[perhonen]

European societies are the most truly democratic states there have ever been. You have educated populaces making decisions with full information (comparatively more than anywhere else in the world, ever) to choose your leaders. All your policy decisions - generous state pensions and benefits, redistributive taxes, extreme bureaucracy around hiring and firing, stifling operational and capital markets regulations - are chosen by your societies at the ballot box.

look at the massive popular protests when Macron tried to do pension reform. These are completely legitimate choices to make, they're your countries, but i do not think it's your leaders letting you down.

[artirdx]

For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. - H. L. Mencken

The sad thing about democratic societies it is difficult to form a consensus on anything. So elections are won on either emotions or the minimally contentious manifesto. Each successive win on such a manifesto further lowers what will achieve consensus.

People will mesmerizing oratory skills are extremely rare. That such individuals choose politics as their career and then come up with appealing messaging at the right time is almost like solving 3-body problem.

[PinkSheep]

> about democratic societies

You imply representative democracy, where political parties are forced to be formed not to solve issues, but to win a popular vote. To win the vote, you have to dilute your policy enough to encompass the masses by providing many common denominators. There, consensus is impossible by design, we no longer live in a Greek metropolis, where the dimensionality of problems is low. Todays societies are complex and have many dimensions, yet the representative democracies group all of the similar and dissimilar issues under 2-3-4-5 different parties.

I see exactly two (one) solutions:

- people go beyond party boundaries and cooperate on issues they feel important (doesn't work, it's already possible on paper, but in the best case this ability is traded for negotiational power)

- direct voting on issues, parties only serve a directional and educational role

[PinkSheep]

> Macron tried to do pension reform > they're your countries, but i do not think it's your leaders letting you down.

What fanfic am I reading here? The protests had no impact on the course of the pension reform.

[perhonen]

they did not manage to stop the law. what i am saying is that the leaders were trying to pass a necessary law and the population was against it, so you can't pass off blame for the dysfunction on them

[PinkSheep]

I see. Agreed.