A sense of contempt for democracy is becoming widespread, and radical forces are on the rise. Changing what exists is easy; improving it is hard. By embracing extremism and dismantling the current system, we risk, as happened a hundred years ago, worsening every problem and, amid the rubble of extremism, deeply missing what we now despise.
People are increasingly dissatisfied with the political system. Elections offer nothing new and keep the usual elite representatives in power. As a result, a large percentage abstains or votes blank, while a minority chooses revolt by casting null votes or supporting radical parties.
This picture is clear in Portugal, but not only there. Across much of the Western world, the same discontent is felt, and in some cases the rejection process has already been completed. In the United States, Hungary, and Italy, radicals are in power; in France, it is close; while Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom, and Germany are moving in that direction. The slogan is: “We have to change, and this will only work if done by force.”
In these circumstances, it is worth remembering two essential principles. First, change is easy; improvement is difficult. Second, things rarely improve through force; problems are solved only through slow, persistent, and careful work. The irresponsible who protest, accuse, and insult are good at destroying, but they rarely have the competence and patience to understand the situation, let alone govern it.
History teaches us that a climate of simmering revolt is generally not a sign of development, but a threshold of catastrophe. The Bourbons and the Romanovs were terrible, but the French and Russian revolutions managed to make people’s lives far worse. It seemed impossible to be worse than Mobutu, Saddam, or Gaddafi; once defeated and replaced, we discovered that it was, in fact, possible to be worse than them. The rare cases in which uprisings improve things, such as the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the American Revolution of 1776, and the April 25 Revolution of 1974, are precisely those in which angry radicals were sidelined and replaced by slow, persistent, and careful work.
Above all, what is most striking about Westerners who today lament and reject democracy is that their lives, even those of the poor, are astonishingly better than those of eighteenth-century French citizens, twentieth century Russians, or the subjects of Mobutu, Saddam, or Gaddafi. Past revolts were driven by people who had nothing to lose. Today, complaints arise when people enjoy a standard of living that, for millennia, no one could even aspire to.
Those who feel disgust toward the current political class in Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom, or France forget that everything they have and are is owed to the system they so deeply despise. Those who shout against corruption, against the “taxi drivers” who govern us, and against the rotten democracy we supposedly have, put at risk living standards that many would dream of having. Such complaints would be understandable in Tehran, Caracas, or Khartoum; in Odivelas, Beja, and Gondomar they are merely idle lamentations.
Portugal undoubtedly has serious problems and major flaws in its public life. But to solve them we do not need more protests, complaints, or revolts; we already have plenty of those, and they only make things worse. Nor do we need promises, handouts, or illusions. What we need is that slow, persistent, and careful work, something no radical has ever been able to do.
It is true that such work is barely visible today. But how can it be possible when, the moment a minister takes office, everyone already condemns them for problems that have existed for decades? How can we improve if, as soon as a government presents new ideas, before we even know what they are or try to negotiate them, we all immediately say they must be rejected? We want novelty, but we refuse innovation. We hate those who governed before, yet claim that those who replace them are even worse. We say that things have been getting worse for decades, without noticing that the only constant throughout this alleged decline is us, who repeatedly and freely choose those who govern us.
We, the voters who elect the governments we so despise, are now ready to support sellers of magical solutions, who promise to change everything instantly, without ever explaining how or why. Americans, Hungarians, and Italians already know what that means, and they have learned that such magical solutions do not exist. Radical proposals only worsen existing problems and introduce new ones that no one anticipated. The rare cases where things turn out well are those in which, once in power, radicals abandon radicalism and devote themselves to slow, persistent, and careful work, just like their moderate predecessors.
Europe at the beginning of the twenty first century, as at the beginning of the twentieth century, shows deep dissatisfaction with democracy and grants growing support to extremist forces on both the left and the right. This is despite the fact that living standards today are several times higher than they were a hundred years ago and that everyone, including the poor, benefits from conditions unprecedented in human history. Our great grandparents, despising the system, wept bitterly with nostalgia for what they had once hated. We will see whether today’s voters and radicals have learned anything from that disaster.
João César das Neves, Professor at CATÓLICA-LISBON