By Michael Hudson / CounterPunch Vested interests create “checks and balances” primarily to make political systems non-responsive to demands for social reform. Historically, therefore, the checks are politically unbalanced in practice. Instead of producing a happy medium, their effect often has been to check the power of the people to assert their interests at the […]
The problem of democracy has always been the short attention span of the electorate. People make emotional decisions; “throw the bums out” - which of course it is sometimes right to be frustrated and take a new direction - but sometimes cooler heads must be allowed to prevail. We democratically chose to have that non-democratic institution, no different than various other government institutions that we put in authority over our day-to-day activities (police, and a whole range of other government “services”, even the IRS!).
The problem of democracy has always been the short attention span of the electorate. People make emotional decisions; “throw the bums out” - which of course it is sometimes right to be frustrated and take a new direction - but sometimes cooler heads must be allowed to prevail. We democratically chose to have that non-democratic institution, no different than various other government institutions that we put in authority over our day-to-day activities (police, and a whole range of other government “services”, even the IRS!).