“Minorities can have immense sway as the majority sleeps”

“Minorities can have immense sway as the majority sleeps”

Janan Ganesh in the FT writes about the downsides of our democratic system, and why it’s so hard to get anything done: In their poetic style, economists refer to this problem as one of “concentrated benefits and diffuse costs”. In a contest between a small group with lots at stake and a wider society in which everyone has a little at stake, the former tends to win, at least in a liberal democracy. Because liberal democracies allow so much room f…