An argument made against democracy is that the people are incompetent to govern themselves. That may be true. But history shows the same is most likely true of the elites.
The Soviet Union certainly wasn’t a well run country. Nor was Mussolini’s Italy — it was a lie the trains ran on time. It took the Third Reich’s elites about ten years to reduce their nation to rubble. And we’ve just been offered evidence that government by elite Wall Street insiders does not work all that well in the US.
One could go on and on: Elites down through history seem to be no wiser than anyone else when it comes to government. The notion that a privileged class is better at governing a people than the people themselves does not seem to have rational support.
And neither, may I add, does the notion that a grass-roots citizen’s congress with no prior legislative experience, like the tea party, can govern have corroborating evidence. In fact, it can be argued, we have some indication that utter know-nothing governance is a devastating choice.
And that’s why we have this three-way in America. Or, so we advertise. Something’s gone screwy with the checks and balances. That whole super-majority problem comes to mind.
I think your new look is restrained, tasteful…dare I say it?…elite chic.
Very true, Nance. I’m not arguing that the people are any better at governing than the elites.
I think we’ve forgotten some things I was raised with: common sense, common courtesy, and common decency. All three seem to be MIA lately. The batty head cases we have aspiring to the Presidency demonstrate how badly our educational system has failed us in that people actually believe their nonsense. I almost wrote a lengthy rant on how education has gone to hell but I decided to be nice to my blood pressure,
Good to save the blood pressure.
I think there’s a point to be made that the farther the elites are from having to deal with the problems the rest of us have to face, the less likely they are to rule well. They are very far from that condition here in America. They will survive, unless they manage to kill off just about all of the rest of us.
I think you’re right about the more isolated the elites are, the worse they are.
Paul, I;m stealing your tags to export them to DailyKos
Two examples of twentieth century European populist autocracies hardly paint a complete picture of “elites down through history.”
Are you pretending to know so little about history to amuse me… or you?