I agree with you btw the egalitarian utopia that democracy solves all problems is very questionable. I might say a democracy with a strong constitution and institutuions can do well, but that is more of a republic.
Want to know something scary.. since 1950 every nation that went from third world to first, was a right wing dictatorship.
Democracy equates with a free society, only where you have a dominant affluent class and a fair measure of homogeneity. Without those, it rapidly degenerates into victimization of selective minorities; a vehicle for the worst forms of demogoguery. (See Democracy In The Third World.)
William Flax