Is believing both democracy and capitalism are both the best systems contradictory?

Where have you ever encountered a democracy?

Democracy is a form of government. Capitalism is an economic system (and so is Socialism, for that matter). You are comparing apples and oranges.

Yes :)
Democracy is “mob rule”.Capitalism upholds individual rights.Contracts are entered into freely and coercion has no place.

@laureth Where is democracy a form of government? Not even in Cub Scouts.

Not all businesses are run on a hierarchical model. Some provide employees with lots of freedom and say in the way the business is run. Not all democracies keep tyranny away. Think Russia.

The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. Democracy and Capitalism are big word. They hold a lot. What happens on the ground is usually quite different from the theoretical model. Beware of making sweeping generalizations. Look at China, where socialism and capitalism coexist fairly happily.

There is more than one way to manage capitalism. There is more than one way to organize a democracy.

There hasn’t been a direct democracy in the world since ancient Greece. The USA and all democratic governments in the world today are democratic republics, where the people elect representatives to make decisions and run the government. As far as I know, there has never been a large business enterprise run as a direct democracy.

As @laureth notes, comparing the system of government to the economic model is comparing apples and oranges.

But since you did, I would say that in a democratic republic, if the majority of the electorate favors a particular form of economic order and consistently elects representatives who support that economic system, then there is nothing inconsistent in the that.

I’m stuck at “capitalism = tyranny”.

That premise has been dismissed so, moving on:
Democracy is a model for political representation where capitalism is an economic model.
So yes the two can and have existed in parallel for over 200 years.

They are not the same thing. One is a system of government, the other is an economic system.

They are two very different things that do not exit within the same framework – they entirely separate.

@cbloom8
So having a dictator rule over you isn’t always bad?

@dpworkin – Whether or not a pure Democracy is currently in use in the world, that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a form of government. (It’s very, very hard for a population of significant size to be run as a direct democracy simply because of logistics – although some town hall meetings in New Hampshire are pretty darn close.)

Love your ID, Tripe.

Turbo capitalism can become dangerous but democracies are able to keep it in check. Businesses which implement tyranny models lose against competitors who empower all their people.