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Full Idea
Democracy is the least bad form of all governments precisely because it attempts to find a healthy balance between legitimacy and efficiency.
Gist of Idea
Democracy is the best compromise between legitimacy and efficiency
Source
David van Reybrouck (Against Elections [2013], 1 'Crisis')
Book Ref
Reybrouck,David van: 'Against Elections', ed/tr. Waters,Liz [Bodley Head 2016], p.6
A Reaction
There seems to be a widespread feeling that democracy is declining in efficiency, and that may be because our remoteness from government decreases legitimacy, so we have less commitment to getting things done.
| 20086 | Nowadays sovereignty (once the basis of a state) has become relative [Reybrouck] |
| 20085 | Democracy is the best compromise between legitimacy and efficiency [Reybrouck] |
| 20089 | Technocrats may be efficient, but they lose legitimacy as soon as they do unpopular things [Reybrouck] |
| 20090 | Today it seems almost impossible to learn the will of the people [Reybrouck] |
| 20087 | There are no united monolothic 'peoples', and no 'national gut feelings' [Reybrouck] |
| 20088 | Technocrats are expert managers, who replace politicians, and can be long-term and unpopular [Reybrouck] |
| 20093 | In the 18th century democratic lots lost out to elections, that gave us a non-hereditary aristocracy [Reybrouck] |
| 20091 | Representative elections were developed in order to avoid democracy [Reybrouck] |
| 20094 | You don't really govern people if you don't involve them [Reybrouck] |
| 20095 | A referendum result arises largely from ignorance [Reybrouck] |