99.9% of the all the humans in history had no say in their government.
Even today, most people in the world have never voted in a real election.
I think the speaker’s general point (that democracy is rare and precious) is valid, but I’m interested in giving the specific statistics the full SDMB vetting. He did not define his terms, so I will:
“say in government” = ability to vote for change of administration, more or less.
“most people in the world today” = competent adults
“real election” = multiple candidates and/or parties with reasonable chances of winning, and who would be able/allowed to serve if they won.
My own guess is that both are exaggerations. But it might come down to voter turnout rates in India.
I agree that he’s exaggerating to make a valid point.
Arbitrarily define the collective total of human population in history as 60,000,000,000 (most estimates put it lower). His figure would mean that only 600,000,000 people have ever experienced democracy. The current combined population of the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the Western European nations exceed that figure. And if you wanted to go beyond that, you could add in the historical populations of those countries or expand your definition of democracy to a reasonable level and encompass many more nations.