How Democracy Ends

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Highlights

No democracy has reverted to military rule once GDP is greater than $8,000 per person. — location: 396


Concerted action on environmental threats requires some agreement on the value of public goods. — location: 1176


The divine authority of ancient rulers was ultimately exposed as an illusion. A pharaoh is no match for the machine-like efficiency of the modern state. All god-like emperors have feet of clay, even twenty-first century ones. The real threat comes if Facebook is able to mimic the Leviathan. — location: 1736

No. Fearfulness of roman emperors


We hanker for politicians who don’t behave like politicians. We want them to be real people, whereas so many of them come across as automatons. In the digital machine age, the mechanical quality of party politics has become its curse. The result has been that many established political parties have taken an unprecedented battering at election time. — location: 1933

Pure banality