Is our world changing?

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A controversial opener? Government

It's always risky to question the form of government that happens to be in place at a particular time. For example, if anybody had been rash enough to propose a liberal democracy at any time up to the eighteenth century, then a short stay in the Tower would have been the law's reply. But are we any wiser today?

If an intelligent and humane person from any century prior to our own were to review the events of the past century or so, they would very likely conclude that democracy seems to be a resounding failure in the West. "Wherever you look," they would say, "You see dissolution and decay."

The West is, by almost any measure, in the process of becoming stultified by self-indulgence, and is being challenged over by more vigorous cultures which seek a greater wealth on behalf of their peoples - and sometimes at the behest of their peoples.

Our intelligent and humane ancestors would argue that, while people in general desire the betterment of their lives, they are hopelessly divided as to the means of securing it. On the other hand, an absolute ruler, or a small aristocracy, can reach agreement on both aims and means, and can therefore deliver the goods.

Plato famously argued that democracy was merely the prelude to tyranny. Was he right? Where do we see signs of tyranny emerging in our own times.

Here, maybe?

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