Democracy is collapsing — how do we save it?
History is repeating itself, but it is not too late
We are currently witnessing the deliberate unravelling of American representative democracy and rule of law, along with rising autocracy globally.
For those of us who firmly believe that democratic accountability is the only real safeguard against tyranny, it’s a disconcerting time to be alive.
Here in the UK, over the last decade we have increasingly seen the normalisation of political interference in our own institutions that safeguard democracy, from the Supreme Court to the election process itself. Trust in politics is near record lows.
But what we’re seeing is not new. It has happened before, in ages and civilisations both like and unlike our own.
I believe that the values upon which our democratic societies are built are worth preserving — rule of law, preventing tyranny and abuse of power, freedom of expression and information, free and fair elections, accountability, protection of rights, and the government ruling with the consent of the people. And if we wish to preserve these historically extraordinary privileges, we must confront an uncomfortable truth:
Democracy is an unstable equilibrium.
It’s not immediately obvious that this is the case, because human political structures are, to put it mildly, complex. The average democracy involves the collective decision making of millions of human minds.1
In the classic example of an unstable equilibrium, when you try to balance a sharpened pencil on its tip, as every schoolchild knows, you will find that there is an infinitesimally small range of initial positions where the pencil can stand upright without tipping over.
In contrast, more complex systems like human societies and ecological food webs are often in dynamic equilibrium — there are multiple counterbalancing feedback loops which serve to stabilise the system.2 Such systems are often remarkably stable over time;3 many dinosaur species managed to live in dynamic equilibria for tens of millions of years.
Human political structures also exist in dynamic equilibria but, unlike food webs, they are not inherently stable. Instead, they, are cyclically unstable.
It can be difficult to see this because each of us is limited to only a single lifespan of experiential data. For those of us lucky enough to have been born after the Second World War, we have been living in a golden age of prosperity and peace guaranteed and enforced by the dominant military and economic might of the USA — the Pax Americana.
This, like generations before, has lulled us into a false sense of security.
If we instead broaden our perspective to consider the evolution of human civilisations over the entire course of human history, we can see the cyclical trends, and identify patterns contained within them.
Historical macrocycles
This is not a new idea. The ancient Greeks first described kyklos — the cycle of governments within a society.
Polybius developed a model called anacyclosis, built upon work by Plato and others, to explain why civilisations underwent cycles of growth and decline — Golden Ages and Dark Ages. In anacyclosis, each form of government eventually decays into corruption and is then overthrown.
For example, monarchies descend into tyranny when a monarch’s descendants care less about good governance than they do about power; aristocracies descend into oligarchies for the same reason; and when democracies become corrupt, popular resentment can be exploited by demagogues who wish to establish themselves as new monarchs or dictators (sound familiar?).
In each case, this triggers a transition to a new form of government.
This ancient observation-based philosophy has been revisited by thinkers through the ages, including Cicero, Machiavelli and Ibn Khaldun. In the modern era, we have access to even larger data sets, leading to new models drawing similar conclusions from two from arguably opposite ends of the spectrum: Ray Dalio and Peter Turchin.
Ray Dalio, billionaire hedge fund manager, offers a view on civilisational cycles based on his own view from the top of the economy as an investor, along with a review of the last 500 years of history, focusing on macroeconomic cycles within competing civilisations.
A simplified overview of Dalio’s model: when a civilisation focuses on education, it leads to innovation, which leads to increased competitiveness, which leads to greatly increased wealth and power for the civilisation. This is what leads to Golden Ages. And, inevitably, this increased wealth is distributed unequally, as those with the most capital to invest before the economic boom yield vastly greater returns.
On the other side, when an empire can no longer borrow the money necessary to repay its debts, it enters a debt crisis, instead printing money to cover repayments. This devalues the currency and leads to inflation, leading to declining living standards and political unrest. This political unrest — a combination of heightened inequality and declining living standards — is what leads to Dark Ages. This should also sound familiar.
A more comprehensive model is offered by Peter Turchin, complexity scientist and key developer of the field of cliodynamics (mathematical modelling and statistical analysis of the dynamics of historical civilisations). He and his colleagues have built a database, Seshat, which captures myriad data points for historical civilisations for the last 6000 years and explores hypotheses that are backed by explicit data. And this allows the Seshat team to identify clear macro level trends.
