It's not about people not knowing what's good for them, exactly, but rather with them not having the necessary skills or knowledge. The idea of them being able to make an informed choice is absurd, a lot of the time. Yet it's what they are asked to do.
Of course, some people have additional problems--they might, for example, be unable to manage their own households and so find themselves chronically in debt, yet they are asked to vote in what would essentially require a university-level course in global finance.
No, no I get it Odeon.
People are ignorant. It is the "collective will" not the individual will that matters. The best people to determine the rights and the will of the people is a small group of people who can rightly gauge that. The elites are always going to appreciate and understand the best for the people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_GenerationsBecause the elites in Government had far better understanding of education, religious beliefs needed for the soul, social capital and civilised customs and social mores.
So, on this basis they KNEW what what BEST for these silly, backward Aboriginal people. They had no business raising children and in their horrible backwards way.
Kids were still being taken right up to the 1970's (Yes that is in MY lifetime).
This is shame for Australia. (Yes, Sweden may be the rape capital of the world BUT we have had our own problems too).
But that may in your mind be ancient business. But something that you said about how the average person is stupid and too ignorant to vote in their economic benefit (paraphrasing LOL)
I knew this guy. He was at the time about 25. He was a Boner at an abattoir. Salt of the Earth. Spoke laconically and simply. Country bloke. He had been working since he was 14 and in his own words was "Not that great at school"
He was decidedly worse than he let on. He was unable to read or write more than his own name. By any reading, he would be about as far removed from the economically educated University Graduates that ought to be able to make economic decisions on behalf of the country's economy.
I was having drinks with him on my veranda one night and he mentioned that he had holidays coming up. I asked him what he was going to do. He said "Oh just going to my house and gonna do some painting and cleaning up the property a bit".
It kind of threw me. "My house"? He lived just down the road from me.
I asked him what he meant by going.
"Nah, not THAT house. That is the one me and (his brother) own."
I asked him if it wasn't that house, which did he mean?
He said it was one in Donnybrook and he was slowly renovating it and fixing it up.
I got it. It was their second house. I said "Oh right, sorry I did not realise you have two house"
He said, "No our house here is jointly owned by me and my brother. I rent out the other ones by the one in Donnybrook I am doing up to sell."
I asked him about the other ones. He told me he had two more houses. He said that they were owed by the bank because unlike the one he had with his brother or the one in Donnybrook, THEY had mortgages on them.
This kid knew his body would be broken down by the age of 35. He had been saving and investing in property off the sweat of his brow since 14. He was on track. He financially (in the way that he conducted his own personal finances) would have shown up most oh so clever university educated economists.
I do not agree with your idea that people cannot vote in their best interests or that only an elite can make the decisions that reflect the interest on an entire population. I understand entirely the nee for elites to run at the top for expediency BUT that in no way says that if THEY think one thing and the population collectively thinks another that they must be right. It just doesn't.
As i said before the "I know better than the unwashed plebs"snobbery is at best poor and at worst the worst hateful demagoguery