> No, democracy is a creation of class struggle. It is
> _embodied_ in legal forms, but those forms are created
> by political action, not all of it legal or even
> legislative in nature. Sometimes they are created by
> revolution or threat of social unrest.
On the pain of getting too 'esoteric' - I think your concept of 'democracy' is too Platonic - and ideal embodied in concrete forms (legal institutional, etc.). With that assumption, indeed, the rest of your argument makes perfect sense.
My reaction to it is twofold. First, if we take a strictly ontological position (i.e. bracketing out the question whether we have the epistemological faculty to comprehend it) and assume the existence of such an ideal democracy - is not the case that this introduces the concept of "natural law" through the back door? If such an "ideal democracy" exists somewhat independently of the empirical and 'humanly made' form - it is 'natural' - no?
My second reaction is that if we take the position rejecting either the existence of such ideal entities or our capacity to comprehend them - all we are left with is existing democracies which by definition are grounded in a particular legal-institutional order. As a consequence, you argument becomes tautological - laws are grounded in democratic procedures by definition, because no other procedures are possible or rather legitimate under such a system.
Of course that leaves with the question whether such a procedure lead to "better" laws than alternative procedures, assuming the "better" means consistent with popular sensibilities. This is an empirical question. Leaving aside the fact that sensibilities vary and can be manipulated, let me point out the following example: the British monarchy (not a democracy by definition) abolished slavery and slave trade (for self-serving reasons, to be sure) while the democratic United States practiced and fought for it. The "undemocratic" (by US standards) Soviet Union implemented better protection of working people than the "democratic" United States.
To summarize, I do not think I fundamentally disagree with your position - my main concern was to question a popular on the left concept of "just law" existing independently of the actual laws. It might be a crafty rhetorical device pandering to populist sentiments, but logically it does not hold water. Besides, I am philosophically opposed to populism.
Wojtek