Democracy leads to mob rule and mob rule, in turn changes over to despotism

[straz]

"Democracy, according to Polybius, leads to mob rule and mob rule, in turn changes over to despotism". I was just reading up on the Roman Republic and came across this statement. It got me thinking, bringing it into a modern context; modern democracies the term mob rule (manipulated by the media) certainly would be an apt term to me. Is the emergence of GW Bush & his kind changing the final bit of Polybius's statement into prophecy?

[tartanwiz]

Seems to me that Polybius, like most politicians and political thinkers, thought that the 'ignorant masses' don't know how to make decisions and that politics is best left to the educated and enlightened. Personally, I think that the government should not be allowed to pass laws without putting them to the people (not the House of Lords) for consent. Yet Labour officials squawk about 'easy populism', 'stirring up hysteria', 'social conservatism' and 'pandering to public emotion', saying things like 'people aren't ready' or'the masses would bring back hanging' and so forth.

[el duerino]

well real democracy does not exist. there are many arguments as to what exactly britain is at the moment, but in a real democracy the rights of the minority would not be upheld against the majority would they? democracy is not the holy grail of rule that many people understand it to be.