![e7daf1a9148ebd9271e548bb9d7a3fe2[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/jlEaAZl.jpg "e7daf1a9148ebd9271e548bb9d7a3fe2[1].jpg")
Why does the democratic form of government in Athens get such a bad rap? Is it basically just because Plato was butthurt that his idol Socrates was put to death by the Athenian government? Does any contemporary writer aside from Plato even complain about Athenian democracy and its supposed failings?
If you know your history you'll know that the supposed democracy was extremely open for populism, tyrannical leaders and corruption. The most competent leaders were put in exile as the three factions of athenian democracy kept fighting for power.
However if you are to believe Plutarch they produced some god-tier leaders.
"Ancient Greek critics of the democracy include Thucydides the general and historian, Aristophanes the playwright, Plato the pupil of Socrates, Aristotle the pupil of Plato, and a writer known as the Old Oligarch."
- Wikipedia
OP, what do you have against philosopher kings?
Read Plato's The Republic: Socrates says there are five governments: Aristocracy(Rule of the Wise), Timocracy(Rule of the Honorable), Plutocracy(Rule of Money), Democracy(Rule of the Masses), Tyranny(he defines it as the Rule of a Crazy Man). You can see democracy is the fourth and close to Tyranny. He predicts the concept of equality to the absurd, that a man is equal to a horse, and that all ideas are good. From this he concludes, Democracy will be pleasurable, short termed, unfair system. And he doesn't like what is Unfair the most, and predicts that Tyranny and doom is near.
>>724965
what's with this bullshit revisionist pic
>WE WUZ GREEKS N ROMANS BRO
>>724965
Athenian democracy was extremely imperialistic, genocidal and capricious.
They would issue orders to obliterate entire peoples, and then sometimes change their minds after the order had been sent.
They would send generals and leaders in exile or to their death for the slightest mistake, and their diplomacy was one of constant antagonism against powers that could have been their friends, like Sparta. Sparta was forced to make war against Athens because of Athens aggressive imperial policy, and Sparta offered Athens favorable peace terms many times during the Peloponnesian war, but Athens refused every time.
This is mostly due to that most of the attendants in the ecclesia were poor men that looked to war as way to earn some much needed cash, loot and perhaps even land.
>>725007
Explain what's wrong with it, please.
Because progressivism has to emphasize that rule by property-owning electors is not the same as Sandersism.
>>725028
>you had to own property to vote in ancient Athens!
Think you're confusing it with early America, chum.
>>725028
>Sandersism
Did you just make this shit up? What does that even mean?
>>725045
>The Bernie Sanders platform
Which is? I don't think that Sanders supporters (or even Sanders himself) even have a coherent ideology/belief system except more free shit in certain areas of society. Also what does Sanders have to do with Athenian democracy?
What's a good secondary source published more recently that deals with the Athenian system of democracy?
The Athenian democracy was one of the most politically, culturally and socially vibrant states in history. It produced more in 150 years of its troubled existence than many millennia spanning empires. Compare Athens with the culturally barren state of Sparta - the subject of much contemporary praise for the apparent 'stability and orderliness' of its constitution - which produced no poetry, no art, no philosophy and no architecture of note after about the early 6th century. Obviously the democracy had problems, no system of government is perfect. But it was a very cheap price to pay for the great inheritance it ultimately left to western civilisation.
>>725054
>I don't think that Sanders supporters (or even Sanders himself) even have a coherent ideology/belief system
Did you read the words I used?
>The Bernie Sanders platform and the various leftist ideologies that are clustering around it as we speak
I said nothing about coherency.
>Also what does Sanders have to do with Athenian democracy?
Did you even read my post aside form the word 'Sandersism?' It seems pretty clear: Sandersism (or whatever masturbatory jargon you want to use to describe the same phenomenon, I genuinely don't care which word you use but it's obvious that one has to be agreed upon because of the size of these radical democratic movements in Europe and America) is associated with contemporary radical democracy, which almost always portrays progress as inevitable and the past as inferior to the present in terms of the liberties and rights people enjoy under democracies. This means that the Athenian democracy has to be portrayed as an inferior version of something which now exists or as a pretender to the name 'democracy.'
