This is a citizenry which is annoyed, confused, insulted, and uncertain of how to protect the structures of the public good they struggled so long to put in place. Abruptly the national elites seem to prefer playing another game in which the public good is subjected to what they say are larger truths. All of these turn out to be either pedantically utilitarian or highly romantic. The utilitarian involves the reduction of society to self-interest. The romantic involves the selling of economic mythology as a new universal religion.

A referendum is little more than a 'rumour of choice.' The idea behind the mechanism, ever since its first modern manifestations two centuries ago under Napole…

The strength of representative democracy is its ability to slow down those in power who wish to govern by blank cheque, but also those not in power who wish to…

The state-initiated referendum has always been a part of this [anti-democratic] logic. Stop the talk, we're going to decide, yes or no. At this point the citiz…

In the usual (though certainly not in every) public decision on economic policy, the choice is between courses that are almost equally good or equally bad. It …

If those in charge of our society - politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television - can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in thei…

Revolutionaries themselves are the last people to realize when, through force of time and circumstance, they have gradually become conservatives. It is scarcel…