"Sprachwandel / Meaning shift": the case of "democracy"

Most of the people have not yet realized that some basic concepts (or words if you prefer), have radically changed their meaning. This is the case of "democracy": originary (old Greece) the meaning was "power of the people". The first shift was: people delegate the power to rulers but still have control over them: it was a very limited control if ever it was the case.

The further shift (since 1945 at least) was "formally free choosen rulers ( but in fact promoted by money and propaganda) impose their view of "democracy" over the people who are still supposed to exercise the power.

The last step at present has finally changed the meaning of "democracy" to the point that it means nothing else as "dictatorship of those who happen to be the rulers" and are chosen by people who ... have no real choice since only millionaires or puppets supported by unnamed (but well known) economic and military groups have the chance to be elected (and then must do what their supporters decide).

How was this change possible ?

Easy to explain: also this time "it's the economy, stupid" (the explanation for the victory of Bill Clinton agains Bush in 1992) but through the censhorship at all levels.

In fact, not even in the most cruel and oppressive dictatorships there was such well functioning censorship: it works better because it is softly imposed ad eagerly absorbed by the people.

Almost nobody wants to be seen as "different", and dare to express an opinion that is contrary to the "dominant" one.

The power of the dominators has always been grounded in the "dominant opinion", then as Marx/Engels put in "Die dentsche Ideologie", "die herrschende Meinung ist immer die Meinung der Herrscher" ("the dominant opinion is always the opinion of the dominators").

To reach this goal it was more difficult in the past : sometimes the rulers had to burn alive the heretics (Giordano Bruno 1600) or kill them on the electrical chair (Ethel Rosenberg and her husband 1953 in the USA *) or put them in jail for 13 years (Julien Assange, nowadeays).

But with the progress of the techniques of persuasion through propaganda this task has become easier but disastrous for the originary meaning of the word "democracy" : the mass psychologists have indeed done more harm to the world than the worse dictators.

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(*) The book Final Verdict: What Really Happened in the Rosenberg Case published in 2010, gave further weight to the argument that Ethel Rosenberg was wrongfully convicted and that Julius' espionage in the 1940's for the USSR, did not include any transmission of atomic information