Niklas Luhmann concludes an article entitled “Gesellschaftliche Komplexilai und offentliche Meinung” (“Social Complexity and Public Opinion”) with the argument that; “political systems of modern societies cannot be understood as a central instance, whose virtues or vices can be observed by the people. Instead of a central instance, we have the continuous observation of the observers, thus the self-referential closure of the system. It goes along with this that the political code no longer depends upon the distinction between power-holders vs. those upon whom power is exercised; rather this is coded on the side of power through the scheme of government/opposition. One has to reduce the concept of democracy to this central point.” Luhmann precedes this paragraph with the observation that this concept of politics “compels one certainly painfully to give up any expectations of rationality and any hopes of a revitalization of a civic republican ‘life.’”