Jamie Whyte is a philosopher turned management consultant whose books – including Bad Thoughts – dissect flawed reasoning. Whyte is leader of the free market party ACT in New Zealand. Below he discusses the possible future of democracy, the power of the English legal system, and why freedom of movement is the surest sign of good democracies.

Do you think democracy will be a flash in the pan of history? If so, what do you think will succeed it?

I think the way to answer that question is to note that all systems of government are ultimately democratic in so far as the sovereign power is accountable to the people. It may be messy, it may be that the people overthrow the monarch, but there’s always some level of accountability. Even in the medieval period, there was the notion of kings who ruled with the consent of their people, and those who didn’t were considered tyrants.

What we have today is a democratic system that avoids the need for bloody overthrows: you get a vote and its all very systematic. But there’s no reason to assume that we wont get quite a different system of democracy in the future. I don’t know what it might be, I don’t do that kind of prediction stuff. However, one reason to think that there may be some change is that countries which are not very democratic by our standards – China is a perfect example, and perhaps Singapore – have been economically successful without obvious signs of massive discontent amongst their populations.

If nations that are not democratic economically outperform those that are, and people move, their capital moves too, and that might put pressure on countries that are democratic to change and reform. If democracy does change, I think it will be through such economical global cultures.

How do you think you can judge a democratic system? Is it only through economics?

Actually the best way to judge the test of a system is through migration. Do people want to move out and do people want to move in? The most obvious indictment of communism – Soviet-style communism – was that they wouldn’t let people leave. If you have to lock your people in there’s obviously something wrong with your country, there's no need to discuss it further.

Look at America. Despite the complaints, people queue up, desperate to get into the country. That is the best measure, and that’s why we need to keep freedom of movement around the world. I don’t like strict migration controls because one of the side effects of it is that it lets governments off the hook. Although this isn't always the case, I sometimes think it is their intention. You lose any measure of whether they’re doing well.

Interestingly, if you look at Britain – and I’m not quite sure what this means – a lot of Brits leave and a lot of foreigners come in. I'm not quite sure why. Maybe people just discover that living in Britain doesn’t really suit them and that living in another country suits them better and that’s all there is to it.

Perhaps our PR is better than our reality….