> [!quote] > If [[Trump Presidency|Trump]] is the answer, then we're asking a wrong question. On [[Democracy]]. # Thesis on current situation **Representative [[democracy]] is relatively young** - it's around 100 years old. * USA(1776) doesn't count - one cannot designate a slave-owning regime as a representative democracy. * Same as UK / France before the universal suffrage (around WWI). **When we imagine the failure of democracy, we image 1930s or 1970s** * 1930s - Rise of Fascism * 1970s - juntas around the world - Portugal, Spain, Latin America, ... **We're living in a vastly different world** * Prosperous * No longer young * Less Violent - both prosperity and aged society contributes to this; Violence is young men's game. * Much more connected - Social Media ## Churchill's democracy quote aka the “least worst form of government” ![[Democracy#^Churchil]] This teaches us a valuable lesson - ==that we shouldn't take the past aphorisms as a timeless source of wisdom== that cannot be refuted. Every proposition is situated in its own context, most likely not the same as the current context. It is worthwhile to ask; is democracy still the least worst system? ## Early Democracy had it lucky > [!quote] > Early twentieth-century democratic reformers were able to take advantage of the enormous slack in the system. There was room to grow the franchise, to grow the debt, to grow the power of national government, to grow the tax base, to grow the party system, to grow the labour movement, to grow the public’s sense of trust in the state... > [!quote] > The kind of democracy that flourished during the Cold War did not operate at the level of existential choice. It was built on bread-and-butter issues: welfare, jobs, education. # Thesis on future **We're living in an unprecedented time**, and there's no history to repeat. Democracy wouldn't die a sudden death; it will die gradually until it becomes irrelevant. Runciman threw the word *vetocracy* at the end (credited to [[Francis Fukuyama]]), and this is such a good language to capture the disfunction of the American political system. Few alternatives are given: - 21st century **pragmatic authoritarianism**. another variant; “pragmatic environmental authoritarianism” is brought up. If China is much better than the US at tackling the climate change, than this puts a very strong dent against the superiority of liberal democracy. - this book (or [[The Handover]]) covered that ultimately it’s the human race that matters and political systems are “short term” phenomena. - **epistocracy** (different than technocarcy); I don’t think Runciman offered this as a serious option; the ship has sailed on this in the 19th century. (JSM’s voting scheme). - liberated technology (**accelerationism**) It’s not a particularly well written book; it’s not clear what the “solution” of this is. However, I do think it’s worthwhile to point that “we’re not heading towards the right direction”.