Quoting Russell Coker (russell@coker.com.au):
Democracy doesn't achieve it's goals as well as it should.
There is also death and taxes. (I personally doubt that Death is even an anthopomorphic representation who speaks in dry witticisms phrased in all capital letters, but a man can dream.)
There's a big difference between a shop owner closing up shop and people starving to death in the Irish Potato Famine.
A propos of nothing in particular, the Potato Famine resulted in about 3 million additional Britons, Yanks, and Aussies, just as the Highland Closures resulted in a large number of Canadians in the maritime provinces and residents of the US Appalachian region. The effect on Ireland of the Famine was so dire that the island's population still has not recovered, and may never reach that point again.