Democracy: The Historical Accident

OpEdNews - Article: Democracy: The Historical Accident


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The forum polity – democracies and republics – owes its origin to two major accidents in human history: accidents that were unique to the western world, and which, indeed, created western civilisation in contrast to the others, which were all palace polities.


Excerpt:


"An aspiring European king generally had to contend against three powers for supremacy: the Church, his fellow barbarians - the nobility/aristocracy – and, in more settled times, the merchants.

"Of these, the first was obviously unique to Europe alone – no other civilization had inherited an organized Episcopal, hierarchical Church from a dead empire. This was the beginning of 'civil society' – beyond the state, apart from business, away from politics, an entity autonomous."