Democracy in Western Countries has Failed
About a decade ago, some conservatives and libertarians, on the internet tried to push the following idea: “democracies always fail because the “average” voter tries to vote more money for themselves”. I always found this viewpoint hilarious because it clearly showed that people were either too stupid or deliberately ignorant. With that in mind, let us talk about the converging reasons why democracy in the West has visibly failed in the past three decades. While this process began in earnest about three decades ago, in 1991, early signs of failure were visible as early as the 1970s in some countries.
Before we go there, let us first tackle a few myths about “democracy”. Firstly, there is no evidence that democracy is the “best” form of governance- either in the present or past. At best, democracy, when working properly, can balance the interests of various interest groups in a country better than many other systems. Secondly, as East Asian countries have demonstrated, there is no connection between “democracy” and rate of technological progress or any sustained improvements in living standards of people. In fact, if you compare them with others countries such India or Brazil, we could make the conclusion that democracy equals poor governance, incompetent administration and relative lack of improvement in living standards.
But this is not about why democracy in India or Brazil hasn’t delivered on its promise. So let us focus on the West, specifically how things have really gone downhill in the past three decades. And this brings us to the first question- did democracy ever work in the West? Well.. it kinda did, for the first 3-4 decades after end of WW2. But there were some reasons for that streak of apparent success. The main reason being that WW2 had greatly flattened pre-existing class hierarchies in many of these countries and the post-war three decade long economic boom in western countries effectively covered any systemic contradictions. It was only after this growth period slowed down that many of the pre-existing contradictions and issues started to resurface.
Now let talk about why any system of governance fails, since this is very important for understanding why democracy (and existing nation states) in West are failing. As it turns out, every system of governance ever created is meant to solve an apparently simple but devilishly complex problem- how to make that society function without things falling into chaos. Hence, all known systems of governance (from feudalism and monarchy to totalitarian governments and democracies) end up getting judged based on how well they solve the effective governance problem. While some may think that this is about simply ensuring continued adequate supply of basics (food, water, housing etc), providing the basics and bare minimum only goes so far.
The next most important, and crucial, part of effective governance is the ability of that system to weather adverse conditions and temporary setbacks. There is a reason why in history, events such as prolonged droughts, food shortages, epidemics and long costly wars often spell the end of one system of governance. While people will tolerate fairly severe temporary setbacks, they will gradually withdraw support from systems that are unable to fix long-term problems. This is, for example, why Indians gradually stopped caring about the fate of indigenous kings and kingdoms in the 18th century or why the Qing dynasty simply lost its relevance to most people in China in the early 20th century. Closer to our times, this is also why communist governments in Eastern Europe fell so easily and readily in the late 1980s.
Conversely, people will tolerate some pretty screwed up governments if they see a real improvement in their living standards and quality of life. This is why Japanese were quite happy with their various systems of governance between the Meiji restoration and end of WW2 or why people in China are still so strongly supportive of the CCP. The majority of people do not care about democracy, and would prefer to live under a system where they were happy, prosperous and relatively safe- even if the underlying system was headed by some pretty noxious people- as long as things were run well. All systems of governance are ultimately graded by the quality of life they can provide.
And this brings us to how a rapidly increasing number of people in the West, especially in younger age groups, perceive democracy. To put it bluntly, the existing system aka “multi-party” democracy simply sucks for the majority of them. But why and why did it seem to work for the first 3-4 decades after WW2? As mentioned previously, the seeming success of democracy in West had everything to do with a massive and fairly equitable increase in quality of life for those living in western countries for those decades after WW2. “Multi-party” democracy just happened to be the system around when that gigantic boom occurred and thus received credit for making it happen. The extreme social-hierarchy flattening in aftermath of WW2 made the system unusually responsive to the real needs of average people at that time.
But that was the past and beginning in the 1980s or 1990s (depending on were you lived) things started reverting back to pre-WW2 conditions. This era witnessed increasingly unopposed power and influence of the very rich and large corporations, who turned their avarice towards extracting wealth from average people. In this, they were greatly assisted by a new type of elected representative- the “credentialed” professional politician. Some readers might not know this- but in the first 3-4 decades after WW2, people elected to political office came from a range of backgrounds, educational “credentials”, work histories and personalities. It was also a big part of the reason why democracy seemed to work and produce positive results in that era.
Today your standard elected representative in any western democracy looks like a D-list actor, talks like one, usually has a degree from some “famous” university, hasn’t worked outside politics and is totally oblivious to the needs or mindsets of those they claim to represent. These parasites, if anything, detest the very people they claim to represent. They spent all their waking hours sucking up to rich people and corporation who will give them more of that sweet cash, insider deals or profitable sinecures. They will readily embrace any fad, however dangerous for the future of their country- if they think it will get them more likes and clout on social media. And this has now become very obvious. And this has become obvious- especially in past 10-15 years, which is why we got Trump in 2016 and will very likely get him again in 2024.
And this is how we have reached the point where elected politicians, from all parts of the electoral spectrum in western countries will support bad ideas about everything from their inability to build or maintain infrastructure, supporting foreign conflicts they cannot win, facilitating massive illegal migration and a host of other rotten ideas which are destroying whatever is left of a decent existence for the majority of people in those countries. While it is possible to attribute some of this to their lack of ability and incompetence, a lot of this behavior pattern cannot be interpreted as anything other than deliberate and intentional.
Furthermore, being simply dumb is insufficient to explain some of worst “progressive” ideas such as banning gasoline-powered cars, pushing insects as human food, pushing unreliable sources of power such as windmills and solar power to run modern electric grids, censoring what they consider to be “disinformation” and a whole lot more. Also note that these politicians do not care about issues which actually matter to their voters such as the rapidly rising cost of houses and rents, stagnant or declining incomes and decreasing purchasing power, rapidly rising cost of raising children, cratering fertility rates, poorer health outcomes, high cost of secondary education etc. In other words, they actively ignore issues which matter to the vast majority- the opposite of democracy. It is also hard to ignore that in almost every western country, all major political parties are full of almost identical people pushing similar bad ideas while ignoring real problems that affect majority.
Are most Democratic party politicians any different from Republicans in USA- save on a couple of issues such abortion and gun control? Is there any real difference between the majority of politicians in the Conservative, Labor and New Democratic parties in UK? Are there any real difference (at the federal level) between Liberals, Conservatives and NDP in Canada? What about all those “different” political parties in other countries such Germany, Netherlands or Italy? Let us face it, they are all filled with eager apparatchiks cut from the same cloth of looks, “diversity”, “credentials”, job history, worldview and career trajectories. And they are all busy driving their respective countries to multi-point failure, though some will clearly reach that endpoint faster than others. This is not the mark of a mediocre, let alone a successful, system of governance.
Some might say- how can they be replaced if they are able to maintain grip on power? Won’t systems of surveillance or incarceration keep their replacements perpetually out of power? Well.. things don’t work like that. The majority of Eastern European communist governments failed without much bloodshed in the late 1980s. This change occurred even in countries such as East Germany which devoted a lot of effort and resources to keeping their own people under perpetual surveillance. It turn out that a constant decrease in living standards have a proven track record of corroding the willingness of the population to stand behind their government in times of crises.
Today the West is in the same situation as Eastern Europe in the early 1980s, and thus far they are handling things even worse than them- if that is possible. But could any of these countries be able to change course to sufficient degree before it is too late? Maybe a few might pull through- but most will eventually cease to exist in anything resembling their current form. It does not help that most west European countries are also in a serious demographic crisis. They will j become increasingly irrelevant as they undergo a series of cascading crises of governance- and the rest of world won’t care.
What do you think? Comments?