there are two basic forms of democracy: direct democracy and indirect democracy. Direct democracy means that citizens, as masters of the country, directly manage state affairs, and the main way is referendum. Indirect democracy means that citizens manage state affairs through agents such as parliamentarians, and the main way is parliamentary system. Theoretically, direct democracy is real democracy, and its model is ancient Athens, but its limitations are obvious and it must have special conditions. As Rousseau, the most powerful advocate of direct democracy, said, where direct democracy is practiced, the population cannot be too large, the economy cannot be too developed, the people cannot be too rich, and the people cannot be selfish. These limitations make it difficult to implement direct democracy in modern society, and representative democracy has become the trend of political development and the basic form of modern democracy.

Britain is the representative of parliamentary democracy, and the principle of representative system is the most basic principle of British democracy. Whether Britain leaves the European Union or not should be decided by the parliament, and they have more say. However, in order to cater to "public opinion", Britain finally chose a referendum, which produced this "hot potato". It is not in Britain's interest to leave the EU; But if you don't leave the EU, you don't respect "public opinion". What about swelling? British Prime Minister David Cameron, who was "picking things up", had to take the initiative to resign.

Moreover, direct democracy also has a great disadvantage, that is, it is easy to lead to the tyranny of the majority. A well-known example is that Socrates was killed by the Athenians in a referendum. Madison, the "father of the Constitution" in the United States, famously criticized the direct democracy in Athens: "Even if every Athenian citizen is Socrates, the Athens Civic Assembly will still be a mob. "Take Britain's referendum on Britain's exit from the EU as an example. There are only a little more votes for Britain to leave the EU than for Britain not to support it. So the whole of Britain must obey this small majority? 48. Should the public opinion of1%be respected? You know, the true meaning of democracy is not that the minority is subordinate to the majority, but to protect the interests of the minority.

Therefore, this referendum in Britain has indeed raised the referendum to an important issue in the form of direct democracy. In recent years, there are more and more referendums in the world. It seems that referendums can be used to decide all major events. Referendum is indeed a form of democracy, which cannot be denied, but it is not a panacea for all diseases. Its exercise needs certain conditions. What are the conditions? That is, the condition of direct democracy. Switzerland has a very successful model of direct democracy. But it has its conditions, that is, "First of all, compared with Britain, Switzerland is much smaller and has no particularly big geopolitical problems;" Secondly, the Swiss have been practicing direct democracy for a long time, and they have long been accustomed to this model; Third, the Swiss people are very mature, cautious and conservative. "