>>725045
>Only adult male Athenian citizens who had completed their military training as ephebes had the right to vote in Athens. The percentage of the population that actually participated in the government was 10 to 20% of the total number of inhabitants, but this varied from the fifth to the fourth century BC.[18] This excluded a majority of the population: slaves, freed slaves, children, women and metics (foreigners resident in Athens).[21] The women had limited rights and privileges, had restricted movement in public, and were very segregated from the men.[22]
There weren't any property qualifications for citizenship, at least by the 5th century.
>>725064
>>Only adult male Athenian citizens who had completed their military training as ephebes had the right to vote in Athens.
Still not universal suffrage. Thank you for correcting me but my point still stands: women and those who were incapable of military service had no suffrage, so from a contemporary progressive perspective (which I emphasize, again, is where most relevant criticisms of the Athenian democracy that I've encountered come from) this isn't true democracy because it isn't universal suffrage.
>>725045
>Isn't that true?
No, it's not. Slaves couldn't vote, but there were a ton of citizens who didn't own property. Read The Athenian Constitution.
>>725084
I agree it's not universal suffrage in terms of women and other marginal groups, but still it's surprising that MRAs or MGTOWs for example don't praise the democratic system of Athens but rather usually embrace monarchy or dictatorship. It seems like Athenian democracy is shit on by all sides of the political and social spectrum.
>>725084
No democracy ever has universal suffrage. Under 18s aren't allowed to vote, nor are convicted or serving felons, non-citizens, the mentally disabled and so on. It's just varying degrees of participation. And compared to its neighbours - Sparta: an aristocratic-military oligarchy, Persia: a divine empire, Macedon: a monarchy - Athens was damn democratic.
>>725099
>>725103
Wrote up a long reply but then navigated away from the page. Basically I agree with you both. I don't subscribe to the narratives I describe. MGTOWs and MRAs are outliers among conservatives who reject Athenian democracy because they associate it with equality, which is a concept they treat fallaciously in the first place.
>>725060
you're acting like sparta didn't produce military technology, bureaucratic form, musings on the rule or function of law, distribution networks, markets, etc.
the majority of ROMAN thought, technology, infrastructure, public works, legal history, human rights, evolved under the roman empire, not the roman republic.
basically the entire cultural endowment that europe recieved coming out of the dark ages, we got from the EMPIRE, not the republic.
the majority of all human endowment comes from a history of dictatorships. democracy gave us almost nothing. democracy in its current form, with universal suffrage and 1 man 1 vote, has only been around for 50 years.
that means that the only thing universal suffrage got us was computer technology.
>>725136
>democracy gave us almost nothing.
Democracy gave you the right to shitpost on 4chan in 2016.
>>725156
>almost nothing
>>724965
Didn't the democracies constantly promote violence against the aristocracy? Mob justice, revolts, etc.
>>725060
It's like you think Athens were the sole cause for the production. It wasn't. It was all of the greek states contributing.
>>725202
And a lot of other Greek city states also had some type of Athenian democracy. Sparta was largely the exception.
>>725099
>universal suffrage in terms of women
literally who cares
The Athenians defined citizenship in terms of a consequence of military service, in women cannot play a part for obvious reasons.
>>725084
>most relevant criticisms of the Athenian democrac
How is lack of universal suffrage even a critique against democracy? Your view of democracy seems flawed.
>>725213
Well, no... most of greek states were ruled by aristocracy. But yes there were some states that had democracy.
>>725136
The Roman Empire lasted almost three times as long as the Republic and included much more land and people. It's not a fair comparison. It's like saying a guy is slow because he can't work as well as a team of three other guys that have way more resources.
If we had some objective measure of technological development, I'd be inclined to think that a disproportionate amount of it was accomplished recently under democratic governments. It's the nature of technology to allow for increasingly greater, quicker returns.
The industrial age took place under the relatively liberal system of parliamentarism.
Most of this "human endowment" you mention didn't even apply much to the general population. The living standards of the average fella have taken a great leap in the last hundred years.
>>725218
>How is lack of universal suffrage even a critique against democracy?
It is when it's explicitly made as such. I think you're confusing the universal 'democracy' and the particular existence of the Athenian state.
>>725004
All in all, Democracy did not last a whole lot in Greek, plus we have to think about Polis, every city for himself and I doubt there was much of a respect for a state until things more clear around "1600" with...I think it was the peace of Westfalia.
Also if memory serves right democracy over there worked applied in an "equal" stupid sense, work being assigned randomly, IF I REMEMBER RIGHT.
