Assets can be inherited, can democracy?

A new study by the Economist Intelligence Unit ranks the US as a flawed democracy, with a score of 7.98 out of 10. Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Ireland and the Scandinavian countries top the list with near perfect scores. The drop in rank for the US started from 9/11, according to the Pew Research Centre. People have lost faith in their institutions. Maybe, that is why they voted for Trump, because he is completely from outside the establishment. India seems to be ranked the same as the US, which is a puzzle. Marks are awarded according to 5 parameters: electoral process and pluralism; civil liberties; the functioning of government; political participation and political culture. India will score top marks in electoral process and pluralism, mainly because of the work done by our Election Commission. One of the reasons why people in the US are losing trust in their government is because of the growing inequality. The chart shows its Gini coefficient higher than that of India, which is puzzling because the International Monetary Fund warned that our Gini index has risen from 45 in 1990 to 51 in 2013. Political participation is limited to casting votes every 5 years but no ordinary person has a hope of standing or winning a seat in assembly or parliament. Parties choose criminals as candidates because they have the money and the goons to win seats. People vote for them in the belief that since all politicians are corrupt it is better to have one's own villain in power and possibly, a criminal will be able to extract services from crooked civil servants, who demand bribes for every service. But the biggest obstacle to a clean polity are the families who are in control of political parties through a system of patronage and extreme sycophancy. Power passes down succeeding generations, without any test of competence. It started with the Congress reverence for the Nehru-Gandhi family and spread to other parties. Dynasty politics is not restricted to India but voters in the US recently rejected both Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton. Civil liberties depend on the legal and judicial system which is deliberately slow, so as to allow criminals to bribe or threaten witnesses into denying any knowledge of the crime. Functioning of our government is dictated by the need to win elections. Since the poor are in the majority they are bought with various tricks. The Congress used farmers' loan waiver, Nitish Kumar promised complete prohibition of alcohol while Modi resorted to demonetization, apparently to distribute black money among the poor. Cass R Sunstein cites Friedrich Hayek who wrote that the government must be tied to rules or else people suffer. At least an independent candidate in UP is honest. He said that he wants to win to make money. Don't they all?