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It's been my observation that democracy, as the Enlightenment thinkers warned us, is usually at best a "lateral transfer" of the problems which beset other societies, rather than a cure for them. Frequently, democracy makes these problems -worse-, simply because people will vote in support of every manner of stupidity if they're stupid enough (easy), desperate enough (easier), or mean enough (easiest of all) not to care about the results. France circa 1793 and Zimbabwe circa 2002 are good, rough examples of this. People being people, they will vote in their own (or their tribe's) best interests every time; myself being no exception. However, most people in this world are hungry, illiterate to a greater or lesser degree, and frequently the victims of political con-men like Mugabe or Putin or Bush. As a Cossack professor of mine once put it:
"What for should they have Democracy? Cossacks would vote for Cossacks, Chechens would vote for Chechens, Ingush would vote for Ingush, and all of them for the worst scoundrels, the biggest thugs, the most ferocious murderers among them."
Most of the world thinks in these terms, or similarly medieval ones. Imagine giving the Spanish and Portugese during the Inquisition era the Vote: Torquemada and his ilk would have been Kings of Spain and Admirals of the Deep in no time. The reality was bad enough; handing the Vote to idiots (which most of humanity are, in a large enough group) is asking for disaster.
Human beings are wonderfully intelligent creatures as individuals But a group is only as smart as its' dumbest member, and groups are easily fooled or manipulated. When the group you're talking about has a single-digit literacy rate, fooling and manipulating them becomes child's play. Promise them Heaven and they'll vote for you; deliver them into Hell and they'll -keep- voting for you. Just ask Danton.
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