What is wrong with democracy? Possibly quite a lot, as it turns out. This section presents some of the arguments against democracy and in favor of elite rule.

It might seem self-evident that democracy is the least bad form of government, but history indicates otherwise. The vast majority of civilizations have been ruled by the one or the few; the many have governed only a handful of states over thousands of years, and almost all of them quickly failed. There must be some good reasons for this, beyond the cynic’s version of the golden rule.

Democracy is not the only defensible choice for a government, and it might not be the best choice in all circumstances. Other systems might be superior to democracy, or at least better suited to accomplish certain goals.

That assorted authoritarians, aristocrats, and politically ambitious religious leaders have their own reasons to disparage democracy goes almost without saying. But there is also an impressive list of serious political thinkers who consider democracy impossible, undesirable, unjust, or even absurd – including Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Confucius, Hobbes, Lenin, Mao, and Khomeini.