The New State by Mary Parker Follett — Read

If many people have defined democracy as liberty and equal rights, others have defined it as "the ascendancy of numbers," as "majority rule. " Both these definitions are particularistic. Democracy means the will of the whole, but the will of the whole is not necessarily represented by the majority, nor by a two-thirds or three-quarters vote, nor even by a unanimous vote; majority rule is democratic when it is approaching not a unanimous but an integrated will. We have seen that the adding of similarities does not produce the social consciousness; in the same way the adding of similar votes does not give us the political will. We have seen that society is not an aggregation of units, of men considered one by one; therefore we understand that the will of the state is not discovered by counting.65 This means a new conception of politics: it means that the organization of men in small, local groups must be the next form which democracy takes. Here the need and will of every man and woman can appear and mingle with the needs and wills of all to produce an all-will. Thus will be abolished the reign of numbers.

A crude view of democracy says that when the working-people realize their power they can have what they want, since, their numbers being so great, they can outvote other classes. But the reason the working-people have not already learned something so very obvious is because it is not true -- we are never to be ruled by numbers alone.