Considering Athene stopped war with Sparta only for the Olympic games and if you look up the etymology for Athlet you will see how it relates to good old money, sounds like the kind of guys that were ruling over a Plutocracy then.
>>725241
>work being assigned randomly, IF I REMEMBER RIGHT.
Yeah, offices were assigned by chance, not vote.
>>725235
technological development is a consequence of markets. the industrial revolution didn't happen under democracy. it happened in the space when free markets emerged, before the emergence of democracy. the parliaments were guided by aristocrats. it wasn't a democracy. universal suffrage emerged about 50 years ago in america, and not until the late 90s in southern germany and switzerland and worst korea (oh hey, look, those are some of the nicest places still...)
discoveries have sped up as free markets have spread. so what you're doing is you're conflating globalism causing a tech revolution with the spread of democracy. tech is speeding up because free markets are spreading. the actors i nthose free markets are discovering more.
theo nly thing democratic states have accomplished is, across the world, bankrupting themselves.
>>725241
further, "rights" as a basis for governance, with life, and property being secondary considerations is stupid
give people "rights" and the things they will want most is not to be 1 raped 2 robbed and 3 killed.
what sensible states have done is they've encoded 1. no rape 2. no theft and 3. no killing into the law, punishing severely anyone who does the above.
so now, people have what they want, without having rights.
what happens in democracy, where people have "rights." is that "rights" become the legal code, and "rights" end up taking precedence over the safety of the streets or the integrity of property.
thus, it's a terrorists "right" to privacy. but of course, the "right" to safety of not being suicide bombed is forgotten. they'll say you DO have the right not to get bombed, but it's clearly not being enforced by the police.
rights don't work. democracy doesn't work. encode laws against theft rape and murder. there, you're done. people have what they want. wash your hands of it.
>>725333
Maybe is the hour but I am not sure I understand the whole picture you are depicting.
>>725259
Didn't say it was a democracy, but it was among the systems of governance in place in Europe at that time, it was closest to our owns. Lords were disproportionately represented, but the Commons had their say. Both kept the crown in check.
Markets could only be as free as technology allowed; it's not a one-way street. A global market wouldn't be possible before Age of Sail technology. And trade was never easier than before the Information Age. And, of course, existence of goods doesn't directly translate into availability of goods for the general population.
Democratic states have accomplished the highest living standards for their peoples.
>>725333
>thus, it's a terrorists "right" to privacy. but of course, the "right" to safety of not being suicide bombed is forgotten. they'll say you DO have the right not to get bombed, but it's clearly not being enforced by the police.
That isn't a right, though. It's the duty of the state to protect its citizens but it doesn't mean they have a right to have armed guards supplied by the state. I'm not sure you understand the concepts involved adequately.
>>725373
define high living standards. do you mean consumable goods? democracies dominate in this. well, sometimes. go ahead and ask the democracy in greece how well it's working out
or are living standards more closely related to the ability to have a family, a home, and access to important medical care? dictatorships such as singapore, south korea, or japan seem to provide these adequately. they also provide safer streets, less rape, and less theft.
democracies among the 1st world are UNIVERSALLY more dangerous. they also have worse healthcare outcomes. housing is also expensive to the point of absurdity, where most people can't afford to move out.
>>725379
asking for a main street where an individual won't be robbed, raped, or murdered, or any combination of the three, isn't asking for state supplied armed guards.
the 1st duty of a governmetn is to protect the safety of the citizens. making "rights" the supreme law of the land, the utmost priority, then trying to define safety in terms of "rights" then realizing that such a right cannot exist, therefore determining that "rights" are more important than physical safety in terms of the heirarchy of the law, is RETARDED.
america makes rights the highest order of government law. safety can't be delinieated in terms of rights. therefore, legally, the safety of the american people isn't the highest law of the land.
so what do americans do? instead of concluding that "rights" are a poor basis of legal apportionment, they instead conclude that the "right" to privacy takes precedence over public safety.
the western legal system is fucking stupid. because "rights" are an ideological construct, bearing no resemblance to reality. legality is based on ideology, not fact.
>>725416
>dictatorships such as singapore, south korea, or japan seem to provide these adequately
What the fuck are you smoking?
>>725433
He's wrong about Japan, which basically has a two party system like the US, but he's right that Singapore and South Korea are dictatorships in everything but name.
