[aredox]

That's why we have nowadays Republics, with either written constitutions or fundamental legal texts like Habeas Corpus, not just pure democracies à la antique Athens.

The way out of your conundrum is to admit there is no "the People"; there is a collection of diverging, often incoherent trends, and no voting system is perfect (no voting system is even logical, as proven by Condorcet and Arrow[0])

[0] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/arrows-impossibility-th...

[crazygringo]

I'm using modern terminology. There's no relevant distinction here:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/democracy-and-republ...

The fundamental democratic principle is the same.

And we measure the will of the people in elections, without having to worry about Arrow... it's procedural.

[aredox]

Arrow is not at all "procedural", the French know it well: the 1995 presidential election ended with a Chirac vs Le Pen (the patriarch) duel, even though Lionel Jospin was the favorite and would have beaten both if he had faced them off... A clear example of non-transitivity in elections.

[crazygringo]

That's my point, sorry if it wasn't clear. Non-transitivity is resolved procedurally. We can theorize about Arrow all we want; in the meantime we can write rules that actually do produce electoral results.

[aredox]

My point is that it wasn't resolved: Jospin was the favorite, but the French were forced to choose between two candidates the majority of them loathed. The rules were a failure.

(2002 election, not 1995 - my bad)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_French_presidential_elect...

[aredox]

Sorry, 2002 election.

[tpm]

Even Athens had ostracism, barring ostracised people from running for office.