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Is democracy really the best form of government? | Steven Pinker | Big Think

Big Think | August 5, 2025



Is democracy really the best form of government?
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“Now in practice,” says Steven Pinker, “no one has ever developed a democracy that works particularly well if judged in absolute terms. Democracies are always messy, they’re always unequal. They always involve lobbying and power grabs. But all the alternatives so far have been worse. Democracies seldom go to war with each other. They have higher standards of living. They have higher levels of happiness. They have higher levels of health. And they’re the obvious preferred destinations for people who vote with their feet. The whole world wants to live in a democracy. It’s an ongoing project. It’s currently under threat from a number of directions, but there’s never been a time in which we’ve had a well-functioning democracy in terms of meeting all the criteria in a high school civics class.”
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STEVEN PINKER:

Steven Pinker is an experimental psychologist who conducts research in visual cognition, psycholinguistics, and social relations. He grew up in Montreal and earned his BA from McGill and his Ph.D. from Harvard. Currently Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard, he has also taught at Stanford and MIT. He has won numerous prizes for his research, his teaching, and his nine books, including The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate, The Better Angels of Our Nature, and The Sense of Style. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, a Humanist of the Year, a recipient of nine honorary doctorates, and one of Foreign Policy’s “World’s Top 100 Public Intellectuals” and Time’s “100 Most Influential People in the World Today.” He is Chair of the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary, and writes frequently for The New York Times, The Guardian, and other publications.
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TRANSCRIPT:

STEVEN PINKER: Probably the most famous product of the Enlightenment was the American Declaration of Independence and Constitution, a blueprint for a form of governance that tried to get the benefits of government—seeing as how anarchy is worse because you get spirals of vendetta and feuding and violence. You don’t get the coordination of large-scale economies without some kind of governance. Trying to get the benefits of governance without the perennial hazard that anyone given a bit of power will aggrandize their power and become despotic.

So the checks and balances of American democracy were a way of – I think of it as negotiating a middle route between the violence of anarchy (and anarchy does lead to violence—We were never noble savages that lived in harmony. Regions of the world without government are almost invariably violent) but also avoiding the violence of tyranny. Mainly you give someone power, they’re going to use it to maximize their benefits, their power, their longevity of their reign at the expense of people. Democracy is a way of steering between these extremes, of having a government that exerts just enough violence to prevent people from preying on each other without preying on the people itself.

Now in practice no one has ever developed a democracy that works particularly well if judged in absolute terms. Democracies are always messy, they’re always unequal. They always involve lobbying and power grabs. But all the alternatives so far have been worse. Democracies seldom go to war with each other. They have higher standards of living. They have higher levels of happiness. They have higher levels of health. And they’re the obvious preferred destinations for people who vote with their feet. The whole world wants to live in a democracy. It’s an ongoing project. It’s currently under threat from a number of directions, but there’s never been a time in which we’ve had a well-functioning democracy in terms of meeting all the criteria in a high school civics class.

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Comments

This post currently has 47 comments.

  4. @CraizyFrogg-x8k

    August 5, 2025 at 10:11 am

    Thinking that the mass of people deciding would be better than the right kind of people deciding is just so… weird. Idk how to explain it it makes me uncomfortable. It's so… non-mental .. it's so Hel (if you know what I mean)

  6. @MisterKorihor

    August 5, 2025 at 10:11 am

    I wonder why humanity doesn't conduct small-scale experiments to try and improve upon democracy. A couple of approaches that might work are: (1) Only allow taxpayers to vote (and perhaps weigh their vote based upon how much they pay in taxes). This might curtail excess government spending. (2) Require voters to first pass a test on basic economics, history, etc. This might increase the likelihood of voters making good decisions.

  8. @hehez7799

    August 5, 2025 at 10:11 am

    The fundamental reason for the continuous demise of Chinese dynasties lies in the landlords and capitalists acquiring land from the poor, cultivating private armies, infiltrating politics for their own greed, and ultimately colluding with the government. This led to interest groups controlling the state. Therefore, the premise of democracy is that the state is not controlled by capital and can operate correctly. However, China's approach is to directly nationalize land and fully nationalize important enterprises and resources to eliminate capitalist intervention.

  9. @havenbastion

    August 5, 2025 at 10:11 am

    The idea that democracy is good, much less the best, is entirely unwarranted. It attempts to prevent cronyism by insisting expertise is irrelevant. In other words, it throws out the baby with the bath water.

