Leave high school or college and democracy seems like a feel good form of government. Honest folks go to Washington. Everyone cooperates. Problems are solved with group effort, just like they are in school. Honest representatives are doing their best for the country. They disagree but all want the best for the country. American troops fight for freedom. Billionaires are just like the rest of us. They have just made it big. All we have to do is get all of the other countries to be like us and this will be a wonderful world. Citizens perform their role by voting and that keeps our leaders productively focused. Sounds great.
Regular readers know that one way I find root causes is to look at a current situation and ask. Would what we assume are ingredients that give rise to a situation, create the condition we are experiencing today?
If democracy worked the way it is routinely assumed to work, why would we have a country where the economy is falling off a cliff and a growing gap in wealth inequality?
Next – I ask what exactly would create the situation we face today? It would be that democracy works the opposite of how it is assumed to function. It is in fact a brutal system, although much less so than a totalitarian system. Getting results or even fairness, is the most competitive game in the world. It is absolutely brutal.
For a democracy to work properly there must be constant tension between each and every faction which is said to have representation.
Do we have that today? No, but there is tension between the elite and government. It is like the elite pull constantly on a huge rope that pulls government and all of the benefits it provides in their direction.
On the other hand, there is only a loose rope between We The People and their government. We constantly hear politicians say they want to end divisiveness in the country. A politician wanting to unite the country gets votes. One who creates division gets trashed.
When citizens are united with respect to their country’s efforts, that means there is no tension between citizens and their government.
Guess what the outcome of relying on that line of reasoning is?
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