The weakness of democracy is that it dilutes the connection between the income a person earns and the actions he performs to benefit others. The ordinary citizen voting, the ordinary politician choosing a policy, and the ordinary bureaucrat implementing a policy have only weak incentives to act in ways that others would regard as beneficial. This weakness of incentive is the reason why fairly large government failures are able to persist over a long period. However, the fact that a true democracy is a means for individuals to collectively get rid of inefficient policies and officials is a reason to be optimistic. It seems reasonable to expect that in a mature democracy, government failures will be exposed and eliminated if they become too large.
True democracy means more than a right to vote and to be represented by an elected politician.
It includes the right to be free from capricious actions by politicians and bureaucrats. Along with the rule of law comes the right to submit grievances that will be judged on the basis of reasonably predictable general principles of just conduct. In other words, the rule of law includes the right of appeal to principles, as opposed to individuals. True democracy includes the freedom to criticize politicians and bureaucrats without intimidation or subsidized competitors. In the world today, some governments are closer to this ideal than others.