As far as I can tell, democratic governments largely work by people promising benefits that they have no intention of implementing (or sometimes, that make no logical sense) in order to get elected. Another tried and tested way to get ahead in a democracy is by convincing one segment of your population that another, usually less powerful segment is out to get them. It's been incredibly unstable in the short slice of historical time in which it's been tried.

The best feature of democracy is that they give an illusion of empowerment. You voted for someone put forward by a hundred thousand person organization, who maybe went on to get a job in an organization of several million people. So isn't that a government "by the people"? Yes, the real strength of democratic government is that it is good at propaganda.

In a company, where real results matter, resources are finite, and customers have alternatives, it is almost never used. This is despite the fact that most Western Europeans (and descendants) think democracy is the best form of organization ever. There's a reason for this.

This is precisely the reason that some geeks advocate turning government into a hierarchical corporate model, run by shareholder democracy - is the form of organization universally chosen when results matter[1]

[1] http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/07/why-whe...