>>725014
>Athenian democracy was extremely imperialistic, genocidal and capricious.
>This is mostly due to that most of the attendants in the ecclesia were poor men that looked to war as way to earn some much needed cash, loot and perhaps even land.
You're right, Athens would have been so much more peaceful and progressive if women were in charge of decision making :^)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assemblywomen
>>725463
They are both constitutional democracies. With Singapore being extremely repressive, but still.
Are you thinking of North Korea, or aren't you up to date on the sixth government of SK? Lot's of countries went through military coups. Doesn't mean they can never be democracies. Like mine.
>>725463
the 自由民主党, the ldp, has ruled japan for 61 of the past 65 years. winning almost every single national election and almost every district in the country every since ww2. in the early years of the LDP key leadership was composed of the exact same leading officers who conducted the japanese invasion of manchuria and korea, including an officer who lead human experiments on living chinese victims.
go ahead and tell me japan isn't "a dictatorship"
btw the country is very nice in the spring. the cherry trees will bloom soon. very safe, prosperous, country.
also, a dictatorship. that's not a bad thing.
>>725463
South Korea and Singapore are both parliamentary democracies/republics. A strong elected nationalist party that is made up of many individuals, none of whom holding absolute power, does not make it a "dictatorship". Stop filling your head with Communist propaganda.
>>725487
it's an imprisonable offense in korea and singapore to insult the lee families :D <3<3<3<#8=====D
>>725463
It's a "one and a half party system" which is a nice way of saying a democracy that doesn't work.
>>725487
South Korea and Singapore are both reactionary states, making them by definition dictatorships. Take the ideology out of your ears porky.
>>725512
It is illegal to deny the holocaust in Germany. What is your point?
>>725516
>South Korea and Singapore are both reactionary states, making them by definition dictatorships.
It's time to stop posting.
>>725519
Germany isn't a democracy either. What's your point?
>>725519
the holocaust doesn't sit in the seat of power of germany, exercising legislative, judicial, and executive authority.
although it's pretty close at this point. germany is quickly turning from a democracy into a communist state.
singapore, sk, and japan are dictatorships. it's a good thing, though. something isn't a "democracy" just because you like it. reality doesn't warp around atoms and the laws of physics to suit your worldview.
Wow, this is the most retarded thread on /his/ currently.
People with no knowledge of athenian democracy and its constitution discussing faux-rights based on some warped view of what modern representative democracy is.
>>725530
>muh true scotsman
>>725528
>Germany isn't a democracy either.
What is a democracy?
Are you going to keep pulling "no true scotsman" arguments until the only "true" democracy is Greece?
>>725530
If that's how you feel then please elevate the level of discussion here by responding to the OP with your own insight into the original topic.
>>725537
A democracy respects the demands and desires of the majority of its citizens. That clearly isn't the case right now.
>>725529
>the holocaust doesn't sit in the seat of power of germany, exercising legislative, judicial, and executive authority.
And neither do the Lee or Park family's.
>singapore, sk, and japan are dictatorships
No. The are not. They are parliamentary democracies. A single individiual does not have total control of the country. The populace vote for parties, who make decisions in order to represent their constiuents. They are not dictatorships.
Are you confusing a dictatorship with an authoritarian state?
>>725529
>communist state
>communist
>state
Now that I got that out of my system:
Who are you to accuse me of being biased for democracy? You stretch the definition of dictatorship to such an extent that it fits the governments you admire, while rejecting conventional notions of democracy.
>>725553
>>725569
russia and iraq have elections. they have parliaments. are they democracies?
russia is a cartel with geographic borders and iraq is just a hotbed of clan warfare.
the presence of institutions, in the absence of the primacy of those institutions, means that the institutions are not the defining feature of the state.
I am not, and have never been arguing, that parliaments don't exist in east asia. what I am telling you is that they DONT MATTER.
>>725548
That's the ideal.
Practice=/=theory.
Democracies have a lot of mechanism that prevent full-on mob rule. Most democratic states have constitutions.
And what are you talking in particular? Maybe you mean they don't do enough referendums?
>>725596
Someone mentioned Germany in the context that it is a democracy. The majority of German citizens/taxpayers now oppose further importation of refugees and Merkel and nearly every other elected official is not respecting their opposition and is instead doubling down on refugee importation. That is not democracy in any sense of the word.
