D. Stephen Heersink wrote:

>...  Well, democracy sucks.  Plato, who rarely got things right, certainly
>identified the problems attendant to a democracy, ...

As I recall, he had some quite restrictive ideas as to what constitutes
suitable music, but I lack the interest to check it out.

>Most great composers did not compose their masterpieces in the vacuums of
>a democracy, but in the aristocratic of the State.  ...

It's true that some great music was written under the sponsorship of
some powerful patron, sometimes secular, sometimes clerical, but not all.
Tchaikowsky, J.S.  Bach, Haydn sub Esterhazy, and Wagner come to mind.
But much of Mozart's finest music was written despite the absence of a
patron.  Neither Beethoven nor Brahms, so far as I know, composed under
the protection of any patrons.  Ditto, Verdi.  And Bartok and Stravinsky.
Other can extend this list.

Walter Meyer