Democracy is ultimately the process of controlling concentrated power through checks and balances. A major part of this is distributing and fragmenting power. When power and responsibility are devolved to local levels, there will be ever more opportunities to develop and disseminate the skills, habits, and frames of mind needed to preserve and build democracy.
Democracy will always be a powerfully motivating ideal which could also be called “popular self control.” Like any ideal, it can never be fully realized, but be approximated while it’s guidance provides an infinite number of lessons and models for preventing tyranny, corruption, chaos, and despair.
The most stubborn impediment and threat to US democracy today, though, is not the federal government. The resistance and the danger come from concentrated private wealth irresponsibly controlled by a tiny (0.1%) elite. The future of democracy is, by necessity, “economic democracy”.
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