>>725612
No, that is representative democracy and parliamentarism which is what Germany is.
>>725628
>No, that is representative democracy
Who is being represented in the situation described above?
Ostracism.
>>725594
Good point.
>>725594
You were arguing that they were dictatorships.
Considering that both Japanese and South Korean parties/leaders are subjected to much the same constraints as their western counterparts, what base do you have to say they don't matter, beside noting that political dynasties exist?
Tell me that the USA is a dictatorship and I'll concede that you are consistent.
>>724996
>and a writer known as the Old Oligarch."
Who is this?
Voting in early democracies (Athenian, Roman, Icelandic) was often a proxy for combat. You've got supporters and so have I, we gather and count them and take the result instead of fighting.
>>725045
The clickbait left is torn over Sanders. On the one hand, he basically supports everything they ask for, and on the other, he's a candidate for president, making him mainstream enough that Radicals (TM) must assert insurmountable differences or lose credibility.
>>725136
>the majority of all human endowment comes from a history of dictatorships. democracy gave us almost nothing. democracy in its current form, with universal suffrage and 1 man 1 vote, has only been around for 50 years.
>that means that the only thing universal suffrage got us was computer technology.
Laughable. Just since the Berlin Wall came down, extreme poverty and child mortality are both down by half. Not to mention that for centuries leading up to universal suffrage, democracies, such as they were, were already leading scientific and cultural advance. Lacking universal suffrage does not make them dictatorships.
>>725638
The people. While they may disagree with their representatives, the idea is that representatives represent not just the will of the people but also act in their best interests. Representatives have an obligation to protect the morality and value of the nation even if it violates the people's will.
>>725810
We don't know. He wrote a meandering, bitchy analysis of the Athenian government, the gist of which is that the Athenians have a great government if their goal is to get nothing done, argue all the time, and dispossess the wealthy. Some people think it was Xenophon, but the general consensus is that Xenophon was a better writer than the Old Oligarch.
>>725683
weber outlined two main functions and generally mutually exclusive models of bureaucracy
a bureaucracy can be created to enable an executive to indirectly administer his rule
a bureaucracy can be created in order to constrain the options of an executive
the legal wording might be exactly the same for the above two situations. what matters is who is using the rules to constrain who. and what typically happens in any bureaucracy is that someone GAINS power, and upon GAINING power, renders any ACTUAL rules NULLIFIED against themselves.
looking at the US situation, it's quite clear that the rules govern the actors. no one in congress can actually overcome the rules to pass legislation. what rules that do exist, weaken congress, very few empower them beyond what they are enumerated to do. and the rules that are created, can be ignored by who the rules were created to "oppress." if anything bad happens to blacks, there is a supreme court case, and new diversity legislation. a good example is blacks ignoring all sorts of crime laws and not getting punished
in the case of south korea and japan it is different. when legislators pass law, it enables them to destroy old minor bureaucracies or create new ones. very few laws regulate executive action, and what does exist is effectively ignored. meanwhile, minor statutes concerning normal people can effectively throw a normal person in prison forever.
look at the situation one more time. two groups of legislators. in the US the legislators write laws that disempower cops, another branch of the law.
in japan and korea, legislators write laws that disempower the common person, and legislators ignore laws.
look at riots, for example. in america, rioters can burn down entire city blocks, smash windows, threaten police with guns, and no arrests will be made.
in japan and korea, rioters are often shot to death.
not same. is iraq a democracy because imaginary checks and balances exist? dont' be an idiot
>>724965
Thucydides, Aristotle and probably some more partricians
>>725259
Worst korean during its industrialization in the 80 and 90s were pretty much under a command economy.
>>727354
command economy is a stretch. they had very strict fiscal policies, and the state set favorable monetary policy for a select few industries including infrastructure development, and taking over certain manufacturing sectors from japan.
capital was still generally in the hands of private entities. capital controls were also in effect, but that doesn't necessarily make it not capitalist.
either way, it would have been impossible under democracy. which is the entire point of this topic. civil society and free markets create science and prosperity. democracy flushes it all down the drain and takes credit for it when national budgets are in ashes, unemployment is through the roof, etc.
>>725416
>democracies among the 1st world are UNIVERSALLY more dangerous. they also have worse healthcare outcomes. housing is also expensive to the point of absurdity, where most people can't afford to move out.
