Do any modern western governments truly represent the interests of their people? They're all suffering from fragmentation and discord. Without high trust culture, they end up balkanizing their people and being ruled by oligarchs.

I think the non representative democracy the US initially was worked well (as history can attest to). Fully representative leaves you with demagogues (as the current day can attest to).

> history

There have been plenty of good kings who saw it their duty to see to their people. This is more or less the default for how humans operate (families, tribes, businesses, etc.).

> present day monarchies

There are not any left in western society that I'm aware of, so there's a bit of a sampling bias.