19. Final Thoughts

Humans have been arguing about politics for thousands of years. Debates on the correct way to make group decisions, arguments about who should be in charge and why, conflicts over who ought to be involved in the decision-making process – these have been a part of human civilization for as long as there has been human civilization, and these debates will never end. Specific systems of politics change but the debates go on. One day in the future our current system of nation-states and parliamentary democracies will be seen as archaic, primitive, and naïve, in the same way that we judge the political systems of the past. But the fundamental debates of politics will go on.

This section introduced you to some of the core concepts of the two defining features of modern politics – the state and liberal parliamentary democracy. The state is ancient and parliamentary democracy is recent, but together these are the foundation of our political system. Playing Hegemony shows you not only how politics works in a democracy, but also shows how democracy does not work, and the problems and challenges which any democracy faces. There is no such thing as a perfect political system, and there never will be, for that would assume that every person in the group shares exactly the same thoughts. Our current system is far from perfect, but as with every progress humankind has achieved so far, it will have to continue to rely on trial and error in order to create a political system that is truly best for each of its members.