“The way democracy is presented as the best political system gives a false sense that this has been proved by lengthy experience,” says Ian Parker in an article in the East African. However, women did not get the right to vote in Great Britain until 1928, and African Americans did not get real freedom to vote until the 1960s. So the current concept of democracy, with each adult getting one vote, is comparatively new.
In the typical democratic process, vast sums of money are spent on electioneering. In more sophisticated democracies, the money is spent on “advertising”. In less sophisticated democracies, the money is spent on pork-barrelling and vote-buying. Even in the most sophisticated countries democracy is abused. Further, the vast majority of voters in any country necessarily have little knowledge about government, so they are poorly equipped to choose suitable representatives.
Parker suggests a different way of selecting a government. Ban political parties and elections; instead, a community should approach wise and respected individuals and ask them to be its representatives, so that elections would be replaced by selections, and leaders would make decisions according to their consciences and not according to some party line. Leaders would then be accountable only to the communities that employed them.