The core insight of Turchin’s model — precipitated by the vast data processed by Seshat and described in his book End Times — is what he terms the “wealth pump”. In line with Thomas Piketty’s economic analysis from Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Turchin identifies that, without counterbalancing policies, income derived from ownership of assets will always outpace inflation, whereas wages will not.
When such a wealth pump is operating, rising inequality leads to increasing political power, wealth, and status for those at the top of society — the elite — and worsened conditions for everyone else.
This increased power for the elite is self-reinforcing, as economic power is used to capture political power, with the side-effect of dramatically increasing competition for places at the top of society, leading to what Turchin terms “elite overproduction”. As the middle class is hollowed out, people either fall into hardship or make it into the increasingly oversubscribed upper rungs.
Again, if that sounds like what’s happening now, that’s not a coincidence — but the model stems not from contemporary politics, but from six thousand of years of historical data.
The times may have changed, but human nature has not.
In all these models, from Polybius to Peter Turchin, the driving force behind the decline stage in every cycle is greed.
Resources increase within a society gradually over time but are limited in the present moment. And power is, by definition, always finite. This means that short-term competition for wealth and power is always more effective at increasing one’s personal fortunes than investing in long-term societal growth.
Launching a new cryptocurrency with a clever marketing push and cashing out during a hype cycle can generate millions in a matter of weeks, earning more than the entire lifetime salary of a frontline NHS nurse — without creating any real value.
And it’s easier to extract wealth from those who lack power in your society than it is to plan for and invest in the long-term growth of your economy, especially when companies are focused on short-term annual reports and growth figures and democratically elected politicians are more concerned with their short-term electoral fortunes.
But if that’s always the case, why not just let the cycle continue?
The case for democracy
What has democracy ever done for us? Why not just let the oligarchs run our countries like they run their businesses?
The core principle of democracy — whether you live in a liberal democracy like the UK, a social democracy like Denmark, or even a conservative democracy like Poland — is that every individual has the right to have some say in the shared society we all inhabit. Everyone deserves a say in the outcome of their own life.
Only in a democracy must the ruling elite consider the needs of those who lack wealth, status, or power, because, when every vote matters, politicians must consider improving the lives of every member of their society. Side note: this is not typically how businesses are run.
This is why democracy has played a fundamental role in the flourishing of freedom of expression, freedom of association, education, opportunity, innovation, technological advancement, and equality before the law.
We might have disagreements on the broad direction our nations should be taking, but, on the whole, we all want to enjoy the right to a safe, happy and healthy life for ourselves and our loved ones. It shouldn’t be a lot to ask in a modern democracy, but it certainly wasn’t an option for most people throughout human history (and for millions alive today).
In contrast, having a government that is not accountable to the people makes abuse of human rights an inevitable step to securing power.
The rights and freedoms that we often take for granted are guaranteed by democracy’s ability to provide checks and balances to the power of the elite, but they quickly vanish when a small segment of people hold all of a nation’s power.
The only way a small group of powerful people can maintain autocratic power is by stripping the population of their rights — monitoring possible dissenters, suppressing freedom of expression, and wielding institutions (like ICE, the US Supreme Court, and the US Treasury) as a tool to crush any and all opposition.
Democracy is a safeguard against tyranny and should be promoted and protected at all costs. It is worth fighting for.
For the average citizen, if you want to see what life is like under an autocracy, there are plenty of travel recommendations I can make for you — I hear North Korea is nice this time of year.
And for the elite, only democratic reform can prevent instability, revolution and bloodshed. If that is not enough motivation to preserve it, then we are truly doomed for history to repeat itself.
The 21st century collapse of democracy
America is well on the way to becoming, as political scientist Brian Klaas puts it, a competitive authoritarian regime, like Turkey or Hungary. And if the Elon Musks of the world get their way, then the rest of Europe will head in the same direction. And, indeed, autocracy is on the rise globally.
This is a complex problem, compounded by all the other unprecedented complex problems we currently face — fragmentation of the information space, climate change, the rise of AI, the energy transition. These issues require a robust response of the kind that is impossible to muster when the fabric of democratic society is under attack.
