The March to Democracy

"Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner." -James Bovard

People getting excited in parliaments, campaigns becoming louder, hate speeches brewing, rising fake promises, and "people" not moving out of The White House. Do all these epitomize something? Democracy going down?

Are people not happy with democracy? Should we turn to alternatives?

Rising protests, the poor economic performance of some democracies, the surge in rigged elections stand in contrast to the orderliness and better economic performance of a few non-democracies.

Personally, I believe that democracy is still the best system of large scale governance. When democracies and non-democracies are compared, on average democracies perform better, are wealthier, have a higher level of human development.

All the pessimism about democracy is partly due to politicians who seem to be detached from everyday lives leading to political alienation. This might give rise to populism and extremism which may threaten democracy.

The government of the one or the few is unresponsive, unaccountable, and unconstrained. We have built different institutions to maximize the values that we associate with democracy. Even the basic institution of elections and voting allow us to achieve responsiveness, responsibility, and accountability. Thus,

If you don't vote, you don't matter