[penrod]

The more positions are elected, the more power the majority have to impose upon minorities.

It is well known that pure democracy does not invariably promote liberal society, which is why the Founders of the US Constitution specifically rejected majoritarianism.

[Natsu]

And yet we call systems that are ruled by very small minorities "dictatorships" so it's not something you can optimize in one direction, as it's one thing to protect minorities and something else for minorities to order everyone else around.

I have not seen any clear indication that the Founders collectively had anything against majorities per se, though, or even that they were trying to promote a liberal society (at least for any modern meaning of that word), as they simply required super-majority rules for more fundamental changes (e.g. changes to the Constitution) and seem to me more concerned that a minority of people in power could not do everything on their own, though I think there was some debate on that between the Federalists and those opposed to them.

[ameister14]

That's not accurate.

The 'tyranny of the majority' issue is not really one that concerned the founders of the U.S. as much as people think, particularly not while they were drafting the Constitution.

They were more worried that if you give everyone the right to vote, they would rationally vote in their own best interests in the short term, choosing to seize all property held by the landowners.

I also don't know that it's all that "well known that pure democracy does not invariably promote liberal society." There weren't then and aren't now many examples of pure democracy. Hell, at the time there weren't all that many examples of Republics.

[oceanstone]

Merriam Webster defines `pure democracy` as "democracy in which the power is exercised directly by the people rather than through representatives".

As you can see, electing representatives is not the same as pure democracy.