Engines of Oligarchy: with Hugh Pope
Jul 21, 2023•53 min
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Episode description
One of my favourite podcasts with journalist, scholar and gentleman Hugh Pope who has just brought to publication a book written by his father in 1990. But being well ahead of its time, the book was unpublishable. It pursued Aristotle's point that elections installed a governing class and were therefore oligarchic. The institution that democracy represented the people was selection by lot as embodied today in legal juries. If you'd rather watch the video, it's here.
1:52 Background
5:46 Aristotle's View on Elections
9:47 How Jury Service Could Work
13:06 How elections make us vulnerable to authoritarians
29:49 Bringing the shy people out
39:13 The pathway to a better system.
46:07 Sortition in Florence, Italy
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