A democracy is reliant on its institutions, and this is one of its strengths. Institutions like the legal system, the electoral system and the education system reinforce stability and order, and prevent a democratic society from pulling itself apart.
But institutions are also a vulnerability, because they are all governed by people, and so they are not set in stone. They can be captured by vested interests and altered or even destroyed, if powerful people have the will and the resources to do so.
In the US, the judiciary, the media and even the voting system itself are all core elements of democratic infrastructure which, rather than serving the nation, now serve the narrow interests of the ruling elite.
Democracy, like any form of governance, is an unstable equilibrium, and its stabilising institutions are currently under attack. But if we want to save democracy, saving its institutions will not be enough.
Civilisation is a complex system
If there’s one takeaway I want you to have from this article, it is this: human civilisations are adaptive complex systems, just like ecosystems, individual businesses, or the economy. And, like all complex systems, there is a hierarchy of places to intervene which will have increasing magnitudes of effect.
The following list, “Places to intervene in a system”, was assembled by pioneering complexity scientist Donella Meadows. In order of increasing effectiveness:
Constants, parameters, numbers (subsidies, taxes, standards)
The sizes of buffers and stabilising stocks (currency reserves, food stock, housing stock)
The structure of stocks and flows (transport networks, energy infrastructure, internet access)
The length of delays in the system (like waiting lists for hospital appointments and court appearances)
The strength of stabilising feedback loops (adjusting interest rates to cool inflation, curbing monopoly power)
Driving reinforcing feedback loops (public trust reinforcing institutional legitimacy, education creating informed citizens who improve governance)
The structure of information flows (the media, education, who does and doesn’t have access to information)
The rules of the system (incentives, laws, constraints, punishments)
The power to change system structure and encourage self-organisation (politicians, entrepreneurs, big businesses)
The goals of the system (ending poverty, expanding private power, etc.)
The mindset or paradigm out of which the system — its goals, power structure, rules — arises (its culture)
Mastery over paradigms (understanding that culture is malleable)
Reinforcing our institutions that govern the rules of the system, like the electoral process, only rank fifth in Meadows’ list. Relitigating Voter ID laws is important, but it is small fry when the overall goal of the modern libertarian right is to dismantle democracy altogether.
In terms of impact, changing the law, or even changing the political party making the laws, is subordinate to the goals of the system, and the culture that determines the goals of the system.
And this shouldn’t be surprising — a nation’s culture acts as a powerful stabilising force for the shape of a society. As an example, the replacement of Russia’s nascent 1991 democracy with a new authoritarian regime was largely in keeping with centuries of Russian culture, a nation where its institutions of state were built around centralised autocratic power (throughout both the Tsarist and Soviet regimes). Meanwhile, the same thing happening in Denmark (a country with a long history of communitarianism) is currently unthinkable.
Therefore, if you control the culture, you control the system — this is the primary reason why billionaires buy media or social media platforms.
Changing culture is hard, and slow — people tend to be set in their ways, and so culture changes gradually, generationally. But if you have enough resources to invest in the long game, you can influence people to think in a way which serves your interests. Controlling information flows through mass media. Funding think tanks to push policy objectives. Rewarding social influencers who promote your messages.
Power is not telling people what to think; it is framing how they think. With enough resources, you can sway the electorate towards opinions that promote your own narrow interests. To make Britain less aligned with Europe for personal gain, for example.
In view of complex systems theory, I believe that history will view the commodification of Western culture — in effect, allowing it to be determined by the highest bidder — as our greatest mistake.
This fits into all the other models of civilisational cycles — when the political system ceases to prioritise the rights and wellbeing of the entire society and instead focuses on the short-term accumulation of wealth for the economic and political elites, democracy is already on its way to collapse.
So how can we possibly stop it?
How do we save democracy?
Given that culture shapes the goals of the system, if we wish to prevent the replacement of our democracy with something far darker, we must insist on a culture that defends and preserves democracy and gives power to the people. And culture is influenced by the media, but not determined by it.
We must view our political system more like the citizens of Denmark — a system for empowering the people — and less like the people of Russia, where two thirds still regret the collapse of the Soviet Union.
And we must make this case directly to our elite — for it is ultimately in their best interest too.
