But still, it's all rotten. China is doing 50 year ahead planning where the Western world has about 2 after general elections.
You rely on 2-3 middle men to represent your interests as they please.
In democracy you directly vote people not strategies, priorities or bills.
We haven't really seen much variety of democratic governments. It's a classic recipe with the tinies twists. Some ideas: - vote 5 people not 1 - vote plans, programs and bills instead of people - vote priorties : education, health, infrastructure ... subsidies ,military - break down the 4/5 year vote into smaller decisions and more often - curate the list of candidates based on results - you get elected by vote but not achieving the promised plan/ results/growth/GDP/... effects takes you out
Dictatorial power has been flatly nessecary since the invention of nuclear weapons because if the Americans launch nukes at you then you can't call a meeting about it. You need a single executive decision makers.
Oligarchies are inevitable in democratic systems and are most visible in "democratically elected" political parties massively controlled by a few stakeholders promoting their own interests and trying to maintain their own power. Quite simply making every decision a government makes through decentralized direct democracy is impossible and some top down bureaucracy is needed. Even something as small scale as hackee news has an oligarchy of moderators.
What makes what we call "democracy" the best political system however is that it uses a popular vote as a check on power for the other two elements and to allow for peaceful stable transistions of power. The further one gets from democracy the more the people are nothing but slaves to entrenched interests who will inevitably abuse their power for their own benefit. Also democracy can sometime benefit from the wisdom of the crowd which can occasionally be more useful than the wisdom of individuals.
Systems like technocracy sound good at first glance. After all why not have smart people run society instead of voters with an average IQ of 100? However they severely lack long term sustainability as there is no way to enforce that leadership stays merit based. In a true technocracy the leadership would change constantly to account for changes in merit but people will strive to maintain their own power. People will stonewall others and impede progress to force them to do favors for them that can maintain their own power. Gradually skill at trading favors and getting people to go along with you becomes a more important factor in determining power and effectiveness. Eventually you end up with a corrupted oligarchy headed by politicians rather than by experts.
You cannot run a proper democracy without taking absolute powers away from a purely democratically elected government.
-- Winston Churchill
Personally, I think monarchies are a better idea.
A monarchy doesn’t instill power upon a monarch. It’s a precarious position. It’s often ‘off with their head’.
Think CEO of a very competitive and successful company. Wouldn’t be long before they get ousted if they didn’t perform. But there is a balance with everyone having their roles to play in a monarchy.
Imagine if a corporation is run democratically and everyone gets to choose how it is to be run. The end goal would be maintaining the democratic structure itself and not really pursuing sales targets or profits or creating products.
Democracy has been an abysmal failure usually. Likely more successful if it is small(Scandinavia, New Zealand) and more chaotic with larger populations(India). US is a republic but does have a democratic set up.