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By the early 1990s, thinkers and politicians alike hailed 'the End of History', confidently asserting that all the big political and economic questions of the past had been settled, and that the refurbished liberal package of democracy, human rights, free markets and government welfare services remained the only game in town.

In the 20th century, writers like H.G. Wells talked of a "world brain". Democracy, in a sense, could be thought of as a collective wisdom. Economists have tried to describe the stock market as basically a collective intelligence system.

Winston Churchill famously said that democracy is the worst political system in the world, except for all the others.

Referendums and elections are always about human feelings, not about human rationality. If democracy were a matter of rational decision-making, there would be absolutely no reason to give all people equal voting rights - or perhaps any voting rights. There is ample evidence that some people are far more knowledgeable and rational than others, certainly when it comes to specific economic and political questions.