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President Jimmy Carter USA is an Oligarchy
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To be honest, any political/social entity over a certain size it's inevitable that some form of authoritarianism/top down control system. True democracy or even representative democracy is simply difficult to scale up (if not impossible without some kind of limited hive mind for the species).
... and for the most part, it's okay. Because even in these authoritarian systems, there are certain limits that if when crossed, will push the masses over the edge*. Of course most of the more sophisticated authoritarian systems are even capable of giving the illusion** of freedom/liberty/rights, and that's enough for most people.
Thus for the most part, life will go on, and reasonably comfortably for most.
*say for example, if the only options are to starve to death or get shot by the jackboot thugs, revolution becomes rather attractive...
**and one must ask, is it worth it to destroy this illusion? Kinda like the plot of the Matrix (where you really have to ask, is humanity better off getting out of the Matrix... and into a wasteland of a planet that is their reality), is it worth it to free the masses from their illusion? Is the reality an actual better alternative (whether due to some inherent virtue of the truth or something else).
I would argue that it has always been an oligarchy, however in a more camouflaged way, and people are just noticing it now, because it's getting more apparent (for multiple reasons).
The problem with modern democracies is that, once the power is given to someone, there is no way to take it back if they get corrupt. The people can't seem to understand that they have absolutely everything they need to prevent/fight against these things.
For example, the army on authoritarian governments. The High Command is a part of it, of course, but the soldiers are nothing but paws, they get nothing with the way things are and if they weren't in the army, they would be ordinary citizens suffering under that government. However, they still follow their orders, mainly because of fear of punishment.
They can't seem to understand that, yes, if few try to do something, it will not work, however, if many do something, what army will the government have to deal with them? This basically guarantees a revolution's success.
If the people and the soldiers followed this principle, it will basically put a gun on the heads of those who volunteer to represent them on the government, and if they **** up, they will have to deal with the people.
About the illusion: I think it's better to destroy the illusion, this will make people have to do something to make the world a better place. People like to pretend problems don't exist, but that doesn't solve them.
This world isn't destroyed like the world from Matrix, it is still being destroyed.