I think the fallacy here is presuming that representative democratic politics could be anything other than in-group/out-group rivalry. If the choice of candidate is actually supposed to represent the will of the people then a unbiased sample of the population would have to be used to decide which candidate gains power. Obviously the electoral system is not an unbiased sample; the whole idea is for a self-selected group to vote after years of attempts by all parties to bias them. The results of elections are therefore meaningless.
So what is the point of holding elections? People have come up with all sorts of reasons—allowing the people to remove a leader without revolution, etc—but it’s difficult to see how you could establish them given that elections straightforwardly fail to represent the will of the people. Looking at other governments in the world and in history, what decides whether a country is successful or not and provides a good standard of living or not, does not seem to be electoral democracy but other practices such as rule of law, constitutional governance, rules of succession and economic freedom.
I have my doubts that holding elections gives you anything but a way to keep the population distracted and entertained, like football games.
I think the fallacy here is presuming that representative democratic politics could be anything other than in-group/out-group rivalry. If the choice of candidate is actually supposed to represent the will of the people then a unbiased sample of the population would have to be used to decide which candidate gains power. Obviously the electoral system is not an unbiased sample; the whole idea is for a self-selected group to vote after years of attempts by all parties to bias them. The results of elections are therefore meaningless.
So what is the point of holding elections? People have come up with all sorts of reasons—allowing the people to remove a leader without revolution, etc—but it’s difficult to see how you could establish them given that elections straightforwardly fail to represent the will of the people. Looking at other governments in the world and in history, what decides whether a country is successful or not and provides a good standard of living or not, does not seem to be electoral democracy but other practices such as rule of law, constitutional governance, rules of succession and economic freedom.
I have my doubts that holding elections gives you anything but a way to keep the population distracted and entertained, like football games.