Democracy: A Historical Perspective on Power and Deception

The concept of democracy, originating in ancient Greece, saw little practical application for nearly two millennia. During this era, rulers openly claimed divine right, a notion reflected in mottos like the British royal emblem's "Dieu et mon droit" (God and my right).

This period of sacred legitimacy ended with the execution of France's Louis XVI. His diary entry on the eve of his execution noted that his death would effectively banish God from everyday politics, marking the beginning of God's "forced retirement" and humanity's turn towards "hedonistic paganism."

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my execution will finally banish God from the world of everyday politics

Following this, power ostensibly returned to the people, but in a more brutal and deceptive form than in Athenian times. The Jacobin terror, for instance, was a spectacle designed to create the false impression that the populace held total power, cynically summarized as "vox populi, vox Dei" (the voice of the people is the voice of God).

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Lamberg's heart a knife, Latour's neck a rope / And perhaps more will follow, / You're finally becoming powerful, people!

The author contends that this manipulative tactic, successfully employed by "non-existent" global rulers, was later replicated with even greater bloodshed by the Bolsheviks in Eastern Europe. The article suggests that while modern Western political systems are formally built on democracy, the essence remains unchanged: actual power rests with oligarchic ruling groups, not the people.

However, the author acknowledges the value of the institutional guarantees that modern democracy provides. These safeguards help prevent distribution conflicts among oligarchic groups from erupting into permanent civil war, a system commonly referred to as the "rule of law."

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we must defend the power of the working class against everyone, even against the working class itself