Sorry to comment below you again - I'm not stalking you, promise.

Oh hey no, thank you for the compliment earlier, I just didn't want to take away from what you said later in the post by replying there. Not at all ;)

But you left out the lopping off of heads that accompanied the democratization of Europe.

I suppose it's the guillotines the elites fear, as much as the loss of legacy.

I too think we live in a time of dramatic and fundamental change. Automation, climate, inequality, immigration, war and disease all lead to more displacement than any modern democracy can countenance. I think we'll emerge in a new, freer, better structure -- but not without much messiness in between.

You're very right and I agree totally. It seems like there have been faint spasms of that great overthrow - the Arab Spring, the Syrian rebellion, some of that was war destablization of course - but so far it hasn't come to the Western world and I agree that without that burnoff, progress will be difficult if not impossible.