Is liberal democracy the Santa Claus of modernity?

[ionelv]

While reading the conversation between Ernu and Racu about Stăniloae, legionarism and BOR, it dawned on me that liberal democracy more often than not overlaps almost too perfectly with Santa Claus: a nice soothing grandpa that makes it all better by doling out free gifts at periodic intervals …

…except of course that he is not our grandpa, he exists only in our collective imagination, the gifts are not free as we always pay for them one way or another and with interest, and the joy brought by these gifts only lasts a few days as the bill eventually comes for these gifts and the monotony and dreariness of our normal existence resume until the next gifting event. There is also some Sisyphean angle to Santa Claus and liberal democracy, but that is a discussion for another time.

Comments

[ionelv]

Yeah, that’s exactly it: the theory part is always beautiful and clean. The reality, even from the beginning, is that liberal democracy was oversold (e.g. the curtailing of voting rights of whole swaths of society) and even today, liberal democracy has a big credibility gap between what it promises and what it delivers. You and many will say: but liberal democracy is the best choice we have.

My question is: is it really the best choice, or have we lulled ourselves into fatalism and/or overly optimistic forecasts when 30-40% of West’s citizenry does not even bother to vote or when our political class and our system of laws and courts are overwhelmingly captured by neoliberals and billionaire interests? Is this really the best, because if it is, we are doomed.

[ioplokon]

I was more talking about the myth of Santa (jolly old man) and the reality of Santa (the parents do it). There is a gap between the myth and the reality but there is a real thing getting done because people are committed to doing it. So, same with democracy, you can have a system but it's not magic or self-perpetuating & requires a lot of work. I do think we're basically describing the same problem from different sides.

And yeah, the pork barrel and corruption is what I mean by the feudal system (patronage &c) reasserting itself.

Fwiw, I'm not even a particularly committed liberal (I think the liberals see their remit as governing the society that exists, with gentle nudging & this is failing), but I can't get in on any of the authoritarian alternatives & also do quite like having state capacity to do things. :/