The thing is, you are mistaken in thinking the countries you mentioned are democracies (except for India; I'm not really sure what things are like over there). They might call themselves that, but they are effectively plutarchies (plutocracy/oligarchy). All power and all wealth is in the hands of a small number of people. In fact, nowadays even nation-states are irrelevant at the highest levels of power. Goldman Sachs already owned America, now it's slowly but surely adding Greece, Italy and the rest of Europe to its list of assets. They cause untold amounts of suffering around the world to enrich themselves. You've heard about rising food prices? Engineered by speculators at "financial institutions" like Goldman. Rising price of oil? Same story. So the theoretical shortcoming of the majority oppressing the minority isn't really seen in most "democracies". It's the opposite, it's just that most of the population is too myopic to see it. Without taqwa, power corrupts, so even if the leaders in a democracy are initially elected, they will soon began to collude with other powerful individuals to consolidate their power. People vote for candidates who are barely distinguishable from each other. And because the populace is so stupid and uneducated, they continue with the charade term after term. iPad and Hollywood is the new panem et circenses from which they extract themselves long enough every few years to vote for whoever is getting the most media attention. Edit: Just re-read your second post, Maripat. I guess we're on the same page.