Agreement among various parties on an issue can't not necessarily be guarantee of fairness . We may agree but our agreement is not necessarily fair to us or right in the perspective of moral values. And that's why any agreed law passed by a parliament by the majority even by consensus can't be said to be fair to those whom such laws applies. And so democracy alone can't be guarantee of fairness .
Then what ? Is it not a dangerous situation that even democracy can't guarantee fairness to all? And does this proposition affect the prospect of democracy as the best available edition of governance? These questions require very careful examination to ensure we must have that form which is the best suited to our principle of fairness.
Even the most perfectly agreed law or contract may not bind all people to whom this perfectly agreed law or contract applies to some sort of compulsory obligation. In a representative democracy a law is made by elected representatives of citizens and in the first place such a representative doesn't represent all the voters or even a single voter on all topics discussed in the hall of parliament. Such a representative doesn't represent (a) all the people of his or her constituency and (b) all aspirations and opinions of all the people including those who vote him or her. He/she is elected on the basis of certain promises which are themselves limited in nature and such promises may not actually be part of agreed laws of parliament.
Such an arrangement in a representative democracy limits the role of democracy in meeting with the requirements of fairness to all. Then what are the alternatives? Is Socialism/Communism or fascism an alternative or a referendum based direct democracy or anarchist rule an answer? And another questions which are equally important that is democracy good for large countries or do we need to move from the concept of nation state to the direction of creating a world of stateless societies to ensure fairness to all?
See how the Technology and resultant economy has been affecting the growth of and changes in democracy. Till feudal days when agriculture was the primary technology and trade was highly dependent on it empires under monarchy existed. But with the advent of industrial technology a large part of population started migrating , particularly from one part of the country to the other part and this increased the level of mass aspiration and mass awareness both. So we see the advent of democracy more or less coincided with the first industrial revolution and during second industrial revolution when the gamut of industrialization increased awareness of people increased many folds which is marked with decline of imperialism and rise of new democratic states world wide. But the system of distribution had been lopsided which was shaking the world with the question of fairness to all which resulted in the rise of communism and socialism. Third industrial revolution which was marked by advent of computers and changes in democracies with the efforts of making the democracy more suitable to deal with the question of fairness. This again brought changes in the mode of governance and communist countries succumb to the mass aspirations as in those countries only state version of fairness had place and individuals were reduced to puppets in the hands of states. This accelerated sharp decline in fair treatment to citizens despite the availability of resources and technology in the communist world. On the other hands demands for fairness found stronger voice in democracies throughout the world. Many of those countries which were newly born fell the trap of false promises of fairness made by the emerging rulers of those countries and this gave an impetus to the emergence of dictatorial rule in many newly independent countries. But the fourth industrial revolution has brought enormous opportunity to the genral public and level of information, aspirations and demands increased many fold due to revolution in the field of information and communication technology. But this change in technology has equally benifitted to the rulers as well and they are in better position to spread lies. This has brought fierce competition between masses and rulers world wide. And for the first time question of fairness has become central in all parts of the world. Now the issue of democracy has become issue of fairness and if democracy fails to live up the expectations of fairness there is no wonder in coming years great upheavals may shock many countries of the world and there is every likelihood that ultra right wing and ultra left wing populists , fascists, religious bigots will capture power in the fields of polity , finance and economy and culture in the name of false promises of fairness.
But question of fairness in the context of democracy has lost its momentum as democracy has been being treated as a vehicle of movement of market either in farward direction and in backward. There is no gainsaying that when private players of economy are independent of state power at least in theory they are in a position to stimulate the democracy to act for the masses but in reality in democracy state consumes more power to deliver by her all pervasive character. State in the name of doing social services usurps power of economy and community both and states becoming despotic . State in democracy though shows it's different from totalitarian regimes in reality it dominates economy either by taking of most of the economic activities herself or by regulations . In any case democratic states by their nature become agents of market . On the political front state actors to preserve their privileges strive hard to continue inequality in society as in an unequal society elites have better chance to neglect the interests if the destitute masses. At the same time state and her elite rulers take advantage of the situation and they claim they are doing public services by launching social service schemes. Masses are taught that state is doing something extra for them only due to benevolence . Political rights of masses are lost in the complexities of economy. And the state just enjoys the play of public and private economy although in either case state never gives up her supermacy over market and community.
Under such situations democracy starts crumbling under it's own weight.