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.