John Derbyshire has a piece up starting with the anniversary of Tiananmen Square, moving into the strengths and weaknesses of the Chinese model and finishing with this.

Universal-suffrage democracy may have been a good idea 120 years ago, when most adults did productive work into their sixties, then died. In today’s top-heavy welfare states, it just empowers tax-eaters to loot the national wealth.

Tomorrow’s politics will be the art of providing make-work for as many as possible of the employable minority while pacifying the un-employable majority with a state dole. In that world, universal-suffrage democracy will be untenable.

Already, unconsciously, we are making appropriate adjustments. Our universities, after a few aberrant decades of experimenting with open inquiry and the advance of knowledge, have reverted to their medieval purpose (the purpose that Chinese higher education always had): to train an intellectual elite for the propagation and defense of the state ideology. Then it was Christianity (in China, Confucianism); now it is utopian egalitarianism—“political correctness,” the Narrative. The advance of knowledge can go hang.

Since we are already making cultural adjustments to the inevitable future, can the political adjustments be far behind?

There’s a branch of the alternative right or dark enlightenment or neo-reaction, I’m not sure of the precise labels, that holds a view of the intermediate future that is a mix of District 9, Elysium and Terminator. They think most of us will be thrown into camps without regard to race, sex, age or ethnicity. We’ll live on garbage from the the other group of humans, the elites. The elites will rely on super smart robots to keep their position and keep the rabble in their camps. Some small servant class will exist to maintain the robots and tend to the elite.

Some put greater emphasis on the super smart robots. Others underscore the camps. There are surely others who have a combination of favorites with some other elements added into the mix. Either way, the future is Hell, as they imagine it. This is where I remember that north people imagined Hell as barren and cold, while south people imagined it hot and fiery. The point being our view of the horrid future is probably a reflection of what we think of as the horrid present.

One common thread that runs through the various parts of the asteroid belt of view points that encircles mainstream thought is a rejection of democracy. Way back in the olden thymes when I voted for the first time, I became an anti-democrat. A look around the room at my fellow voters was enough for me. Seeing people, who I knew were struggling with the basics of living, in-line to vote made plain that democracy turned self-government into a lottery. The rest of us had to hope the dimwits pulled the right lever.

That said, you can’t argue with the results. Life in Europe and America is vastly better now than 1900. People are healthier, better fed and we live much longer. Outside of the urban reservations, violence is no longer a factor. In 1900 a person traveling alone cross country needed to be armed and prepared to kill. Today, a person traveling cross country only has to worry about what sights to see on the way.

Rule by dimwit seems to be working out, despite it all.

On the other hand, to the people in a car heading for a cliff, the ride may seem pleasant and fruitful. Democracy in America is a relatively new thing. The 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920. The woman’s vote did not emerge as a force until after WW2. Minorities were systematically prevented from voting until the 1960’s. Our experiment in universal suffrage is, therefore, only a couple of generations along. The results are not promising. You don’t have to be a pessimist think we are heading for a bad end.

The real problem is not democracy, per se. The problem is what it does to the governing institutions and the people who control them. In the 19th century, both political parties catered to the property holders, business men and the educated elite. That’s where the votes were so that’s where the politicians went looking for votes. The result was the parties were representative of the nation’s various interests, all of whom had the same general goals in mind. As a result, national politics was regional, not tribal. Northern states favored industry and trade, while southern states favored agriculture.

Once you flood the voting booths with millions without an ownership stake in the country, politics becomes tribal. The parties seek to assemble collection of tribes, even though they may not have shared interests. This attracts a different class of politician. In order to get white union guys to vote with black welfare queens, you have to be cunning and persuasive. The appeal is emotional, not logical. The result is what we see. Both parties are dominated by sociopaths, interested only in beating the other side in the next fight.

Democracy has its place and it a requirement of civilized governance. It must be tempered and that’s what we lack. Returning the Senate to the states, for example, would cripple the federal welfare system. States would never tolerate the meddling. Of course, the Senate would attract a different class of politician. Low-life grifters like Chuck Schumer and John McCain would be of no use to their respective state legislatures.

The conditions under which we re-apply the brakes to our run-away democracy is the mystery. Maybe that’s where the doom and gloom set has it right. History is not exactly full of successful reformers steering their society away from the rocks. Instead, it the story of one crash after another.