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"The notion that democracy is necessary for industrialization is a myth..."

Interestingly, in England, before the industrial revolution, there was a kind of de facto democracy. The king, or at a more local level, the lord had their way, but when the taxes became oppressive, or whatever, and the peasants had had enough, they rioted. The rioting was apparently more a matter of noise and work stoppage than of violence, but was persistant. Apparently, the reaction of officialdom was tolerant, they took the riots as a sign that they had gone too far and backed off. With the advent of industrialization, such unpredictable disorder was seen as too disruptive for the system and such riots were thereafter forcefully and brutally put down.

A cynic might say that those peasant had more political power than does the voter in a modern "democracy".

I can trace down my source for this, but it will be an effort.

I have read this post I find the debate about democracy interesting but also irelevant. Democracies or Monarchies are merely governments, not idealogy. You can have a free democracy and a free Monarchy, but what you need is for the concepts of Freedom and Individual rights to regain intellectual dominance. This has been acheived but once in the history of mankind, it was called the Age of the enlightenment. The spark of the 18th century fueled the industrial revolution and unparalled prosperity of the 19th, but by the 20th century its intellectual dominance was challenged and defeated resulting in its bloody century. You are indeed right that those who control information, control the world. Well the sheep anyway. Knowledge is power and CNN and the newspapers undoubtably have more power than the President of America. In reality whether you call it democracy, republic or a monarchy. All rule is mob rule, If the masses do not accept your concept be it Capitalism, communism or fuedalism, it won't happen. We simply need to find mediums to get through to them, and the internet will be a worthy tool in this respect. The Bill of Rights is just a scrap of paper today, to most people, because they don't beleive in it anymore.