Is this biased reporting?

[Occhidiangela]

And Democracy could work on a large scale provided the effort to develop such a system was ever put in place. It has NEVER been attempted. So, to say it can't work when that system has never existed is, at best, an incomplete argument.
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Replace Democracy with Communism in that statement and you get "it has never been achieved" (since it has been attempted) if everyone put the effort into it." This of course requires "everyone" to agree, a thorny problem, and that gets us back to Pete's point about Anarchy requiring everyone to agree to follow the rules, and that takes us back to the problems of Utopian ideals in general running afoul of the imperfectability of Man.

So, we are left with "what has so far achieved the 'good enough' standard?" So far, autocracy, oligarchy, plutocracy, and absolutism have achieved some successes in some cultures, albeit at some cost to the average citizen, while republics achieve other successes with different associated costs.

Which system goes furthest to balance the needs of the citizen with the needs of his fellow citizens? I'd say the mythical "enlightened despotism," which requires the rarest of creatures, an enlightened and just despot, and republican forms of government, which vary. (A generation from now, the world may be marveling at the success of the Islamic Republic in Iran, depending on how it evolves.)

Democracy holds the trap of the tyranny of the majority, which in a non homogenous society (be it culturally or racially) spells out "it stinks to be you" for the minority.

Occhi