Was it? Who stated this? Whose purpose? The Pope may have had one view of the purpose of monarchy, the king who had just slaughtered his way to the throne another, and the peasants who were sick of all the fighting something else. Which of them gets to choose the purpose of monarchy?
You were the one that was using a definition of democracy that it was about purpose and arguing with me that the purpose of democracy being about the "will of the people" was "definitional".
You said this:
What did you mean that "realizing the will of the electorate - is essential"? If it is just a restatement of your definition, then it doesn't seem to have any additional information content, and I don't see how stating a definition refutes my claim that in practice democracy does not and can't reflect the will of the people in any useful degree.
I realise I am uncertain about something important here. Maybe the word "useful" is the key one in that last paragraph. What do you mean by "the will of the people? If the people got to vote on which of two people would rule them, but both of them represented views wildly at odds with the population - say it's Portland and they are offered the choice between two neo-Nazis.... would that in any sense be the will of the people? How about if they were choosing between two people they knew nothing about? If they held a referendum in North Korea where the people voting had no access to outside information, would that referendum usefully reflect the "will of the people"? What does "the will of the people" mean and how does representing it make society happy and peaceful?
You are the one who started talking about purpose. If we are just talking about what the thing does rather than it's purpose, then I disagree with your definition of democracy. Democracy does not give power to the people, or the will of the people in anything but a notional sense.
