I’ve wondered if the democratic process is really a civilized form of scape-goating. Elections are a pressure valve, meaning incumbent parties are ejected from office and fresh faces brought in, albeit often with little change in the policies that caused pressures to build.
If one thinks of the democratic process as replacing physical conflict, then gerrymandering can't get too out of hand, because at some point the actual majority will call.
If it's just a civilised form of scapegoating, then gerrymandering could potentially reach insanely high levels, as long as it provides a good show (à la Russian Federation elections?) of ritual conflict.
Oh definitely. It allows violent conflict to be replaced by… well… culture wars, and murder with voting people out or maybe legal battles. That’s massively more civilized and avoids destroying all of society’s accumulated wealth in destructive conflicts.
Avoiding burning everything to the ground all the time might be the main reason democracies tend to be wealthier.
Switzerland was considered a poor country in the 19th century, but didn't get bombed to rubble in either 1914-1918 or 1936-1945, and so now it's considered rich.
I wonder how solarpunk continental europe might've been now if it had somehow avoided the "short 20th century (1914-1991)".
