politics

Thai middle class revolts against democracy

“The people’s alliance for democracy” is in fact the Thai middle class alliance against democracy, as Cown observes.  Democracy in Thailand has produced bad results nowhere near as bad as Venezuela, but bad enough.  Indeed, world wide we are seeing democratic elections produce governments that are increasingly corrupt, increasingly tyrannical, increasingly bureaucratic, increasingly destructive, and increasingly anticapitalist.

Yet the middle class has no ideology to justify its demands – the name of the movement furtively and shamefacedly denies what it is doing, and their proposed solution (military appointees) is not really going to work.  The military are bureaucrats with guns.  A middle class revolt that professes itself faithful to democracy is like all those peasant revolts that professed themselves faithful to the king.   Doomed.

For two thousand years, it has been claimed that democracy inherently self destructs, that democracy destroys the conditions that make democracy possible.  The fact that democracy worked pretty well during the twentieth century would seem contrary evidence – but a century is not a long time for such a test.

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