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Democracy’s Children
Why Leibnitz’s dictum was quite wrong
Not so long ago, everyone on Earth would agree that Kings and Queens and Emperors Sultans and Tzars were the only legitimate form of governance. For well over six thousand years all of humanity lived under such systems both small and, increasingly, large, with only the briefest of interludes. Those individuals at the very top of the social apex were believed to be appointed by god, acting through the process of primogenitor or force of arms, to oversee their subjects in the same way a strict parent oversees small children. The fact that all too often these Kings, Queens, Emperors, Sultans and Tzars were infantile incompetents notable only for an inflated sense of self-entitlement was merely a sign of how mysterious indeed are the ways of invisible magic pixies.
Today we believe in a different myth: democracy. Everyone and their pet hamster now believes that to be democratic is to be modern and fair. That’s why during the Cold War, East Germany styled itself a democracy and why today’s North Korea proclaims the same thing. Democracy is shiny and the best of all possible worlds. It’s why African despots insist on holding rigged elections so they can afterward proceed to loot their countries in an entirely democratic way. The USA is even willing on a regular basis to undertake illegal invasions of far-away countries and…
