Democracy in a simplest form means ‘rule by the people’. Although liberals are in full support of democracy, they recognise some dangers within democracy. This has been noticed a long time ago by political theorists like Plato or Aristotle; they saw democracy as a threat because they perceived it as ‘rule by the masses’. Democracy allows individuals to have choice and their say. This is done by letting the electorate to have a vote. An individual votes for the party which will represent them in the best way. Democracy can also bring freedom. It gives people the option to choose. These are not acceptable under a repressive government or in a case where there is no government at all. The biggest fear in democracy is the fact that individuals may lose their rights as well as freedom. Although democracy is the fairest way of electing the state, the government can crush someone else’s freedom. This is because if the state becomes too powerful, it can crush someone’s liberties.
The individualism in liberalism is very crucial. Every individual plays an important role in this ideology. Individualism is the belief in supreme importance of the individual over any social group or collective body. The fear for liberals is that it can become the enemy for individual liberty. Due to individuals having different views and ideas which can lead to a conflict, however, the democratic solution for this is to go with the majority. This has been mentioned by Alexis de Tocqueville. He describes it as the ‘tyranny of the majority’. This could lead to individual’s liberty being crushed because of the majority. For example nazi Germany and its ideas about jews.
Liberals give priority to freedom as they believe it’s the supreme value for an individual. However, some had
