Is 'fit-for-purpose' democracy, despotism, or is it something else?

Dr Mark Triffitt.

“Coming up with a new, fit-for-purpose democratic system may well be both the biggest challenge and the biggest opportunity facing us all in the 21st century.”

A lecturer in public policy at the University of Melbourne, Dr Mark Triffitt, made this observation in writing “Can democracy be salvaged for the 21st century?" in today’s Melbourne Age “Voice” section.

Dr Triffitt listed what he saw as “solutions”, noting that the trouble was not with democracy per se, rather with what he described as the “delivery system” – liberal democracy has become fundamentally stranded from the world around it.

Democracy, as it is presently understood, celebrated and employed, has distracted humanity for what is important, causing us to ignore or deny the science that demonstrates unequivocally, that our present behaviour has damaged, and continues to damage the climate; a climate that is benign and consequently habitable for humans.

Humanity, mostly led by those in the developed world, has benefitted hugely from the freedoms assured by democracy, but it has been those very freedoms that have unfurled and released the demons of a damaged climate.

And so the “fit-for-purpose” democracy alluded to by Dr Triffitt must surely bring with it some limitations on the unfettered freedoms enjoyed for decades by market-based capitalism.

Among the many suggestions from Dr Triffitt is the questions about possibility for expert panels – “Is there scope for expert panels – insulated from short-term political and media pressures – to steer and decide on important policy issues?”, he asks.

Our need to wrestle with the reality that is climate change, doesn’t seem to allow much room for democracy in its traditionally understood sense and the more pragmatic among us might be arguing for something like a democratic dictatorship, a misnomer, but maybe it’s humanity’s only solution.

We slept through the station at which we could have alighted from this fast moving train that is rushing toward problematic times leaving us exposed to a climate dictatorship, engineered by us.