  10. @pongop

    August 5, 2025 at 10:11 am

    Anarchy is peace. Anarchy is freedom. We have lived for hundreds of thousands of years without government, and it wasn't always violent.

  11. @itlw999

    August 5, 2025 at 10:11 am

    democracy only works when the people who're voting are truly educated on the topics they're voting for, can we really say the American public is educated?

  13. @SoulUnfiltered667

    August 5, 2025 at 10:11 am

    To all those people who are against democracy visit countries that don't have democracy then you will never complain,I know its not perfect but its better than others believe me

  16. @jameskohut6186

    August 5, 2025 at 10:11 am

    Pinker does not know what democracy is. Legalized real democracy is a political system where you have the legalized right to introduce and vote on government bills. Democracy is defined as rule by the people. Those who lie or are ignorant will tell you differently. The term democracy has been perverted over the centuries by elites, politicians and the media to fool people. Voting in an election has nothing to do with democracy. Elections are just a politician selection process. To live in a representative democracy you must represent yourself in the government decisions that affect your life.

    Make way for legalized real democracy, where you have the legalized right to introduce and vote on government bills. This is how we control the mob politicians, government corruption, waste and politician lies.

    Search LEGALIZE REAL DEMOCRACY PARTY and learn more.

  17. @rizmacadillac

    August 5, 2025 at 10:11 am

    This is an interesting presentation. I might modify the question to ask "Is STABLE DEMOCRACY really the best form of government?" What would Plato think? And where do we put "Propaganda"? We may be asking the wrong question we emphasize "form of government and ignore everything else. When I was in College I was introduced to a form of business – not a common stock corporation – that was supposed to be or become Economic Democracy. But after a couple of years what I met were people wanting to talk about a Communist Dictatorship. But then I was reading about certain states in Switzerland that operate on a form of Direct Democracy. And we have to ask if our citizens are informed or brainwashed / forced to rubber stamp the decisions of our leaders. Here I refer to a Harvard Course in Political Science which claims that voters in a Democracy vote for Candidates they hope reflect their values. We have a vote and should be grateful for that vote.

  19. @vincentkingsdale8334

    August 5, 2025 at 10:11 am

    America is a Republic….we elect people to supposedly represent us….amazing how 1 person can represent hundreds, thousands, or millions of people, bc all of those people who voted for that person supposedly believe exactly the same thing….

  21. @JJdaViking

    August 5, 2025 at 10:11 am

    In a democratic culture, people vote to make themselves better financially or otherwise, but the only way to do that in a democracy is to vote to make “others” worse off.

    Democracy fragments a nation, destroys society and ultimately leads to collapse. It has happened again and again throughout history. All empires collapse at some point.

    Culture is inherently confrontational. It robs you of your individual freedom, privacy, resources and ultimately your integrity.

    Behind all cultures is a ruling elite that requires the establishment of governing bodies – states, churches and/or corporations – in order to function, and which appropriately employs body-obsessed narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths to lead, govern and, inevitably, a culture that again is destroyed by the body-obsessed gynocentrics and homosexuals while the ruling elite builds a different culture somewhere else to profit from it.

    In a democratic culture, it is considered a civic duty to elect politicians who, if they actually solved our problems, would give up their own profession.
    Using weaponized currencies, military-industrial complexes, radical nationalism, and radical religion, politicians prey on the needs of the poor and the fears of the rich, dividing and conquering people while dividing power among themselves, creating a well-armed system. consolidated by retail, police, military and a bureaucracy that is almost impenetrable and effectively works for a totalitarian world order.

    A democratic government is an orchestrated battlefield of ideologies where people vote out of greed and restrict the rights of others. As power seemingly shifts from the political left to the right and vice versa, the rights of all people are ultimately eroded and an ever-consolidating and expanding political power structure and establishment are empowered and destroying society.

    Democracy is the worst idea ever. Just ask Socrates if you don't believe me. Oh, you almost forgot; The people voted to kill him because he spoke out against democracy.

    Democracy is dystopian.

    The ruling establishment is a cult and is controlled by a degenerate ruling elite.

  22. @Copycat217

    August 5, 2025 at 10:11 am

    democracy's is a type of dictatorship where we elect who the next dictator will be for the next 5 year and the same cycle of corruption , misuse of power political instability and economic crisis will be on going and the inflation will sore high and we the people are to blame that we can't change what is happening .

