Our dear just wrote an article on democracy problems:

Tony Blair: For True Democracy, the Right to Vote Is Not Enough - NYTimes.com

Then there have grown up powerful interest groups that can stand in the way of substantial and necessary reform. Anyone who has ever tried to reform an education system, for example, knows how tough and bitter a struggle it is. The bureaucracy fights change. The teachers' unions fight change. The public gets whipped up to defeat change even when it is in the public's own interest. The nearest I came to losing my job as prime minister was not over policies of war and peace, but over education reforms. The effort to reform health care has similar characteristics.

Here is the meanest interest group, the teachers.

The public blowback against reform is intense and yet there really is no alternative [...]

Examine the changes in the private sector over the past 20 years. Look at the top companies by market capitalization and how new names have displaced the old.

Thatcher the demi-god for the responsible Labour!

at the very time when leadership is needed, the gene pool of political leaders has shrunk [...]

politicians are not really well paid by the standards of those who are successful in the private sector [...]

The answer to this democratic malaise may be partly a change in the relationship between governing and governed. People have to accept that governing involves difficult choices, and politicians ought to be respected for making them, not abused.

Say that! Ukraine musty feel great now about its gene pool in the government, and the choices people are accepting there. We are going a long way...