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Scholars have often claimed that democracies, whatever their
virtues, are functionally short-sighted. The evidence is clear: we
have been unable to manage many long-term issues including climate
change, nuclear waste disposal, natural disaster preparedness,
infrastructure maintenance, and budget deficits. If voters and
influential actors, such as interest groups and corporations, have
dominant short-term interests, it may be difficult for elected
politicians to act in the long-term interests of society, even if
they think that it would be the right thing to do. To solve
long-term problems, do we need political systems that are less
democratic, or even authoritarian? This idea, which Michael K.
MacKenzie calls the "democratic myopia thesis," is a sort of
conventional wisdom; it is an idea that scholars and pundits take
for granted as a truth about democracy without subjecting it to
adequate critical scrutiny. In Future Publics, MacKenzie challenges
this conventional wisdom and articulates a deliberative, democratic
theory of future-regarding collective action. Specifically,
MacKenzie argues that each part of the democratic myopia problem
can be addressed through democratic-rather than
authoritarian-means. At a more fundamental level, once we recognize
that democratic practices are world-making activities that empower
us to make our shared worlds together, they should also be
understood as future-making activities. Despite the short-term
dynamics associated with electoral democracy, MacKenzie asserts
that we need more inclusive and deliberative democracies if we are
going to make shared futures that will work for us all.
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