We are all middle- class now. The democracies must therefore apply to themselves the argument they used to direct against the communists. As people get richer and better educated, a democrat would admonishingly tell a communist, they will no longer be willing to let a handful of men in the Politburo take all the decisions that govern a country's life. The same must now be said, with adjustment for scale, about the workings of democracy. As the old differences of wealth, education and social condition blur, it will be increasingly hard to go on persuading people that most of them are fit only to put a tick on a ballot paper every few years, and that the handful of men and women they thereby send to parliament must be left to take all the other decisions.
People are better equipped for direct democracy than they used to be.
And then comes the third reason for believing that change is on the way. The waning of ideology weakens the chief source of opposition to the new sort of democracy. When the party's over This opposition comes from the political parties that have grown up under representative democracy, since these have most to lose from changing to a different system. Parties are almost indispensable for the holding of elections, and they are the building- blocks of the parliaments chosen by elections. The introduction of direct democracy would instantly diminish the importance both of elections and of parliaments, since most big decisions would be taken by referendum, in a vote of the whole people.