Thus the typical citizen drops down to a lower level of mental performance as soon as he enters the political field.
He argues and analyses in a way which he would readily recognize as infantile within the sphere of his real interests. He becomes a primitive again. This is strong stuff and what it really entails is that the best we can hope for is what is sometimes called "elective aristocracy" where all that can be asked of the ordinary citizen is that she should be able to recognize people
who are competent to make decisions on her behalf (and to vote them out of office if they prove not to be). Whatever its other virtues, such a system hardly matches the democratic ideal that political authority must rest in the hands of the people as a whole. So what can we say in response to Schumpeter's scepticism? Let us look more closely at what is involved in reaching political decisions.