Is it a representative democracy with secrecy laws? Then no.

There is no democracy on this planet because all democracies are representative democracies. In representative democracies the politicians are not representative of the people, but they promise to do things a certain way, and if people elect them for it, that’s like indirect representation.
However this breaks down as soon as secrecy laws are put in place, because if the government or private companies can decide which knowledge will reach the people, and which will not, they will simply declare information that will upset their voters to be secret. This breaks all representative democracies.

I agree on all of this, but were books different (except for surveillance)?

• Back then those authors that wrote books with messaging supporting the owner class received loads of coverage from their media andtherefore spread their propaganda far and wide. While the average Joe could write whatever they want, nobody was able to see it (until now with social media), because printing is timeconsuming and expensive, and marketing even more so.
• Back then fascists spread their ideas in books, today they do on social media. In both cases supported by the money of the 1%.
• Back then only politically active people were surveilled, now it is everyone. This is a big change.
• Back then entertainment was inexpensive, now it is basically free.

Also that's not really the point the article is making. They say that simply reading books makes you smarter. As if people read physics books in their freetime back then. No, they just read entertaining stories, and now they stream entertaining stories. Nothing has fundamentally changed. Back then Oil made you part of the owner class, now it's IT and the owning of marketplaces.

I feel like we are headed to some sort of collective that im going to be outside of.

Lol at thinking this could ever end up resulting in a "collective" of any type. This shit is explicitly meant to do the exact opposite of that.

Representative democracy is a type of democracy. You're not doing anyone any favors by conflating "direct democracy" and "democracy".

Though somehow, I feel like you know exactly what you're doing...

You're also ignoring the massive rise in literacy rates as compared to when books were new. Most people simply could not read them.

We have a lot of registers and depending on the licence the company or person receives it will be made public. Things like building changes, export of live animals etc. You can look some up over here: https://www.nvwa.nl/onderwerpen/erkenningen-registraties-en-vergunningen/overzicht-bedrijven-met-erkenningen-registraties-en-vergunningen

Weapon licences go through the police instead of the government itself https://www.justis.nl/producten/wet-wapens-en-munitie/een-ontheffing-op-de-wet-wapens-en-munitie-aanvragen-bij-justis the office of justice needs to sign it off it seems.

So it just works differently, if you would want to pass a law that changes how those licences are signed, it would be known, and you wouldn't be the person signing it. The office of justice would be, and probably it is checked multiple times before it even gets there that it isn't financing terrorism or something which is illegal according to the WWFT and some other laws.

Pretty sure a journalist is allowed to write about anything and everything https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/media-en-publieke-omroep/persvrijheid-bewaken there are probably some exceptions on things like kids etc, but a public spokesperson doesn't have that anyway.

This law goes on about the open government: https://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0045754/2025-07-01
And there are multiple parties who try and keep businesses somewhat in check (like accountants, the fiod, etc.)

So if you would try and pull this off in The Netherlands you would have a hard time doing it and I doubt you can do it without somebody being a whistleblower.

We have a lot of registers and depending on the licence the company or person receives it will be made public. Things like building changes, export of live animals etc. You can look some up over here: https://www.nvwa.nl/onderwerpen/erkenningen-registraties-en-vergunningen/overzicht-bedrijven-met-erkenningen-registraties-en-vergunningen

Weapon licences go through the police instead of the government itself https://www.justis.nl/producten/wet-wapens-en-munitie/een-ontheffing-op-de-wet-wapens-en-munitie-aanvragen-bij-justis the office of justice needs to sign it off it seems.

So it just works differently, if you would want to pass a law that changes how those licences are signed, it would be known, and you wouldn't be the person signing it. The office of justice would be, and probably it is checked multiple times before it even gets there that it isn't financing terrorism or something which is illegal according to the WWFT and some other laws.

Pretty sure a journalist is allowed to write about anything and everything https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/media-en-publieke-omroep/persvrijheid-bewaken there are probably some exceptions on things like kids etc, but a public spokesperson doesn't have that anyway.

This law goes on about the open government: https://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0045754/2025-07-01
And there are multiple parties who try and keep businesses somewhat in check (like accountants, the fiod, etc.)

So if you would try and pull this off in The Netherlands you would have a hard time doing it and I doubt you can do it without somebody being a whistleblower.

For me democracy means rule of the people.
Of course you can define words as you want, and say that only direct democracy is rule of the people, while representative democracy can be oligarchy dressed as democracy, but for me using such a definition makes the word democracy meaningless and undesirable.

Yeah, this is me defining words, and not established definitions that have literally been in use for hundreds of years