That sounds nice, but put into practice is, at best, marginally effective.

Democracy is actually quite good on a small scale without the element of compulsion, like your chess club or picking the most able-bodied man to lead the local volunteer fire co.

People are both more familiar with the people being voted for and can see a payoff for voting. There's more chance of dying in a car accident on the way to the polls in the US than of your individual vote mattering though.

Democracy such as in US politics, in comparison, creates a perverse incentive structure where it is more often the most suave liars rising to the top. The millions spent on Super PACs or stroking the media is chump change compared such things as awarding gov't contracts or the power of politicians and unelected bureaucrats to shape industry-changing regulation.

Can we vote out the worst ones? I guess, as long as we are talking about a more legitimate democracy than Russia or Venezuela. Still, even in the US people are going to elect pretty much the same thing every time they switch. There's very little difference between a Romney (or clones) and Obama.

What needs "voted out" is democracy as a whole. I realize that this cuts to the core of most Americans' religious worship of democracy, but hopefully people can at least consider the options—I suggest libertarian anarchy—and educate themselves about some serious criticisms of the system we have. I suspect I am going to get more downvotes than coherent objections, but oh well. See Hans Herman Hoppe's Democracy: The God that Failed or Bryan Caplan's The Myth of the Rational Voter

Marx and Engels are a good place to start if you look for a comprehensive debate against capitalism.

Of course, I would expect Adam Smith and his disertation to say something akin to "we've not seen 'real capitalism'".

Indeed this is what the article concludes. The last paragraph says, Nagel concluded that democracies rarely or never elect the best leaders. Their advantage over dictatorships or other forms of government is merely that they "effectively prevent lower-than-average candidates from becoming leaders."

A republic is all about establishing a reasonably strong mean, back to which a succession of various administrations tends to revert.

Other forms of government allow for much higher variance. You might get a brilliant and benevolent monarch, for instance, but his son might turn out to be incompetent or tyrannical. In which case, sucks to be you. Hopefully the 30-year dice roll turns out better with the next heir.

I would go on to say that, IMO, the most important feature of a democracy is the periodic and orderly transfer of power every X years. Or, to put it another way, the ability to easily get rid of a leader.

Hmmm. The PRC seems to have this down.

I'm not sure if that's a point against you or a point in the PRC's favor.

Does the general population get most of the say in terms of a) who is a candidate and b) the general election? Because I certainly think universal suffrage is extremely important, as well as open elections, and I don't mean to imply that I somehow support the kind of result you get in the PRC. Obviously a real democracy doesn't only have one party, for instance.

I hardly made an exhaustive list of all the parameters of the kind of democracy I like, so try to exercise some judgment...

The PRC is democratic. They filter for eligibility to vote based on your membership standing in The Party.