Fewer Japanese believe their society is rooted in democracy compared with 10 years ago, a survey by The Asahi Shimbun shows.
Has actual democracy ever been implemented anywhere, seems to me, every democratic country is run by a group of rich people, with a nominally elected puppet politicians, to make the ordinary citizens think they have a say in things
Athens had sortition, which was interesting. Everyone participated in the government via a lottery and the average person’s issues would be likely (statistically speaking) to be focused on and addressed.
We still use it today to select jurors. But it was originally for everything. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition
It’s been tried a few other times much later in history, but they always limited who could be chosen in the lottery (generally, only rich people). The original system which worked well selected among everyone.
That sounds like a fun time. In modern day though I’d hope the selected representatives would have professional aides, especially where I am given your average American is practically illiterate. (It’d probably work better in Japan, lol.)
Ya, they absolutely could/should. A good example today is how a judge is present in a trial to explain the process, law, what’s required for jurors. You could have a similar advisory body which provides recommendations based on their expertise.
There are definitely countries who have done a better job, but remember that the right-wing is always authoritarian and is constantly trying to throw a wrench in democracy. Some countries are able to patch those holes fast, but when the country is very large, in the case of the USA, there are tiny holes popping up all over the place. Eventually it starts to sink and we can’t even tell how.
I’d love to see the numbers for western nations.
