Translate

Powered By Blogger

29.6.17

representative democracy

I first ran into the idea of feedback  in electricity and it seems like a good analogy. [I was learning that as part of the idea of the Rambam of learning Physics.]

The idea of feedback seems to be central to Calvin in his establishment of representative democracy in Geneva and in its outskirts.

[It has been noted before me that representative government did not originate with Athens , nor Rome, nor John Locke but rather Calvin. Athens was not a representative government but rather a democracy.]
The thing which is interesting to me is the complain  of Shmuel the prophet about the sin of setting up a king. You can not say that Shmuel was saying bad kings are bad, but even good kings. After all Shmuel only anointed two kings, Saul and David. And he was saying to Israel that their desire to have a king was a terrible sin in the sight of God. Unless we understand him to be ignorant he must have been referring even to the two kings that he set up.