Democracy is not designed to be efficient, in fact, it is designed to be the opposite. Why? Because with efficiency comes power to the top, and with power to th

Democracy is not designed to be efficient, in fact, it is designed to be the opposite. Why? Because with efficiency comes power to the top, and with power to the top comes dictatorship - which is the whole thing that democracy is trying to avoid! This sounds like a tautology. Democracy avoids centralizing power, which is good because that's why we have a democracy. Not even circular logic; I feel like I just walked along a semantic Möbius Strip. Don't compare government to business. It's apples to oranges. Government is designed with checks and balances - which are by definition inefficient - because bickering about the same thing for six years is better than making the wrong decision - we've all ceded the control of our lives to this thing, I want them to take all the time they need. Again, circular logic. We must have an inefficient monopolistic provider of oil|cars|operating systems|law enforcement and defense and pensions and healthcare and education and mail delivery and a host of other unrelated services|hula-hoops because, when we are betting everything on a single provider, it's better for that single provider to muddle around than to do something bad. I think you just made the argument for splitting the government up, not for keeping it running the same way. Be careful not use the current American experience with government as an excuse to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Our crazy populists haven't killed very many people at all, and the rise in crime (and the money paid for crime-avoidance) is much lower in this country than in others that democratized even harder and faster. So it would be unfairly generous to your position if I used the US as a single example -- think of it as a way to handicap my arguments so things will stay fair.