  23. @ConorCondor

    August 5, 2025 at 10:11 am

    Democracy should evolve, but we are too afraid of it. The main problems in the current sistem are the lack of power of decision (due to the high population and diferences between us) and the value of the individual votes. A geniocracy solves both of those problems giving only people with the capacity to figure out what to do and the rest waiting to be ruled, not in a deminishing way, but as an understanding of our individual capacities and limitations.

  25. @UnchainedEruption

    August 5, 2025 at 10:11 am

    Democracy is a failed system. It is commonplace to refer to the American system as "democracy" but that has never been the case. We aren't and never have been, and never should be a pure democracy. Democracies are tyrannies of the majority; rules by the ignorant, stupid masses. We are, rather, a republic. And even at that, it's questionable how well the system works. Its only advantage is the distribution of power and built-in competition between parties that act as a sort of check and balance, but it is far from an ideal system. It is better than the alternative of dictatorship or oligarchy.

    As Winston Churchill famously noted, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others."

  26. @cherryleung9236

    August 5, 2025 at 10:11 am

    What if we have a form of governance where the politicians sign their life away to living a life of modesty and frugality that is how the average person lives in the country and are not allowed to have a political opinion. Then, the people get to vote on what issues they want resolved, then the politicians facilitate cooperation between scholars that specialises on the issue and come up with a solution.

    I suggest this because the people are easily influenced, and have elected questionable leaders in the past that turned against their interests. By giving the power to decide on issues to scholars, we can ensure that only well-informed individuals that have dedicated years of their lives get a say on the issue at hand. It also ensures that no one will have too much power because a scholar usually only dedicate their lives to studying a very narrow scope of things, so they only get a say in their field of specialty. The politicians must live in frugality and have no family members to ensure their incorruptibility.
    Of course, this all assumes that scholars have a well-rounded understanding of the issue at hand.

  28. @TheTrueAdept

    August 5, 2025 at 10:11 am

    The thing is that this 'Big Think' doesn't include the technological context (the sum and application of all human knowledge) in the picture. The Internet and memetic weapons have changed the game… so, have fun.

  30. @mododragon5517

    August 5, 2025 at 10:11 am

    Yea the government that's all about money grubbing and fucking people over used all of its money to fuck over every other type of government. Then they wanna be like "it isn't a perfect system but look at the alternative" lol we're all fucked people just drown your kids and get over with at this point there is no future.

  34. @Woopor

    August 5, 2025 at 10:11 am

    I think the best form of government would be to have an AI. Not a true robot or sentient being, but a system of algorithms so complex and designed to know exactly how to ensure all people can get their necessary things in life, without the issue of corrupted people to ruin it all. Add science and math to anything and it will make things a million times better.

  35. @bronzejourney5784

    August 5, 2025 at 10:11 am

    One thing i hate about this video is, higher levels of life quality in general is credited to Democracy. While in reality, it has nothing to do with democracy. Often in most elected-governments, you see the elected-head of state tries his best to rack up military budget, by cutting from the said quality of life institutions, like healthcare, schools etc.

    It should be credited to the ever present science and development of technology. Which also should be the pulling vessel for governing entire countries. Think about it for a second, everything you see around you, everything you have, is there thanks to science and technology. I for one cant wait for the bright and enlightened future where we finally realize it was Technocracy that would deliver us to the Promised Land all this time.

  36. @erica.5620

    August 5, 2025 at 10:11 am

    Because a scientist and anti-vax should both contribute towards writing on the same life-changing papers about vaccines.

    There are an astronomical amount of disadvantages without democracies. I won't lie and say that it does not come without its advantages, it is far better than an absolute monarchy for instance, but to pretend it is this sort of holy grail is not foolish… it is stupid.

    Everyone is equal in the eyes of the law, this I agree with, but it has grown this mentality that because we are treated equally we are therefore all equal in EVERY regard. Which is simply absurd.

    There are people out there that rather enjoy the smell of bleach, and decide to drink it. And yet these are the same people we share the voting system with.

    One man is unable to get a job outside of a builder, and the other is a neurosurgeon. To think they are both as wise and know just as much about politics (if anything at all) because "democracy" and should be able to vote the people deciding their freedoms as well as the ability to declare war is scary.

    This is entirely excluding the fact that most politicians in most democracies around the world have deteriorated into self-serving barbarians practically voting themselves into power through filtered lies by preaching nothing short of what the majority just want to hear. Hell, even in some places people are voting for one person over the other NOT BECAUSE THEY LIKE THEM. But instead because they DISLIKE THE OTHER PERSON.

