I think your essay should clearly articulate where you disagree with the democracy consensus.
Oh its just half an essay at this point. I was still describing how the idealized version of this government supposedly works.
I think your essay should clearly articulate where you disagree with the democracy consensus. You discuss tragedy-of-the-commons and state-of-nature arguments, but those are about whether to have government or anarchy, not what form the government should take. That is, a competent absolute monarchy could avoid both problems pretty easily. If that isn't what you intend to discuss, I recommend removing it from the essay.
Maybe no government is better than democratic government, but I do think you have a point. I will assume few people will for now question that we need some kind of government, I will remove it from this essay.
I see the seeds of two distinct arguments against democracy in the essay at this point. First, you might be challenging the idea that what is best for "the People" is best for "the Nation." I think I've read prior comments where you challenge the coherence of the concept consent-of-the-governed, but I'm not sure that this is the argument that you intend make here. If it is, pedantic-Tim says that consent-of-the-governed is a wider concept than democracy, so you should acknowledge your intent to refer to things like the justifications for the Glorious Revolution, which I wouldn't call "democratic." For reference, this is where my disagreements with Moldbug are located.
Overall, I must admit you seem to have a very good idea of where I was going to develop some of my arguments based on (it seems to me at least) not so much data. Considering that in the part of the essay written so far I just wanted to accurately if informally describe educated opinion on how this kind of democracy should work, would you say that I've failed and that I'm making a straw man? Or where the hints and foreshadowing not problematic in this regard?
Your articulation of the argument for democracy is strongly flavored with "I come not to praise Caesar, but to bury him" - and we know how that turned out. Particularly your comment:
My we are on a roll.
Also, you write much less formally in that paragraph than the proceeding ones.
...Considering that in the part of the essay written so far I just wanted to accurately if informally describe educated opinion on how this kind of democracy should work, would you say that I've failed and that I'm making a straw man? Or where the hints and foreshadow
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.