- 02 Feb 2019 11:09
#14985180
The problem is that present elites, in democracies, have nowhere near sufficient power to address key problems. You don't win elections by doing what is unpopular, however necessary. Try getting elected by cutting spending or raising taxes sufficiently to tame the deficit, for example. We're headed for crises, big time...But I've always felt the ultimate casualty will be democracy not civilization. As past history indicates, a democratic system which can't deliver in a crisis or under new circumstances breaks down, but the result is Caesarism not a loss of everything. Indeed authoritarianism (Caesarism to use Spengler's term) can usher in a great new age, like in Rome in the two centuries after the fall of the republic.
annatar1914 wrote:@starman2003 , you're right, it does take crises to wake people up from the doldrums, their malaise and apathy, but...
The Elites, formally the rulers of a society or otherwise (a subject in itself that I plan on raising later in the thread), are the real ones who either create and/or overcome a crisis or challenge which maintains the societies' vitality and adaptability, not the generally inert masses. If the Elites do not or will not overcome a crisis, than the whole society is effected and begins to break down. This has actually happened with Western civilization in my opinion.
The problem is that present elites, in democracies, have nowhere near sufficient power to address key problems. You don't win elections by doing what is unpopular, however necessary. Try getting elected by cutting spending or raising taxes sufficiently to tame the deficit, for example. We're headed for crises, big time...But I've always felt the ultimate casualty will be democracy not civilization. As past history indicates, a democratic system which can't deliver in a crisis or under new circumstances breaks down, but the result is Caesarism not a loss of everything. Indeed authoritarianism (Caesarism to use Spengler's term) can usher in a great new age, like in Rome in the two centuries after the fall of the republic.