Professor C.B. Macpherson of the University of Toronto in Canada – in his well-known work The Life and Times of Liberal Democracy – refers as follows to the importance of these assumptions about human beings when considering political systems:
“To show that a model of a political system or society, existing or not yet existing, but desired, is feasible, that is, so that it can be expected to work well for the long term, some assumptions about human beings must be admitted. , for which and with which one will have to rely. What kind of political conduct are they capable of? This is, of course, a fundamental issue. A political system that would require, for example, that citizens have more rationality or more political zeal than they ostensibly have now, and more than one might expect in any social circumstance, would not deserve much defense.” (C.B. Macpherson. The Life and Times of Liberal Democracy, p. 12; emphasis added)