[bilbo0s]

>For other systems, mistakes result in people suffering or dying in masses...

Well, just trying to be evenhanded here, but even for democracies, people will suffer and die in masses due to mistakes. I'm American, and in the US we had slavery. Which I believe qualifies as a mistake for which people suffered and died in masses. (Though in some parts of the US that certainly may not be the consensus view.)

In my opinion, the great virtue of any democracy is not that it can correct its mistakes. (Indeed, oftentimes many democratic governments will not correct their mistakes.) Rather the great virtue of democracy is that a democratic people always get exactly the government they deserve. For good or for ill.

[pjc50]

Does rather raise the distinction between "democracy" in which only some people have the vote and a "liberal democracy" which widens the franchise as far as possible, includes guarantees on basic rights of minorities against majoritarianism, and so on.

By that reckoning, America wasn't a democracy until 1964.

[luckylion]

You could argue that modern liberal democracies just hide the ugly parts, not necessarily end them.

Whether you have your neighbors working 16 hour shifts in your factory or you have people in Bangladesh work 16 hour shifts in your factory doesn't really make a large difference: you're still making people work 16 hour shifts in your factory, only different people.