Democracy is a myth just ask the Greeks

Democracy only exists as a political form as it has been the most successful way of organizing a country to deliver economic growth and along with economic growth comes power to determine to a greater extent your own destiny. There is no divine right given to us by our creator that democracy is the way we organize; it exists as it has been successful.

So now as we look at Greece we can see the extreme ridiculousness of the democratic myth. The politicians bribe the population to vote for them, they give them more than they should, heh presto the country is bankrupt. They then turn to a body which is not directly elected, is external to the country who tell them what they should do. Greek democracy matters not one jot to their future, as it is now being determined by foreign countries, politicians and bankers.

So democracy rests and falls on a sense of community and our ability to sacrifice for our country and to recognize that we are part of greater whole from which we should not only take.

Religion was invented to provide this sense of community, homogeneous countries are more able to demand a sacrifice you may not like it but it is the case. So what of the UK diverse, where across society we broadly have people that take, take, take. We may give periodically but we outsource from ourselves what really needs to happen. Let's look at the list of takers:

- Politicians who took for years more than they should have through expenses.
- Over paid individuals at the BBC with excessive salaries and pensions.
- A huge percentage of state workers outside London are overpaid, The pensions of all nationwide are typically excessive.
- The rich evade taxes wherever possible and live overseas.
- Doctors have repeatedly taken from the system are now overpaid and inflexible.
- Way more people than should be are claiming disability benefit.
- People have children just to get additional benefits.
- People not willing to work and perfectly happy taking as much benefit as they can.
- City Bankers are overpaid and short term. They wreck the fortunes of many companies by thinking always of their bonuses.
- Senior managers of many companies earn a disproportionate amount beyond what most are worth.

There are many decent individuals in each of these categories but there is a long list of takers, who vote from self interest. So as Bertrand Russel so beautifully puts in a few sentences:

'Every community is exposed to two opposite dangers, ossification through too much discipline and reverence to tradition......[or] dissolution, subjection to foreign conquest, through the growth of an individualism and independence that makes cooperation impossible' Liberalism he said is trying to find a happy medium between the two. We are now witnessing its failure. The list of selfish individuals spans socioeconomic, religious and regional groups. We are more unified by our selfishness than perhaps anything else. The naive Utopian vision of extreme capitalism that selfishness is good and helps drive society ignores the fundamental problem, this leads to a destructive short term democracy based on bribery and people on the streets as in Greece. Comic relief may help and is worthy, but it doesn't stop Jonathan Ross being overpaid or BBC executives to give back some of their excessive pensions. Not to say they aren't talented they are but they are on the list of takers.

Democracy will only survive by engendering a great sense of community and sacrifice for the greater good. Intrinsically we have this in an underdeveloped form given our ape man past, but not for the millions with whom we share a city, country and the earth. The ape man struggles to look at the greater good, the ape man is a selfish creature and that could destroy democracy and huge swathes of habitable land. It has in Greece where the people have lost their ability to choose, soon we may lose it across the planet as she revolts from our abuse.