Representative democracy isn't just about the difficulty of arranging a plebiscite for every single decision the legislature would make. At some point, the elec

Representative democracy isn't just about the difficulty of arranging a plebiscite for every single decision the legislature would make. At some point, the electorate of a democratic society has to delegate decision-making. Legislatures name committees to originate, review and flesh out bills, and even those bills tend to consist of authorization and funding to hire people to coordinate particular tasks ("bureaucracy"). In the fantasy version of direct democracy, every decision there is to be made is a clear yes or no on an easily defined question ("Do we invade Iraq?"). In such a system, the power would end up belonging to the people who write and pose the questions. Look at the history of the initiative system in the US for an idea of what that looks like even on a limited scale -- the potential for graft, corruption, incompetence, and capture by special interests makes the current system look like rule by benevolent genius saints.