ABSTRACT
We have observed, in dealing with 'liberty' and 'equality', that though a word may be descriptively ambiguous, it may still have the same prescriptive force in the different contexts in which it is used. The unanimity recorded in (i) indicates that 'democracy' is now a term of approval in practically every context; to call an idea, an institution, or a decision 'democratic' is implicitly to commend it. A hundred years ago, the word 'democracy' could still be used pejoratively; but its prestige was fairly generally established by the end of the First World War. The Fascists and Nazis of the 1930s did, indeed, attempt to reverse the tendency, and used 'democracy' as a term of abuse; but the victory of the self-styled 'democracies' in the Second World War seems to have made it a propaganda asset which no party can afford to surrender to its opponents.
