The four democratic concepts/principles include property relations as one of the major principles of democracy, freedom or liberty, majority as the basic source of decisions which should be treated as sovereign, and equality which can be considered to have different meanings and forms in various theories. Thus, the concept of property can be considered one of the major concepts/principles of democracy contrasted to the condition when there was not right to have property.
Though Mill “insists on educational qualifications” rather than on those related to property, the property can be perceived as a concept that empowers people to make independent decisions. Besides, freedom or liberty should be considered as one of the basic principles of democracy as every individual should be eligible to enjoy rights though the historical context presupposes the liberty as a kind of limitations aimed at restricting rulers or tyrants.
Moreover, the majority as the basic source of decisions which should be treated as sovereign can be treated as one of the basic principles/concepts of democracy because more than one individual should be authoritative and sovereign in terms of decisions made. The power of equality suggests that “A system of markets and private property covering all or most of the resources in society will make it very difficult to ensure the steady application of principles like equality, distribution according to need, or even as some have argued”.
I believe that liberty and property are the most essential principles for democracy because of the historical context in accordance to which a person that has no right to enjoy freedoms is sure to live in anti-democratic society whereas the property is of the same importance because it guarantees individuals the right to be equal with others. Another important concept of democracy is equality that should be treated as a specific attitude to all people regardless of their property, ethnicity, and other differences because the same rights should be equal for all people as well as equal punishment should be exercised in relation to all people in case of violations.
The first concept that is desirable but not essential for democracy is the voting because people can enjoy the right of voting but have no choice in electing this or that individual as a ruler; when a single individual is suggested as a candidate for being a governor, people have no alternative variants to choose. So, the concept of voting helps to maintain the democracy as the one decided and governed by the people. However, this principle can be also treated as the way of manipulating people as examples when the majority elects a monarch presupposes that people have no other choice.
The democratic governance is one of the major demonstrations of democratic principles operation as equal people are free to choose a governor regardless of their ethnicity, race, or social status. When people have private property, they can prove their social status and eligibility of being free and enjoy equal rights with other members of the society. Moreover, voting can be considered an important characteristic of democracy as well as of other regimes that do not exercise the power of decision-making as sovereign for the majority with regard to decisions made by the majority. In this respect, it is necessary to talk about democracy with regard to its principles though including desirable concepts into operation as well as the essential ones.