On 2004-07-26, Simon Kitching <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Mon, 2004-07-26 at 20:01, John Summerfield wrote:
>> fruitless task, but I do recall that democracies don't provide efficient >> governance. > > They do in the long term. Name a system of government that has been more > efficient than democracy over a 100 year period. The most significant Well, the Maya and their neighbours did a pretty good 1500-year job. Also ancient Europe. The African empires lasted quite a long time, as did ancient China. Liberal Democracy is too young to judge yet. Also, as you note yourself, there is no direct democracy anywhere in the world, so we don't really know. Aristotle warned specifically about democracy, because it (according to him) inevitably leads to anarchy, from which the polis can only be saved by a tyrant, which is not very good either. :) -- Juha Siltala http://www.edu.helsinki.fi/activity/people/jsiltala/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
