Sunday 12 May 2013

The Coffee Vending Machine - a love story on democracy and hot drinks

There was a time, long ago, where countries were ruled by a person, a family or simply an elite. Then, extreme militancy made the democratic reforms pass, in the name of a better society, by having a larger number of its members participating in the the public debate. With the following story, I'm aiming a critique to the ones who believe voting (by universal suffrage, or by any other) is the best way to solve social/economic problems in a free society.

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Imagine a multi-button coffee vending machine with the following drinks: (A)Black Coffee, (B)Decaf, (C)Hot Chocolate, (D)Cappuccino, (E)Tea and (F)Milk. Now, usually you go to the machine, put the money in, very likely you get the satisfaction you paid for. However, this will be a different case:
Imagine there's only one coffee vending machine in your country (could be in your state/province or even in your town). Now someone suggests and "everybody" agrees that, to be fair, we should vote on the drink we enjoy the most in order to elect the country's official drink. 
Imagine an "election" was held, and the results were presented to the public:

(A)Black Coffee       52%
(B)Decaf                  19%
(C)Hot Chocolate       7%
(D)Cappuccino         11%
(E)Tea                         6%
(F)Milk                        5%

Now, it is clear that (A)Black Coffee won this election by having over 50% of the votes. From now on, there will be only one available drink in the coffee machine for the next (lets say) 4 years, when another election will be held.

Where the problems start:
A citizen who just happens to like hot chocolate (exclusively), now will have to drink black coffee if he wants to have a hot drink at all. This may also happen to the Decaf lover or the Cappuccino girl, or lets say someone has an health issue with having coffee, now his/her economic and social freedoms have been severely limited.

But isn't democracy imperfect but the best we have today? - Well, if the machine were to be operated solely by market forces and individual free will, i.e. not being controlled by a third party (be it a king, dictator or majority rule), wouldn't it be much fairer and efficient?  

You say that this machine is a bad metaphor when compared with our society? Do you claim that society is much more complex and there are variables that can't be represented in this particular example? - Sorry, but if there are too many variables that you can't fully understand them, then why should you be in favor of creating an authority (that physically does not exist, but intervenes) which claims it can solve social and economic problems by being coercive and fail consecutively in solving those same problems? Besides, the drink that gets elected will never fully represent your true taste (unless it's your own drink) and you'll end up spending your life trying to persuade (eventually coercing) people that like tea to drink a latte and to love it even more.

3 comments:

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  2. Great post, what you said is really helpful to me.I agree with you anymore. I have been talking with my friend about, he though it is really interesting as well. Keep up with your good work, I would come back to you.

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