"Democracy and leadership are antithetical".
If democracy is conceived of as everyone having a vote on every major issue, then the statement is defensible.
First, the more complicated decision people are asked to make the less attention they can pay and the lower the quality of their analysis.
Second, one sacrifices vertical specialization in Herb Simon's terms. That is by refusing to delegate decision making to elected representatives who have both the time and (supposedly) the cognitive chops to deal handle these kinds of questions, we further reduce the quality of decision making.
Finally, there is the problem of collective action when decisions are difficult and require sacrifice is exacerbated. Most of us will gladly accept collective sacrifice if someone else is paying, but balk when it's our turn to pay.
An elected representative should in theory balance the wishes of all those she represents and arrive at a compromise that is less skewed than a solution voted on by all, which is generally the "lowest common denominator" and therefore likely to be insufficient in scope.
When everyone has a vote, no one wants to lead in making a sacrifice (the collective action problem). Another way of thinking about this is as a big prisoner's dilemma with 34 million players (i.e. voters); the equilibrium is "defect".
And that's the problem with California's ballot measure procedure and by extension with the state's finances.
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