In the early history of democratic practice, many political scientists pointed out that the outcome of universal suffrage democracy depends on the wisdom of the people, and there is no shortage of people who take advantage of human weaknesses to seize power or make money. But democracy has not collapsed, and there must be other reasons for its security.
Evolutionary anthropologists have some good candidate answers: The optimistic answer is that trust, win-win cooperation, and tit-for-tat behavior produce optimal outcomes over a long period of repeated games. The pessimistic answer is the Great Filter theory, in which all intelligent civilizations perish before they evolve the technology for intergalactic travel.
Either way, we don’t have to worry about populist politicians undermine the democracy.
