cover image The Myth of Democracy

The Myth of Democracy

Ferdinand Lundberg. Carol Publishing Corporation, $11.95 (162pp) ISBN 978-0-8184-0500-6

The author of The Rich and the Super-Rich here charges that democracy in the U.S. is a sham, existing only in rhetoric. His main point in this iconoclastic, single-minded jeremiad is that our government acts with scant regard for the wishes of the populace--and gets away with it. Against a historical backdrop progressing from the Constitutional Convention (which sought to limit democracy, Lundberg argues) through successive presidential administrations, he makes a persuasive case that the popular will has been reguarly ignored, circumvented or thwarted. He reels off a litany of shortcomings, including politicized judges, presidential elections that offer theatrical spectacle instead of meaningful debate, declining voter turnouts and political action committees (PACs) that reinforce entrenched interests. Though the tone is querulous, occasionally strident, and this short primer offers no solutions, Lundberg's hard-hitting arguments lend plausibility to his heretical view that citizens of certain other countries--Great Britain, for one--enjoy more democratic freedoms than Americans do. (Aug.)