Frankly, I think this is dogma that is not born out by the fact that the longest-lived societies in human history have been (sometimes extremely) authoritarian, whereas historical examples of nonauthoritarian societies are slim to none. (By "society" I mean "large society.")
It also assumes that elites are inherently characterized by large (that is, unmanageable) levels of interelite violence that is somehow more destabilizing than other forms of social conflict.
--- On Tue, 6/16/09, Itamar Shtull-Trauring <itamar at itamarst.org> wrote:
> > The former system will be more effective in the long run,
> since it can
> deal better with changing circumstances that invalidate the
> assumptions
> of the current rulers, and recover better from any mistakes
> they make.
> This is because they have generally accepted methods of
> changing
> policies that do not involve breaking the system or
> violence within the
> elites.
>
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