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The French Revolution, like the American, did not dislodge the aristocracy to replace it with a democracy but rather dislodged a hereditary aristocracy to replace it with an elected aristocracy [...] a new upper bourgeoisie took power. It derived its legitimacy no longer from God, soil or birth but…

Because representation of the people was brought about by the drawing of lots, we might speak of an aleatoric-representative democracy (from the Latin for dice)

[...] 'The basis of a democratic state is liberty . . . One principle of liberty is for all to rule and be ruled in turn'. [...]

[...] Imagine having to develop a system today that would express the will of the people. Would it really be a good idea to have them all queue up at polling stations every four or five years with a bit of card in their hands and go into a dark booth to put a mark, not next to ideas but next to nam…

The equilibrium came to an end as a result of neoliberal thinking, which reshaped public space radically in the 1980s and 1990s. Not civil society but the free market was now the main architect and this applied to countless domains of public life, especially the media.