"Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few"
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A line like this lands because it flatters no one. Shaw takes the sentimental civic poster of democracy and yanks it into the glare: not the People vs. the Tyrant, but incompetence vs. corruption. The phrasing is surgical. "Substitutes" makes democracy sound like a cheap swap at the counter, a procedural trick rather than a moral triumph. And the symmetry of "the incompetent many" against "the corrupt few" turns political choice into a rigged menu: pick your poison, then pretend you ordered dinner.
Shaw, a dramatist steeped in Fabian socialism, wrote in a Britain where parliamentary democracy was expanding but still tethered to class privilege, patronage, and a press that could manufacture consent with theatrical ease. His target is less democracy as an ideal than the complacent belief that elections automatically produce competence. He understood politics as performance: the electorate as an audience, candidates as actors, institutions as stagecraft. That is the subtext behind the insult - mass participation can be manipulated, and the act of voting can become a ritual that launders power rather than redistributes it.
The barb also cuts elites. "Appointment by the corrupt few" sketches the old order of aristocratic backrooms and professional gatekeeping, where expertise is often just nepotism with better tailoring. Shaw's cynicism works because it refuses the comforting binary. He suggests that modern governance is a choice between two failures of accountability: the many who can be fooled and the few who cannot be trusted.
Shaw, a dramatist steeped in Fabian socialism, wrote in a Britain where parliamentary democracy was expanding but still tethered to class privilege, patronage, and a press that could manufacture consent with theatrical ease. His target is less democracy as an ideal than the complacent belief that elections automatically produce competence. He understood politics as performance: the electorate as an audience, candidates as actors, institutions as stagecraft. That is the subtext behind the insult - mass participation can be manipulated, and the act of voting can become a ritual that launders power rather than redistributes it.
The barb also cuts elites. "Appointment by the corrupt few" sketches the old order of aristocratic backrooms and professional gatekeeping, where expertise is often just nepotism with better tailoring. Shaw's cynicism works because it refuses the comforting binary. He suggests that modern governance is a choice between two failures of accountability: the many who can be fooled and the few who cannot be trusted.
Quote Details
| Topic | Justice |
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