Democracy, Welfare, Power

Implicit in the Preamble are two theses--that General Welfare is a worthy goal, and that Democracy is the best means to it.  Now, one argument against the former thesis is that it could come at the expense of some Individual Welfare, but, a modification that accommodates that potential--reformulation of the goal as Maximum Welfare--is still subject to the charge that Welfare is a passive condition.  That passivity only strengthens the argument against the latter thesis--that some other system, e. g. a benevolent  Monarchy, can better deliver the General Welfare.  Avoiding both these arguments is a shift of emphasis from Welfare to Power, and to accordingly present Democracy as the potentially most powerful system, because it is the most diversified, i. e. as having at its disposal the broadest range of ability, intelligence, etc.  Such a concept of Democracy requires two alterations of some common opinions--first, that Goods such as food, shelter, etc., have value as a means to Action, not vice versa, and, second, that the members of a society are more or less diverse parts of the whole, not unrelated atoms that happen to be associated spatio-temporally.   Those alterations are entailed in the initial "We" of the passage, but its authors do not make them as explicit as they might have.