“solution to government” means “solution to the problem of how organise society”.
If “except for all the others” only includes those that have been tried, then I mostly agree. But if it includes all possible forms of social organisation, I strongly disagree. The idea that we’ve reached the best solution and it barely works is similar to the idea that we will never solve death. Either of those could be true, but there is not nearly evidence to stop us from trying.
With the death problem, we can characterize the nature of the problem, list out subproblems, list out causal contributors, and attack them one by one.
With “how to organize society”, people disagree on the criterion for forming a component of the problem. Conflicting interests are the basic building-block of politics.
If “except for all the others” only includes those that have been tried, then I mostly agree.
The original wording of that quote indeed was “No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”
The word “solution” has too much of engineering / hard sciences connotations for my liking.
Organising society is a process and the criteria of what can be considered a successful one are not stable on historic time scale unless you want to take the social darwinism approach.
“solution to government” means “solution to the problem of how organise society”.
If “except for all the others” only includes those that have been tried, then I mostly agree. But if it includes all possible forms of social organisation, I strongly disagree. The idea that we’ve reached the best solution and it barely works is similar to the idea that we will never solve death. Either of those could be true, but there is not nearly evidence to stop us from trying.
With the death problem, we can characterize the nature of the problem, list out subproblems, list out causal contributors, and attack them one by one.
With “how to organize society”, people disagree on the criterion for forming a component of the problem. Conflicting interests are the basic building-block of politics.
The original wording of that quote indeed was “No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”
Hmm, yeah, I thought I remembered that quote having such a clause.
The word “solution” has too much of engineering / hard sciences connotations for my liking.
Organising society is a process and the criteria of what can be considered a successful one are not stable on historic time scale unless you want to take the social darwinism approach.
You’re right, “solution” has too much finality to it. How about “approach” as a replacement word that doesn’t break the grammar above?
Sure, “approach” will work.