Often the alternative to giving a democratic government power really is for nobody to have that power, and in many other cases the alternative is for the power to be decentralized, so that many people have some of it.
For example, we might give a democratic government the power to tap everybody's phone calls at once, but if we don't, that doesn't necessarily imply that undemocratic, unelected oligarchs, or anyone else, is tapping everybody's phone calls at once. There might just be nobody who has the power to tap phone calls, as is the case with secure free software running on trustworthy hardware, or there might be many people who have the power to tap only a few phone calls.
And we might give a democratic government the power to assign workers to jobs, for example, as the Soviets did. Alternatively, undemocratic, unelected oligarchs could assign workers to jobs, as in a coal-mining company town; but an additional possibility is that workers and employers, or unions and employers, negotiate with one another, each limiting the power of the other.
We might give a democratic government the power to decide what's for dinner each day, which sounds ridiculous but is exactly the standard practice in kibbutzim and in school lunch programs in democracies. Conceivably, undemocratic, unelected oligarchs could decide what's for dinner each day, though I don't know of any examples; the usual alternative is for each family to decide what's for dinner each day independently, though in many cases this degenerates to an undemocratic, unelected head of household deciding. Often enough, some household members prefer school cafeteria foodoid products to the results, despite having no say in that decision-making process either.
For example, we might give a democratic government the power to tap everybody's phone calls at once, but if we don't, that doesn't necessarily imply that undemocratic, unelected oligarchs, or anyone else, is tapping everybody's phone calls at once. There might just be nobody who has the power to tap phone calls, as is the case with secure free software running on trustworthy hardware, or there might be many people who have the power to tap only a few phone calls.
And we might give a democratic government the power to assign workers to jobs, for example, as the Soviets did. Alternatively, undemocratic, unelected oligarchs could assign workers to jobs, as in a coal-mining company town; but an additional possibility is that workers and employers, or unions and employers, negotiate with one another, each limiting the power of the other.
We might give a democratic government the power to decide what's for dinner each day, which sounds ridiculous but is exactly the standard practice in kibbutzim and in school lunch programs in democracies. Conceivably, undemocratic, unelected oligarchs could decide what's for dinner each day, though I don't know of any examples; the usual alternative is for each family to decide what's for dinner each day independently, though in many cases this degenerates to an undemocratic, unelected head of household deciding. Often enough, some household members prefer school cafeteria foodoid products to the results, despite having no say in that decision-making process either.