I guess I should have said: what's the advantage of democracy over some more authoritarian scheme, if not a higher degree of "power to the people" as you put it

I guess I should have said: what's the advantage of democracy over some more authoritarian scheme, if not a higher degree of "power to the people" as you put it? If diffusion of power isn't fundamentally worthwhile (and there's certainly a defensible position that it isn't) it seems the important question is whether Western liberal democracy is worth the trouble in the first place.