All they have is their leaders. Democracy needs effective citizens. Back in the 1890s, the American populist leader Eugene Debs was addressing a a particularly grim meeting in a particularly dour era where things had gone badly for the movement. And even if I could, I would not. For if I could lead you out of this darkness, then I could lead you back in again.
Charismatic leaders are problematic in a democracy.
I am not sure what kind of future civil society has. I am a little pessimistic, in part, because the myths I have just outlined are so widely shared. I do know that without a robust civil society and a will to push it beyond national boundaries, there will be no citizens, only consumers of goods and subjects of bureaucratic states. And without citizens, there will be no democracy. Benjamin Barber is director of the Walt Whitman Center for the Culture and Politics of Democracy at Rutgers University.