Democracy requires much more than voting every few years. It requires people to have the time, security and mental capacity to understand political choices, consider competing arguments and participate meaningfully in society. In this video, I argue that too many people are losing that capacity.<\/p>\n
Work, caring responsibilities, insecure housing and financial pressures consume enormous amounts of people\u2019s time and attention. Meanwhile, constant media distraction increasingly reduces complicated political questions to slogans, reactions and instant opinions.<\/p>\n
This is not simply a problem of individual political interest. It is a political economy<\/span> problem. How we organise work, distribute income, provide housing and fund public services directly affects people\u2019s ability to participate in democracy.<\/p>\n Time and attention are also unequal. Some people have considerable freedom to engage with politics, while others have little capacity left after work, caring responsibilities and dealing with economic insecurity. Economic inequality can therefore create political inequality.<\/p>\n Democratic rights only work when people have the capacity to use them. The right to vote matters, but meaningful democracy also requires people to understand their choices, develop informed opinions and have enough security to think beyond immediate survival.<\/p>\n Disagreement is essential to democracy. The problem is not that people disagree, but that too many people are being denied a meaningful opportunity to participate in that disagreement.<\/p>\n If we want to save democracy, we need secure incomes, housing, reliable public services, reasonable working conditions and enough time away from work to participate in society. And with AI increasingly shaping how we receive information, the question is whether technology will expand that democratic capacity or diminish it further.<\/p>\n