There are many different ways to look at democracy—one important historical point of view is that the point of democracy is not really to allow coordination to implement policies, but rather to make it impossible to coordinate to implement (unwanted) policies. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature ! In this sense democracy is not really defined by itself, but rather in opposition to what it is not (i.e. some kind of dictature).
An other interesting point of view (probably historically the first) comes from Aristotle. I’ll try to explain it but I’m not an expert on classical political philosophy and English is not my native language so feel free to correct/add clarifications. The main idea is that what makes humans different from animals is their capacity to engage in political activities (note that political here has a slightly different sense than it has today, both more and less restrictive). A democratic society is simply one where citizen can reach the perfection of their humanity by engaging in political action (which is not restricted to voting, campaigning and wielding power—a conversation about politic at a bar is political action in this sense).
What I think is most interesting in both these viewpoints is that they don’t make claim on the efficiency of democracy as a coordination mechanism—in fact, they don’t care about efficiency and coordination at all.
There are many different ways to look at democracy—one important historical point of view is that the point of democracy is not really to allow coordination to implement policies, but rather to make it impossible to coordinate to implement (unwanted) policies. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature !
In this sense democracy is not really defined by itself, but rather in opposition to what it is not (i.e. some kind of dictature).
An other interesting point of view (probably historically the first) comes from Aristotle. I’ll try to explain it but I’m not an expert on classical political philosophy and English is not my native language so feel free to correct/add clarifications.
The main idea is that what makes humans different from animals is their capacity to engage in political activities (note that political here has a slightly different sense than it has today, both more and less restrictive). A democratic society is simply one where citizen can reach the perfection of their humanity by engaging in political action (which is not restricted to voting, campaigning and wielding power—a conversation about politic at a bar is political action in this sense).
What I think is most interesting in both these viewpoints is that they don’t make claim on the efficiency of democracy as a coordination mechanism—in fact, they don’t care about efficiency and coordination at all.