The Myth of Democracy

Chapter 3 From My Book, The Ten Myths of Progress

Welcome again to a new chapter from my upcoming book, The Ten Myths of Progress. We’ll explore a new chapter and topic every week here on Collapse Curriculum. Paid subscribers get full access to the entire chapter. As always, I welcome your feedback.

“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.”¹

-Noam Chomsky

The Myth of Democracy Defined

Rule by the Few, Masked as the Many

When I was born in the summer of 1979, as my father graduated from law school, I was given the name Justin. I’m very proud of that name. It carries great meaning to me.

Justinus is derived from the Latin justus, meaning righteous, fair, lawful. We use the word justice to describe the ideal of a moral order. My name was a benediction, born into a moment of achievement and aspiration. My father, Thomas B. McAffee, had just crossed the threshold into the legal world, and I arrived alongside that promise as if summoned into the American project of rights, laws, and democratic ideals.

Justice, law and order were not just abstract concepts in the home I grew up in. They were spoken with reverence. My father’s career as an American legal historian and professor of constitutional law was a touchstone. I grew up surrounded by discussions about the founding documents. The Federalist Papers. The Bill of Rights. Even court cases like Brown v. Board, Roe, Brandenburg v. Ohio, Obergefell.

Constitutional Convention, 1787

I knew the stories of tyranny resisted, rights declared, and legal systems built. I was raised to believe in democracy… real democracy, more than a mere slogan. Flawed, yes—but noble. A slow march toward liberty and justice for all.

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

-Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

But the older I got, the more that belief cracked.

The stories we’re told about democracy often diverge wildly from what we call the democracy we actually live in. We are taught that power flows from the people. My father calls this project “popular sovereignty.” The idea is simple. We vote, and government bends to our will. That elected officials serve us, not the other way around.

But if we look closer…

Policies are shaped not by popular demand but by corporate lobbies, economic elites, and unelected technocrats. Billionaires fund candidates, own media outlets, and shape public discourse. Decisions that impact millions are made in closed-door summits, not community assemblies. Laws are drafted in the language of capital, not care.

This clearly isn’t democracy. It’s managed consent.

And yet the myth persists because it serves a function. It keeps us participating in a game where the rules are rigged. It convinces us that if we just vote harder, protest louder, believe more fervently, the system will finally listen.

Oh the system is listening! To shareholders, lobbyists and cash contributors. But not to citizens.

And until we name that, say it out loud… people will keep mistaking their performance for power. They’ll mistake voting for action. Protest for resistance. American politics for democracy.

Where the Myth Came From

The word “democracy” conjures images of ancient Athens, citizens gathering in open-air forums to deliberate the fate of the polis. But those citizens were all male. All property owners. All free. The rest of the people… women, slaves, foreigners, were excluded. The demos was never the whole.

Still, the myth took root.

Fast forward to the 18th century: the Enlightenment swept Europe, and revolutionaries in France and America proclaimed the birth of new orders based on liberty, equality, and self-rule. The U.S. Constitution begins with “We the People.” But who was “we”? In the U.S., it excluded the enslaved, Indigenous peoples, women, and the landless poor.

The American Constitution, revered as sacred scripture to some, was less a democratic blueprint than a compromise between elites. The slaveholders, merchants, lawyers and landowners got together and designed a contract to restrain mob rule, not embody popular sovereignty. James Madison wrote explicitly of protecting the “minority of the opulent” from the will of the majority.

And yet, the narrative of democracy persisted because it gave legitimacy to the new order. It offered the appearance of consent in a structure built to consolidate power.

Over time, suffrage expanded. Women won the vote. Civil rights struggles cracked Jim Crow. But at every turn, gains were met with backlash and it does to this day. We still experience voter suppression, gerrymandering, corporate lobbying, and the quiet erosion of real choice.

Meanwhile, in the post-World War II era, the United States exported “democracy” around the globe. Mind you not through grassroots empowerment, but through regime change, military aid, and structural adjustment. Countries were told they had to open markets, privatize services, and hold elections if they wanted to be seen as legitimate. Democracy became a brand, a condition for aid, a weapon for empire.

And at home, the architecture of participation became more symbolic than substantive. The language of democracy remained but the institutions began to hollow out. Parties converged on economic policy. Neoliberalism became the universal imperative. Media consolidated. Public trust withered. And power slipped further from the street to the suite.

The myth endures because it is useful… not to the people, but to those who rule in their name.

Challenging the Narrative

“If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.”²

-Emma Goldman