Spartacus Speaks

[Jolly]

A few thoughts on the current waning of democracy in the world and why they are doing a new series on interwar Germany...

Link to video

[Aqua Letifer]

Capitalism maybe, but not democracy.

[Jolly]

Dunno. If you watched the video, he dropped one that surprised me...After WW2, we reached a point where the majority of the world's population lived in a democracy of some kind. Today, that percentage is in the high twenty-percentile range.

[Renauda]

After WW2, we reached a point where the majority of the world's population lived in a democracy of some kind.

Doubt that very much. Besides, just what is meant by “democracy of some kind”? Peronist Argentina was hardly a democracy as were most Latin American republics of the time.

[Jolly]

Looking at it from the perspective of the 1919-1938 period (which is where their new series will focus), could it qualify as a democracy of some kind?

[Renauda]

@Jolly

In the interwar period there were three models of democracy - the British, the American and the French. There was also Weimar Germany but that was hardly a viable democratic model. Following WWII the same three models remained. Peronist Argentina may have begun with the French model but soon devolved into a secular populist muddle (note muddle, not model) that resembled a bit of Francoist Spain and a thoroughly disorganised fascist Italy. It was not anything resembling one of the democratic models of the day.