Over the weekend I have been reading a book about the history of democracy. It's not a book about whether democracy is right or wrong just about how it has evolved over nearly three millenia.
There's a few interesting points.
1. The concept of democracy - in its earliest form what is called 'assembly democracy' - didn't start, as many would have you believe, in Athens but much earlier in Syria and Iran (and doesn't come from 'kratos' meaning rule, and 'demos' meaning people as some will tell you, but more likely from the name of a greek deity).
2. The concept of representative democracy doesn't originate in Britain, once again as many believe, but can be traced back to northern Spain in 1188CE, thirty or so years before Magna Carta.
3. There is a great deal of historical perspective on how the concept of democracy has evolved. Greek assembly democracy relied on decisions being taken unanimously by citizens, which was perhaps the purest form of democracy until you realised that it was extremely time consuming and could only be carried out because citizens excluded most people, especially the slaves who the citizens owned.
4. Representative democracy has evolved over hundreds of years, especially the concept of determining who the franchise should be expanded to (and who it shouldn't). Until relatively recently respected academics were saying that the franchise should be restricted unless the vote should be given to "a crowd of illiterate peasants, freshly raked from Irish bogs, or Bohemian mines, or Italian robber nests'.
5. Elsewhere John Stuart Mill championed the concept of 'plural voting' proportionate to levels of education. An 'ordinary unskilled labourer' should be allowed one vote where a university graduate should be allowed at least six.
The point is that there is not set definition of what democracy should mean or a final version of what it should evolve into, which is why debates around proportional representation and voting age are not only worthwhile but absolutely essential.
One final point, perhaps particularly relevant at the minute.
Democracy is still better than the alternatives and something we should fight for.
In these days of nationalist flag flying, one quote from the book jumps out at you in the words of Benito Mussolini speaking about populism who said “For us the national flag is a rag to be planted on a dunghill. There are only two fatherlands in the world: that of the exploited and that of the exploiters.”
The point is democracy, if properly used, is there to protect society from becoming the exploiters of others on a dunghill of false patriotism.