This is indeed not a new question. The Economist is currently running a series on classical liberal values. From a piece on John Stuart Mill: > Democracy itsel

This is indeed not a new question. The Economist is currently running a series on classical liberal values. From a piece on John Stuart Mill: > Democracy itself threatened the free exchange of ideas in a different way. Mill thought it right that ordinary people were being emancipated. But once free to make their own choices, they were liable to be taken in by prejudice or narrow appeals to self-interest. Give the working classes a vote, and chaos could result. > The upshot was frightening. Paradoxically individual freedom could end up being more restricted under mass democracy than under the despotic sovereigns of yore. Mill famously refers to this as “tyranny of the majority”. But he worries just as much about middle-class “respectable” opinion as working-class ignorance. https://www.economist.com/schools-brief/2018/08/04/against-the-tyranny-of-the-majority https://www.economist.com/schools-brief/2018/08/04/against-t...