The Editor-in-Chief of the otherwise quiet and non-descript Global Custodian magazine has written what can pass for an extremely controversial if not outright revolutionary essay on the topic of democracy, and specifically how our current regime has cannibalized itself, and is in dire need of a "revolution." Dominic Hobson says: "In a market, the cumulative expenditure of the modestly endowed easily trumps the expenditure of the rick. And even the rich are ultimately answerable to the market: They became rich by satisfying customers, and will remain rich only so long as they (or their investments) continue to satisfy consumers. Consumer sovereignty is far more powerful a constraint on the rich than political sovereignty. Indeed, even the erosion of the rich by democracy is ultimately self-defeating, for it eliminates that class of men and women in public life who are under no financial pressure to remain at their posts, pursuing policies in which they no longer believe. It is no coincidence that the democratization of politics has been accompanied by a decline in resignations on points of principle or of honor. The vast majority of modern politicians simply needs the money. But even the restoration of a rentier political class would not be enough to restore the blessings of good government. As long as politicians must compete for votes, they cannot govern honestly, or even disinterestedly. They cannot reverse decisions or policies that have proved unworkable. They must persist, even in intellectual error, and cannot escape a certain narrowness of vision. To release politicians from this predicament, a revolution is required. That revolution must be one not of blood, but of constitutional and political ideas. It must put an end to democracy without limits, before the prosperity of the species is destroyed and liberty extinguished...The only lasting solution to the plague of unlimited democracy is to attack democracy at its moral foundation: the political equality of the citizen." Well, the Greeks seem to have been wrong about a whole lot of other things. Is it so alien to ponder whether they also screwed up the most taken for granted concept of modern society as well?

Democracy Devours Itself