Open letter accuses BBC board member of having a conflict of interest on Gaza

I'm starting to realize, very belatedly in life, that we suffer from an end-of-history illusion in politics and political economy. I used to think we live in a golden age because a hundred years ago, democracy broadly replaced monarchies, market economies replaced feudalism and other coercive systems, and with it went many of the old, indirect mechanisms of subjugating large populations (e.g. moral imperatives through the Church, legitimization of rule through concepts such as the divine right of kings, control of education etc).

But it seems we've only replaced those mechanisms with more refined versions (manufacturing consent through mass media, surveillance and indirect indentured servitude through student debt, rent and health insurance).

We probably have another century of socioeconomic and political evolution to go before we reach a decent end state.

The problem is you can't even point a finger or single out people responsible for the current state of things. Unless we collectively accept there is a problem, the solution will not get implemented.

This is why monarchies are better than democracies. There is no accountability or ownership. A king wants to pass down something better to his progeny. A politician wants to make money and generally doesn’t care what state he leaves things in.