Not at all, nor am I saying it’s a good system. But the realities of how individuals shape the system and determine who is making discisions starts at the local level, and happens over time, and it does come to reflect the interests of those who choose to participate, and not those who don’t. This is just the reality of how power operates.
The solution to this is either reform from within, or by regulation. The former requires that involvement that I talked about, starting at the local level. That is how grassroots works. Reform has happened before. We did not use to even have democratic primaries.
We could argue about which of those two approaches is more feasible, but I would argue that any regulation from above is going to be incomplete and imperfect, and the people involved are going to game the new system just as they have before to their advantage and to hold onto power. The only long term solution is more involvement from below. Democracy cannot work with the minimal level of involvement that we have come expect.