    If there are two candidates, one wanting to declare war with China for no reason, and the other wanting to make paedophilia & rape legal. Should either of them, in anyone's right mind, get into power? Ever?

    It isn't the worst, by far. But it certainly can, and should be improved upon. More so into the idea of a Meritocracy.

  37. @AlexUSAF

    August 5, 2025 at 10:11 am

    To be specific, the folks here in the US live in a Constitutional Republic, or a Representative Republic and not an absolute mob rule Democracy. Either way this is a nice video & informative never the less. Since 2020, I have debated the value of a Democratic Government since I am one who favors law & order, a strong Police force domestically and a stronger military nationally for defense of the nation from foreign rogue actors such as Terrorists & rogue despotic regimes like NK, China, & Russia. I also favor a strong domestic economy, and because of the risk of an unstable debt ridden or unaccountable financial practice of those whom Democratically find themselves elected I have seriously questioned the value of a system that allows for so many millions to vote when a high percentage of those people have nothing to lose but still vote themselves a free paycheck off of those who do work, & have no intention of being responsible citizens or having a functional government beyond one that safeguards them in a perpetual welfare State.

    Why should people who do not behave decently in a society, nor people who do not produce for society's benefit be able to vote to gain a free welfare check to bankrupt a system and harm an economy?

    When the Republic was first establish during the enlightenment era, only land owners with skin in the game could vote, so why not return to something like that practice instead of risking a nation's future survival on masses of irresponsible & easily fooled by conmen, elite manipulating oligarchs, & a despot who would vote them in power so they can get a cheap welfare check?

    Dictatorships, Monarchs, & Oligarchies tend to be the more functional and efficient methods of governance verses a Democracy or mass voting representative Republic, thus if government functional efficiency is preferred then why continue practicing a malfunctioning & rarely effective Democracy?

  39. @Gsoda35

    August 5, 2025 at 10:11 am

    the answer is no because people do not always have a good number of choices and they do not often know to make a good choice. two or more parties can give you a very similar government depending on the governing system.

  42. @owlnyc666

    August 5, 2025 at 10:11 am

    Not according to Plato. Yes according to Solan and Clienthes. If yes,then the problem is which of the many varieties of Democracy is the THE best?🤔😉😏

  43. @TheStubertos

    August 5, 2025 at 10:11 am

    This was a pretty innaccurate and uninformative video. When he said "All the alternatives so far have been worse" I couldn't help but think about China who has succesfully pulled 800M people out of poverty in an astonishingly short time. I suppose we will see where they end up in 30-40 years time as the middle class grows and demands more freedoms, but I would say that we haven't fully explored other options yet.

  44. @racewiththefalcons1

    August 5, 2025 at 10:11 am

    A true democracy is when people (everyone) vote on policies directly through ranked-choice voting, which the United States has been set up to prevent. We have to register to vote, and we do not vote on policies at a federal level. Many primary elections are closed. We don't have ranked-choice voting except in Alaska and Maine. We don't even vote for the president, we vote for unelected electors who choose the president and are under no obligation to follow majority preference. The Senate exists to kill bills passed in the House of Representatives that might take power away from the ruling class, because it's a lot easier for billionaires and corporations to buy 51 Senators than 218 members of the House. The policies most popular in the US today are not passed by either party even when they hold complete control, because they work for their class interests, not the interests of the working people. Every single step in the electoral process has been strategically designed, intentionally, to ensure your vote counts for nothing. You will never vote you way into material change. You can never vote your way out of oppression. Voting exists strictly to keep us from rioting in the streets and demanding the rights that are ours as human beings, which, not coincidentally, is the manner in which most power in history was wrested from the grip of the elite. And as Lucy Parsons once famously said, "Never be deceived that the rich will allow you to vote away their wealth."

  45. @graspunwrapped1124

    August 5, 2025 at 10:11 am

    In the 1828 Noah Webster dictionary 'democracy' is defined in this way:

    "Government by the people; a form of government, in which the supreme power is lodged in the hands of the people collectively, or in which the people exercise the powers of legislation. Such was the government of Athens."

    It isn't obvious to me how this form of government would actually function juxtaposed with a 'republic' which the same dictionary defines in this way:

    "A commonwealth; a state in which the exercise of the sovereign power is lodged in representatives elected by the people. In modern usage, it differs from a democracy or democratic state, in which the people exercise the powers of sovereignty in person. Yet the democracies of Greece are often called republics."

    This latter form of government seems a bit more stable when considering how broad a democratic government really is.

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