the perils of direct democracy

In political economy, Public Choice economists point to the foibles and failings of democracy: the disproportionate power of interest groups in some contexts (the tyranny of the minority); the unjust exercise of power by the general public (the tyranny of the majority); the problems caused by any system of government where people are fond of using power to take others' resources; and so on.

There's an old saying that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all of the others. Or putting it another way: the best form of government is the benevolent dictator; the trouble is finding the benevolent ones.

In April, in a special section, The Economist had some really nice articles on the impact of more direct democracy, as exercised (often famously) in California, starting 100 years ago.

Here's a general, introductory article...

as our special report this week argues, the main culprit has been direct democracy: recalls, in which Californians fire elected officials in mid-term; referendums, in which they can reject acts of their legislature; and especially initiatives, in which the voters write their own rules...This citizen legislature has caused chaos. Many initiatives have either limited taxes or mandated spending, making it even harder to balance the budget. Some are so ill-thought-out that they achieve the opposite of their intent...

Here's an essay on the history of California's democratic experiment...

In this [1911] Californian election voters had to decide on three new types of balloting: referendums, recalls and initiatives. They accepted them all with enthusiasm...Californians thus explicitly chose a path that diverged from the one America’s founders had taken...California is also unique, in America and the world, in treating every successful initiative as irreversible (unless the initiative itself says otherwise). The legislature cannot change it. In effect, this makes initiatives a higher class of law...Direct democracy in California is thus an aberration. It has no safeguards against Madison’s tyranny of the majority...it encourages special interests to wage war by ballot measure until one lobby prevails and imposes its will on all. Madison and Hamilton would have been horrified...

This essay applies the discussion to K-12 education...

And this essay lays out the extent to which voter knowledge (specifically in California) is limited or twisted...