Fallacy of Division, Politics and Democracy
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Original Question
It has been occurring to me of late that one particular fallacy, seems to have an overlarge influence on politics, it is the fallacy of division.
I wonder how much of the historical ideological success of Democracy and Socialism is owed to this particular fallacies ubiquitousness. The Fallacy of Division gives people a strong reason to support Democracy and also nicely covers up a fundamental problem with Socialism (and basically all collective endeavors).
1. Democracy.
This is pretty simple, people hear that the People are going to be in charge and given they are a Person, take this to mean that they personally are going to have more power in a Democracy than they would in a Monarchy. Logically of course, the opinions of the Average Person decides everything in Democracy, but you aren't the Average Person but rather a Specific Person. Furthermore the Average Person is also the Average King, so we can expect the democratic majority to 'on average' make similar decisions to one single person given the same circumstances.
2. Socialism.
This is more complicated. Basically the ordinary people are exploited by the rich and imagine that if they placed all the rich people's property in the hands of a collective they are part of then they won't be exploited. The problem they don't realize is that logically they themselves are not the collective simply because they are *part* of the collective, which means the collective is quite capable of exploiting them just as the rich people did before.
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Answers
1I think the best for what you are asking is in “Marxism Unmasked” by Ludwig von Mises. It is in Kindle, and I think, but I’m not sure, free at the Mises Institute. It is the transcript of a series of lectures on just what you are asking. If you want something more in-depth or less deep, I can give you some references to those.
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Democracy and socialism are not all that different. In fact, socialism is really just an expansion of democracy into the workplace and property rights.
What you are saying is quite true and I find that democracy is more or less of a psychological trick to get people to be ok with how they are governed by making them feel like they had a part in the decision. So, if they don't like how they are being governed or are being governed by someone they don't like then they will be less likely to revolt if they know they can vote them out soon and or if they feel they had a part in the decisions. So democracy adds in a kind of self bias and illusion of control that causes us to accept our governing. But having a small partial choice is still better than having no choice at all with say monarchical rule by divine right. At least with democracy the governing wont be led too far astray away from the collective will of the people.
Fallacy of composition and division are also in politics in other ways as well. For example, Biden is terrible therefore the democratic party is terrible. Or, the democratic party is terrible therefore Biden is terrible.