> Markets tend toward monopoly like democracies tend towards dictatorship.
Democracies tend towards dictatorship? Oh right, most nominal democracies are liberal democracies. Makes sense now.
> Changing a failing system is very hard. I agree. Maybe it's not possible. But we need to have some vision of a positive future for the negative to not win by default. Cynicism is self-fulfilling.
What you need is a better system. Not hopes and prayers.
Strictly speaking, no. A dictatorship takes power away from the people. A democracy sees the people give the power away.
The people don't have to give power away in a democracy, technically, but in practice they always do. Democracy is hard work and people have bigger fish to fry, like keeping food on their table and a roof over their head. For most people it is most sensible to allow a "leader" to take power away from them.
So casually speaking, there isn't a difference. In both cases power isn't in the hands of the people. The reason for why the power isn't held differ, but that is understood to be immaterial with respect the context of discussion.
Remember a basic premise. For actually existing democracy the people have power. The people have power yet they have urgent “fish to fry” like getting food and keeping their homes? Why are they so apparently downtrodden when they have power?
And the leaders? They do not have these bigger fish to fry?
Is the real reason here that there are regular people and then there are elites? And the difference between these two groups’ capacity to act (power) is so different that the first just has to stay busy staying alive (or rather: deal with all their everyday chores, doesn’t have to be bare survival at all) while the other group has the capacity to wield and exercise power? Then the premise is false: you are not talking about a democracy to begin with.
Democracies tend towards dictatorship? Oh right, most nominal democracies are liberal democracies. Makes sense now.
> Changing a failing system is very hard. I agree. Maybe it's not possible. But we need to have some vision of a positive future for the negative to not win by default. Cynicism is self-fulfilling.
What you need is a better system. Not hopes and prayers.