One of the things about democratic governments that most people do not understand is that they are based on the simple idea that given the opportunity, many humans will literally say and do anything for power over others. What they want is clear a pathway to power (or money, status, fame, etc). 1.
No society or government is ever going to be free from these people, and none can prevent their regular rise in different spheres of life. All we can do is make pathways to power as crooked and perilous as possible by incorporating as many checks and balances on the single-handed abuse of power. 2.
Jan 31, 2026 03:50This is an unsexy but vital function of democracy. It is achieved in multiple ways, by dividing power among different branches of government; administering laws separately to executive power; having public elections; separating culture, art, and intellectual life from political power, etc. 3.
There’s a long list of these tedious and cumbersome practices. They often cause us irritation because they seem inefficient or time-consuming or irksome. But we fail to understavd that each of them embody this single quality: they make the sole exercise of power over others untenable. 4.
This is why the last 30-40 years of neoliberal government have been so corrosive. The neoliberals deliberately hollowed out our public lives, undermining the separations and divisions of power that prevent tyranny by making one source of power, status, value, fame, and influence supreme: money. 5.
The inevitable consequence of this corrosion of democracy is the slide into criminal corruption and fascism. Fascism and rampant corruption are concomitants of government by opportunists. They are what happen when societies open direct pathways to power by self-serving chancers. 6.
We must understand that democracy is not a system of government based on airy feel-good fictions or naive expectations of mutual goodwill. Democracy anticipates our wickedness, and puts mechanisms in place to make it harder for it to prevail. Nothing is guaranteed. There is no iron-clad defence. 7.
This is the ultimate lesson: Democracy depends on us being willing to hold our fellow humans to account as persistently, cleverly, tenaciously, and humanely as we can. Democracy is a struggle that never ends, because the alternative is what every opportunist desires: tyranny. 8.
