Democracy is what result when people are free to form political parties and those parties compete in periodic free and fair elections. But the stakes for parties at elections are reduced, and thus are parties moving closer to the state instead of society. Democracy has become more a service of the government instead of a tool for citizens to control the state

Parties increasingly resemble each other, parties make their own rules. The party in public office has become too powerful relative to the party in central office and the party on the ground

- the connection between civil society and the party has ben largely gone
- mainstream parties have become so similar that it becomes reasonable to think about them as one group
- politics as a profession
- effective management
- capital intensive
- agent of the state instead of society