Perhaps it would be more useful to consider "least bad" over a reasonable period of time. That is to say, there are probably times when, due to the factors you

Perhaps it would be more useful to consider "least bad" over a reasonable period of time. That is to say, there are probably times when, due to the factors you mention, the people steer democracy to do something bad that a strong dictator or group of elders would not have done. However, over a given period of time, it's likely that a democracy does less bad things then the alternatives.