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It takes considerably more than "government". It takes a society, with culture and virtues and churches and economy and civic institutions and traditions. The
by chernevik 13y ago
It takes considerably more than "government". It takes a society, with culture and virtues and churches and economy and civic institutions and traditions. There many places in the world that have actual elections were those elections are used by some factions to abuse others. There are still more where decent democracies ultimately collapsed.
Democratic government, government by discourse and persuasion, is a remarkable achievement of a society. It is maintained and supported and continued by that society. There is nothing inevitable about it.
- rayiner 13y agoYou're right that it does take more than government. The western world enjoys not just (relatively) good government, but a virtuous culture and people. But government by itself can be better than culture by itself. I'd imagine a lot of Iraqis miss the strong but dictatorial government under Saddam as compared to the weak but democratic government they have now. Basic security is a higher need (in the Maslovian sense) than self determination. That is the history of the world, after all. People embraced the kings that saved them from the petty warlords and criminals long before they instituted democratic government.