Maybe if by "democracies" you mean exclusively the US. And US is a republic, not a democracy.
>>727400
"democracy" has had a pretty broad meaning for the last couple of centuries, the US is most certainly a democracy in the form of a representative republic.
>>727383
alright fine, I'll accept that it was a stretch but the industry was "guided" much like the big winners of south east asia.
POST some 3rd world democratic country who are power houses nowadays without the influence of dictatorships.
post democratic nations who are booming power houses in modern times.
+++ points if country is on continental africa.
>>727414
If it were a democracy, whoever wins the popular vote would win the election and there would be diverse political field instead of two parties who fully agree on 90% of the issues and pretend-disagree on most of the rest.
>>727418
well that pretty much proves our point doesn't it.
there is NO booming developing democratic country. because democracy doesn't create prosperity. otherwise the birth of all these new democracies would have led to a new economic boom. instead we have a crash.
the dev. countries with newfound prosperity are now, and for the last 40 years, have all been dictatorships.
>>727424
>muh scotsman
being a democracy means that there is a voting system by law, and that the voting system matters, and leads to the representation of policies which people care about
iraq has #1 but not the others. thus, not democracy.
korea has #1 and #3 (voting and representation) but not #2. the voting system literally does not matter, and is routinely ignored. not a democracy.
america has all three. people GET what they want from voting. they GOT legal weed. they GOT obamacare. they GOT fag marriage. they GOT more immigration. they GOT more welfare.
they GET what they WANT. but you think democracy magically makes everything great. well guess what, both parties agree on 90% of the issues because most people ASK for hte same things and VOTE based off the same things. and that's specifically WHY america is so fucked up. you wanna drink a 100 ounce soda, and become obese, and then have taxpayers pay for your medical costs and heart surgery, and you wanna sue the hospital afterwards? you CAN. YOU VOTED FOR IT AND NOW YOU CAN DO THAT. CONGRATS. YOU WANTED DEMOCRACY, YOU GOT DEMOCRACY. AND IT FUCKED EVERYTHING UP.
>>725516
>by definition dictatorships
that don't mean what you think it do
>>725016
That many blonds
>>724965
>Why does the democratic form of government in Athens get such a bad rap?
Because it's an extremely primitive, unsustainable type of democracy. They were among the first societies in history that were built upon consensus instead of raw despotism, and as a result there was still much about managing these types of societies that simply wasn't known. There weren't any real checks and balances against the accumulation of raw power, and after a brief flowering of democratic city-states they one by one fell into tyranny as their was nothing preventing all of the wealth and political power in these societies from flowing upwards into the hands of fewer and fewer individuals until eventually a single individual, the tyrant, consolidated power and ruled as an un-elected monarch.
Even Romans, the culture directly descended from classical Greek and who specifically structured their society to prevent a tyrant from consuming their democracy, couldn't stop it in the end
For this brief democratic period, government in Athens was a bloated, dysfunctional mess. Comedians held more power than politicians. Demagogues and populists worked the mob into frenzies. Their attempt to impose democratic principles on warfare resulted in a schizophrenic military which simply couldn't stand against the better organized Spartans
The whole principle of democracy is that it works best when there is a strong landed gentry (what you and I would call the "middle class") where class stratification hasn't set in place and consensus can be quickly and decisively reached (as everyone pursues the same economic interests). However no society in history was able to prevent their landed gentries from dissolving into a winner-take-all system of aristocrats and commoners, especially societies that tolerated slavery, which in classical antiquity was ALL of them, even Athens. Slavery made it so that the well-connected had an innate economic advantage over the honest land-owner. That was the poison.
Athens was shit, its government was shit, the whole setup is shit. There's a reason that modern Greece has Athens as its capital.
>>725235
>republic lasts from 509 BC to 27 BC, 482 years
>empire lasts from 27 BC to AD 640, 667 years
>482*3>=667
Gee you're bad at math. But I agree with you that the Republic is better.
As a staunch anti-authoritarian, I have to admit dictatorships have the potential to be great. But they also come with the potential to be unimaginably shitty in a way that few other systems can rival. I'll take the mediocrity and status quo of democracy over the gamble of getting a paranoid nutjob.
Yes you can point to a handful of places that prospered as dictatorships through difficult times, but you can point to a lot more failed regimes that were defined by famine and utter ruination.
