#democratic-decline

#democratic-decline

The dominant political force sweeping across Europe is the throw the bastards out party, whoever happens to be in power. Discontent and distrust spread as global democracy declines. Only 6.6% of the world's people live in a full democracy, according to the Economist's global index, down from 12.5% 10 years ago. Europe is still the most democratic place, but it's turbulent.

The committee's report, commissioned as part of South Africa's G20 presidency, found that the richest 1% of the global population captured 41% of new wealth since the year 2000. By contrast, the bottom 50% of humanity have increased their wealth by just 1%, the report said, using data from the World Inequality Lab. In other words, the top 1% increased their average wealth by 2,655 times as much as the bottom 50%, the report said.

Emmanuel Macron sounded like a man in grief. Not angry, not defiant, just a little triste. Europe, he lamented, was suffering a degeneration of democracy. Many threats emanated from outside, from Russia, from China, from powerful US tech companies and social-media entrepreneurs, France's president said. But we should not be naive. On the inside we are turning on ourselves. We doubt our own democracy We see everywhere that something is happening to our democratic fabric.