Neither true democracy nor its opposite would be tolerable, but the rule of a few would seem to be acceptable to most, even if the cost is the loss of liberty and freedom.

The best that can be hoped for and achieved is some semblance of a representative form of government in which power is spread so widely that the resulting structure is too weak to cause a great deal of harm. (Americans, reference the Articles of Confederation, a charter thrown in the garbage because it did not sufficiently centralize power in a national government.)

I can do without democracy. Give me liberty, instead.

Mathematical economist Kenneth Arrow proved (in 1952) that there is NO consistent method of making a fair choice among three or more candidates using a preferential voting method . This remarkable result assures us that there is no single preferential election procedure that can always fairly decide the outcome of an election that involves more than two candidates or alternatives. This result does not apply to nonpreferential voting systems.

Have you been reading my CV? ;)

I think it’s because there probably isn’t an “answer”, just constantly shifting trade-offs between the benefits and drawbacks of any approach.

IMO, the ideal government would be an absolute monarchy ruled over by someone wise, incorruptible, totally benevolent and altruistic, either omni-competent or able to simulate omni-competence through perceptive use of many advisors. There appears, however, to be a severe shortage of such people on this planet – maybe none? – and the very few folks I’ve heard of who might even approach that ideal, are the types who would run away in horror and hide if you tried to set them up as ruler over anything.

In the meantime, democracy may be a mess, but at least it’s occasionally entertaining (in between bouts of being infuriating).

Trapped between a rock and a hard place – tyranny of the majority, or tyranny of the minority.