> The argument goes: liberal democracies are partially captured by capitalism My argument was that corruption can collapse any society, no matter the economic

> The argument goes: liberal democracies are partially captured by capitalism My argument was that corruption can collapse any society, no matter the economic or political system. In reply to your post: In an autocracy, the corruption is obvious to everyone and concentrated in a branched tree starting at the top leader. It is (was * ) very easy to remove it all in a revolution (though, that doesn't usually lead to a corruption-free society after). In a democratic capitalistic system, corruption is hidden, dispersed, systemic, very difficult even to demonstrate it's existence, much less remove it. So, in a democratic liberal society, protests against corruption can't target the corrupt structure of government, because it's mostly invisible. When times are hard people want an autocratic leader to solve their problem in an autocratic manner ("iron fist", Hitler was actually voted!). The protesters only demand the removal of current corruption, not it's replacement with a top-down autocratic corruption, which is inevitable in an autocratic system, but even so, when the new corruption gets bad enough, it will be removed in a revolution and the process starts over again in a democratic system. * This cycle is probably not functional anymore. With surveillance tech, protesters can't organize to bring down an autocratic governemnt anymore. The same surveillance can transform a democratic government in a fascist corporate-led one (think society in Robocop movies). No real examples yet, but I'm sure we'll get there.