This feels like a good example of the exact point being made by the essay.
The rise to power of populist politicians and the historic presence of violent revolutions could be a strong counterpoint to your assertion. Yes, sometimes it feels like democracies are the underdog when stacked up against powerful lobbyists, but ultimately there’s a big power imbalance here that the elites are absolutely correct to fear: lobbyists are absolutely dependent on democratic institutions to leverage their wealth into political power, while 50,000 angry people with pitchforks are not. When the mob, or a mob empowered leader, decides to bypass democratic institutions in the exercise of power, this asymmetry matters.
Whether or not the revolting populace actual get what they want out of rebelling (historically this would be unexpected) it’s a difficult case to make that they don’t have some significant advantages in the games elites actually care about.
I would disagree fairly strongly: “lobbyists are absolutely dependent on democratic institutions to leverage their wealth into political power, while 50,000 angry people with pitchforks are not”
They are, I think. If they are angry that democracy is ignoring them then their pitchforks will likely not manage to enact some complicated change to legislation needed to fix the problem, as you point out. If we care about power to actually make a change about the things people want to happen, this is vested almost entirely within the hands of the elite and not within pitchforks. Pitchforks could maybe scare elites into doing it, but more likely it just generates chaos. Because pitchforks are not the tool for the job. The tools for the job are held by the elites and they refuse to use them accordingly.
I’m living through this day by day here in Britain. People protest all over the country every day and the government, despite knowing which positions have majority support, just do the opposite continuously and use every mechanism available to delay or obfuscate meaningful change.
This feels like a good example of the exact point being made by the essay.
The rise to power of populist politicians and the historic presence of violent revolutions could be a strong counterpoint to your assertion. Yes, sometimes it feels like democracies are the underdog when stacked up against powerful lobbyists, but ultimately there’s a big power imbalance here that the elites are absolutely correct to fear: lobbyists are absolutely dependent on democratic institutions to leverage their wealth into political power, while 50,000 angry people with pitchforks are not. When the mob, or a mob empowered leader, decides to bypass democratic institutions in the exercise of power, this asymmetry matters.
Whether or not the revolting populace actual get what they want out of rebelling (historically this would be unexpected) it’s a difficult case to make that they don’t have some significant advantages in the games elites actually care about.
I would disagree fairly strongly: “lobbyists are absolutely dependent on democratic institutions to leverage their wealth into political power, while 50,000 angry people with pitchforks are not”
They are, I think. If they are angry that democracy is ignoring them then their pitchforks will likely not manage to enact some complicated change to legislation needed to fix the problem, as you point out. If we care about power to actually make a change about the things people want to happen, this is vested almost entirely within the hands of the elite and not within pitchforks. Pitchforks could maybe scare elites into doing it, but more likely it just generates chaos. Because pitchforks are not the tool for the job. The tools for the job are held by the elites and they refuse to use them accordingly.
I’m living through this day by day here in Britain. People protest all over the country every day and the government, despite knowing which positions have majority support, just do the opposite continuously and use every mechanism available to delay or obfuscate meaningful change.