Plato did not favour a Democratic Constitution because it tended to be controlled by a class of ‘idle and dissolute men’.[20] That is why he preferred ‘the enlightened despotism of the philosopher king’ to democracy. Rousseau held that perfect democracy was not for Man. ‘Were there a people of gods, their government would be democratic’.[21] De Tocqueville concluded that democracy led to a dead level of mediocrity. Sir Henry Maine was afraid that popular government would ‘inaugurate an era of stagnation.’ Lacky regarded democracy as too meddlesome and antithetical to liberty. Bismarck scoffed at democracy as ‘blubbering sentimentality.’ The well-known French writer, Faquet, described democracy as ‘the cult of incompetence.’ To Nietzsche, democracy was ‘a degenerating form of political organisation.’ Voltaire was against democracy because he compared the people to oxen ‘which need a yoke, a goad and hay’. In our own times, Bernard Shaw regards Lincoln’s definition of democracy as ‘romantic nonsense.’ “The people”, writes Shaw, “have obstructed government often enough; they have revolted; but they have never really governed.”[22]
