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Democracy and the Expert - The Atlantic

theatlantic.com · 6,783 words · saved by 1 readers

EPITAPHS for democracy are the fashion of the day. Both Left and Right acclaim the failure of democracy. Those who chafe at governmental intervention are as distrustful of popular institutions as are the romantics who expect from government heaven upon earth. Dictatorships are dramatic and coups d’état feed the imagination, while democratic régimes have about them the humdrum qualities of John Bull, who, first in the modern world, devised talk as the chief instrument of government. Sensational and violent rule in Russia and Italy throws out of perspective more plodding popular institutions. But it is simply not true that the area of democratic government has contracted. Barring Italy, no country has abandoned democratic institutions, whereas democratic government has extensively replaced oligarchy, and the democratic idea is steadily corroding ancient autocratic traditions. The replacement of Romanoffs by Bolsheviks was certainly not a democratic loss. Nor did the short-lived Spanish d

I EPITAPHS for democracy are the fashion of the day. Both Left and Right acclaim the failure of democracy. Those who chafe at governmental intervention are as distrustful of popular institutions as are the romantics who expect from government heaven upon earth. Dictatorships are dramatic and coups d’état feed the imagination, while democratic régimes have about them the humdrum qualities of John Bull, who, first in the modern world, devised talk as the chief instrument of government. Sensational and violent rule in Russia and Italy throws out of perspective more plodding popular institutions.

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