As Peter Turchin highlights in End Times, in 1832 in England, with the country on the brink of unrest, Parliament passed the Great Reform Act — a concession by the elite to extend the vote to the middle class and defuse growing inequality and popular anger.
Rather than trade away all power (working class people still could not vote), the Act reshaped the system just enough to preserve stability and prevent the type of violent revolution that swept through Europe 16 years later.
Democratic collapse demands renewal. If we wish to avoid the tyranny, oppression, and bloodshed that comes with maintaining a stranglehold on power, we must consider political reform and an expansion of democratic participation — starting with our electoral system.
First-Past-the-Post (FPTP) is a system which, while delivering strong majorities, disenfranchises the average voter. Limiting the public’s choice to one of two governing parties (inevitable under FPTP) undermines the core principles of democracy and, as we are seeing in the US, sets a slippery slope to autocracy when one of the two main parties abandons the idea of democracy as a governing strategy altogether.
The guiding philosophy of democracy is that every individual has the right to have a say in the shape of our society, but under FPTP this patently doesn’t happen. It is then only natural for voters to become increasingly disillusioned with mainstream politics, giving the agents of oligarchic power an avenue to take control of political discourse and prepare our culture for more autocratic forms of governance.
If people recognise the system is not catering to their needs, they will vote for candidates who promise to destroy the system — this is what gives the populists their power.
Here in the UK, therefore, this means we must implement a National Commission on Electoral Reform.
We should also consider taking back control of the public information sphere through regulation on media and foreign ownership of the information space, preventing foreign interference in setting our culture and determining the outcome of our elections. Allowing a 15% foreign stake in newspapers is naively setting the limit far too high to prevent editorial interference; purchasing a 15% stake in most large corporations is typically enough to become the biggest investor, which provides a great deal of influence over the decisions of the board.
We can even consider more radical actions like direct democracy of the form exercised in Switzerland, or implementing Citizen’s Assemblies for making long-term decisions that are not subject to politicians’ 5-year election cycles.
Nothing should be off the table — with many young people today giving up on democracy, just like in 1832, we acutely need a release valve.
Final Thoughts
It’s worth remembering that, in each turning of the wheel, we learn from previous generations. But so too do those elite factions who seek power and control. The fascists never disappeared after the second world war; they just learned to hide in plain sight.
Democracy doesn’t collapse because elites become tyrants overnight, but because the the public loses the ability to stop the gradual rot.
If we really want to break the cycle, to safeguard democracy for future generations, we must make our elites respect democracy. And that can only happen when they know the public respects it too.
This requires widespread civic literacy — people must understand our institutions, yes, but also power dynamics, rights, and how the wider economy influences political decisions.
As my good friend Luke Auty puts it, you can measure the health of a democracy by how much it educates its population about how it works. In the UK, we are sorely lacking in this regard — we do not adequately teach our citizens either our own modern history, or how our country functions.
This only serves the interests of the would-be tyrants — through active political education, we have the power to reinforce a culture of support for democracy within our societies.
In contrast, in the US, the government is currently targeting its own educational institutions — it does not seek to educate its population, but to control it. If, as Ray Dalio’s model suggests, investing in education and innovation causes civilisations to enter Golden Ages, then dismantling the architecture of education and innovation can only lead to ruin.
China sees the short-term focus of Western democracy as its greatest weakness. But the alternative cannot be to succumb to illiberal control over our lives, either from a centralised authoritarian state or from a private corporate oligarchy.
Only democracy can protect both freedom and dignity. But, as history shows, it is an unstable equilibrium that will collapse without vigilance.
If we fail to learn from history, we will surely repeat it. And with the emerging power of AI, the next collapse may be irreversible.
To preserve democracy, we must actively work to renew it by deepening and extending political education and insisting that power remain accountable to the people.
We owe it to ourselves and to all those generations yet to come.
The human mind being perhaps the most complex biological system ever evolved, itself emergent from the complex biological systems of the human body.
As an example, a disease that wipes out half a population of prey animals leads to reduced food availability for any of their predators, reducing predator numbers through starvation, thus allowing the prey population to rebound — the system dynamically self-stabilises. This is the basic model of the Lotka-Volterra equations.
Until conditions are disturbed — for example, when an invasive species is introduced; a predator so effective that prey species have no defence, like the highly-adapted, extinction-causing domestic cat.