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Takes as a starting point Aristotle's cross-tabulation of forms of government, which combines the size of the governing body (one, few, many) with the purpose of the governing (in the governors' interest or in the interest of all). Among the six possible combinations, the discussion rules out those which are unrealistic &/or undesirable. This exclusionary process selects two governmental forms for comparison: government by experts (the equivalent of Aristotle's "aristocracy," ie, government of few in the interest of all) & democracy. The comparison counts both intrinsic & instrumental value of these governmental forms. Expert government's instrumental & intrinsic values are circumscribed. Democracy's instrumental value is overrated. The intrinsic value of democracy is theoretical equality of its citizens to influence their government. While this equality may be flawed in practice, no alternative form of government seems better than democracy. 18 References. Adapted from the source document.

In The Economic Prerequisite to Democracy, Dan Usher tries to prove that capitalism is necessary for the survival of democracy, defined as majority rule by means of a popularly-elected legislature. Usher assumes that this survival requires general agreement both on the legislative majority-rule method and on certain substantive issues. This assumption turns out to be doubtful. Usher believes that the issues most likely to provoke serious disagreement are 'assignment' issues; that is, those issues which involve the stability of the positions assigned to individuals in the economic rank order. Some of his reasons for this belief do not seem valid, although the belief is somewhat plausible. Usher asserts that to prevent serious disagreement from disrupting legislative majority rule, assignment issues must be largely decided by a 'system of equity'. Usher's reasoning here is unconvincing. Finally, Usher states that (the present form of) capitalism is the only practicable system of equity. This statement is open to doubt. Usher has not proved that capitalism is necessary for the survival of democracy. One implication of Usher's argument is that major reassignment by the legislature will be strongly opposed by the economically superior ranked. Another is that some of the most important issues—assignment issues—should be largely kept out of the legislative majority decision; in other words, democracy must be curtailed in order to survive.