[panragon]

>A lot of these policy changes can also be used as a cultural side show (the "culture wars") to mask the lack of democratic policy in areas that affect everybody, and were those in power have actual interests, such as the economy, foreign policy, surveillance, police brutality, jobs, and so on.

I agree with you here. But do you really want to reach for the economy and police systems to justify how ineffective representative democracies have been since their mass adoption over a century ago?

[coldtea]

I think the boost to the economy was orthogonal to them being democracies or no - and has more to do with the industrial revolution and other technological advances (most of which happened before democracy or with "democracy" with voting confined to rich land-owning men - no women, and no poor/middle class folks allowed, no POC either of course).

And in many ways we're in a more police-heavy system today than over a century ago.