Posts com a Tag ‘WOOLDRIDGE Adrian (Aut)’

John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge are categorical: Democracy is at crisis. Governments are overloaded and bloated. The average share of government spending in thirteen rich countries has climbed from 10% at the beginning of the XX century to around 47% nowadays. People have unreal expectations and contradictory demands. To win elections, politicians act irresponsibly by making false promises or by offering more benefits.  The vicious circle is quite clear. The more responsibilities the state assumes, the worse it performs and the angrier people get. And they react with even more demands. The same mechanism that allows democracy to function is leading it to a collapse. By listening to the general public and trying to cope with their expectation of what should be done, politicians are increasing spending, overstretching regulations and turning opposition ever more radical in the process. The combination of state’s inefficiency, political paralysis and people’s dissatisfaction feeds disbelief. For a political system that bases its legitimacy in representation and trust, that’s a very bad sign.

According to the authors, the Western world is living an apparent paradox. The state is on a mission to give people evermore of what they want. Yet, no one seems happier. America has gotten into a fiscal mess. The debt is rising while the government is stuck with gridlocks. Democracy everywhere faces cynicism. No one trusts politicians anymore. Just 17% of Americans say they trust the federal government and Congress has only 10% of approval rating. By contrast, 85% of the Chinese people approve their government’s decisions. Europe is also in trouble. As predicted by Milton Friedman, the monetary union is leading to political disunion. European Union accounts for 7% of the world’s population and 50% of its social spending. The moderates’ inability to solve problems is making the extremists gain popularity. Besides all, demography is against everybody. The aging of the populations will be an additional weight on overloaded societies. In short, the welfare fantasy is coming to an end and the state is going to start to take things away. Leia Mais