But some of the benefits, especially those that rely on checks and balances within the system, do not apply to direct democracies in which simple majority opinion can result in decision making that is every bit as rash as in autocracies. Direct democracies should tend to do better than autocracies, therefore, but not as well as republics. It is republics, or what we today call democracies, that should benefit from the full range of democratic advantages.
