The ancient Greek, who invented the word "democracy" (δημοκρατία / dēmokratía), would disagree with your understanding of it. Aristoteles divided forms of gove

The ancient Greek, who invented the word "democracy" (δημοκρατία / dēmokratía), would disagree with your understanding of it. Aristoteles divided forms of government benefiting their rulers into tyrannies, oligarchies, and democracies as follows: one, few, many. (Analogous to these three you have monarchy, aristocracy, and polity, which are to the benefit of all). Many here does not mean everyone, otherwise you would have to let children and non-citizens vote as well. However in a later chapter he does break things down further and, for instance, establishes a spectrum ranging from polity to democracy. However the most extreme form of democracy on that spectrum would be unrecognizable to you: Every free citizen is the government, only slaves aren't. There are no laws. If that sounds like nonsense to you, it is. He was mostly firing shots at athen's democracy and not really be fair at all. Also do note that here democracy is the selfish variant of polity, and would thus is considered the "bad kind", inferior to even monarchy and aristocracy, but still preferable to oligarchy and tyranny.