Abstract

Contemporary representative democracies are failing their citizenries throughout the globe. They consistently prove to be unresponsive and unaccountable to democratic citizens, and they permit wealthy political actors to wield excessive and deleterious influence over the workings or government. This essay highlights the structural deficiencies of modern democracies, and criticizes the insufficiency of scholarly responses to the contemporary crisis of democracy; in particular, a rampant aversion to majority rule and «populism» among supposed «democratic theorists». The essay draws on the political thought of Machiavelli to formulate populist solutions to the plutocracy and unaccountability problems plaguing democracy today.