But remember where democracy came from: the no-aristocracy, one-man-one-vote model of democracy is primarily a child of the French Revolution. (The US revolutio

But remember where democracy came from: the no-aristocracy, one-man-one-vote model of democracy is primarily a child of the French Revolution. (The US revolution created a cozy oligarchy, complete with property qualifications; democratization came later.) Prior to that revolution, the only way to join the French aristocracy was to be the child of an aristocrat; no amount of amassed wealth could make you noble, and the French aristocracy had even persuaded themselves that they were biologically superior to the commoners. (Hitler and Himmler really liked that notion; they even envisioned turning the SS into a new ruling aristocracy, not least for France.) The French Revolution blew the lid off all this, and made it possible for earning wealth -- in one generation or several -- to be enough to rise in station. This was always possible in England, and this is probably why the UK has never had a French-style revolution: no "insurgent elites," no men and women frozen out of the circles of power despite being qualified to enter. So democracy isn't a sham; or, at least, it wasn't originally one. There was a time when all of the factions you describe -- working stiffs, professional politicians, and the ultra-rich (especially rich Jews!) -- were more or less genuinely oppressed, and settled on democracy as a solution that gave all parties at least some of what they wanted. (This assumes a traditional reading of the French Revolution, of course; I've seen a revisionist reading that it was the work of a small elite that never enjoyed popular support. But I'm skeptical of this; if popular sentiment was really anti-Revolutionary, why did France have so many more republics?)