Understanding democracy as a political system where “power resides with the people,” and going back to the Greek democracies (from the 6th century BC) or the definition of the “Social Contract” by Jean Jacques Rosseau (1712-1778), where many experiences of social organization were inspired by this same principle, it is understandable how this concern has dominated societies worldwide to this day.

Over time, a wide variety of experiences have followed one another in the quest to achieve a model of governmental organization that adequately responds to the needs of group/society life. But the focus should always be on prototypes that allow social groups to grow individually, while simultaneously preventing some from trampling on the designs and objectives of others.

Along the way, based on adjustments on both sides, various formulas have emerged aimed at achieving this goal. However, the cyclical sequence of failures has also discredited these efforts, not only by gradually introducing the notion of some “uselessness” in this attempt… but also by beginning to cast doubt on its necessity —that is, by imposing on society the fulfillment of individual demands for personal growth.

This history is currently (since the end of the 20th century) confronted with the discovery of a deeper motive that drives societies to pursue this goal. It is not, after all, a “whim of more advanced peoples,” but rather a natural law that encompasses all of nature (both organic and inorganic matter).

Discovered by Ilya Prigogine (Prigogine, Ilya; Stengers, Isabelle (1984). Order out of Chaos: Man’s new dialogue with nature. [S.l.]: Flamingo. ISBN 0-00-654115-1) and now referred to as “autopoiesis,” it became clear that the individual’s need to “bring order to chaos” is not a momentary whim.

That is why every human being and possibly every “being” – human or otherwise – including even inorganic matter, according to Prigogine, has as its ultimate goal the encounter with this “final justification of things” and its and our reason for existing.

The diffusion of this responsibility places an obligation on every being, even if unconscious, in their search: and mistakenly, sometimes in the hands of the most powerful—just because they seem more capable of finding it.

But in reality, because of the individuality of each person’s life experiences, EVERYONE can possess this ability, even without knowing it. Hence, there will be more opportunities to find it if this responsibility is distributed among all members of the group, as well as the obligation to seek and listen to it.

Although social practice exercised under the pressure of this goal encounters difficulties when put into operation in today’s complex societies — as it will be more efficient in small communities of interest, where management responsibility is distributed among all, as is already often the case — it is nevertheless a practice that does not yet have the necessary robustness to resist the brutal onslaught of growing totalitarianism, nor the self-confidence of its actors, who lack awareness of their own value.

Therefore, democracies, with their motto “power resides in the people,” cannot be considered a temporary oddity, which some consider urgent to put an end to… but they are something intrinsic to nature, to which we must give an adequate response, preventing the wave of discredit that totalitarian, authoritarian power has always tried to implant.