erin quoted Why Anarchists Don't Vote by Andrew Zonneveld
But among these prejudices there is one that especially merits our attention, not only because it is the basis of all our modern political institutions, but also because we find its influence at work on almost all the social theories advanced by the reformers. It is that which consists in putting one's faith in representative government, which is government by proxy.
— Why Anarchists Don't Vote by Andrew Zonneveld, Nani Ferreira-Mathews, Mikhail Bakunin (Page 32)
The second essay in this book is actually the entirety of chapter 13 from Words of a Rebel by Peter Kropotkin, Representative Government.
In this chapter, Kropotkin introduces several ideas, too many in fact to really go over here. Instead, I'll focus on one which really stuck out to me.
"When we observe human societies in terms of their essential characteristics ... we realize that the political regime to which they submit is always an expression of the economic regime which exists at the heart of the society."
The idea that the political organization of a society is always subservient to the economic system of that society. No matter how hard a legislature tries, it cannot change the political system in a country to something that does not compliment its economic system. But also as an economic system changes within a society its political system must also change. Applying this lens to modern times begs the question: in what way has the economic system changed to cause the rightward shift we are seeing in the political systems of the world?