Democracy is not there to be effective. It was meant to be a sociopath shredder, a wannabe kings and nobles grinder. But they reached critical mass and defanged the tax system, the most important containement vessel.
That's not true. Democracy is an end in and of itself, a system of government that at its best accurately reflects the will of the people. Preventing tyranny is a means to an end (preserving democracy) not the final goal.
And democracy is most certainly not a sociopath shredder. It runs on the power hungry. There are just supposed to be enough checks and balances to prevent any one person or minoritarian cabal from amassing too much power.
The world's democratic governments tax and spend a greater % of GDP than ever before. The last time we were in this ballpark was in WW2.