Acceptable Aternative to Democracy?

Mary Beard asks that question in What's an acceptable alternative to democracy? at her A Don's Life blog. Here is the point of her argument:

"To be honest, I wouldn’t have fancied living under an oligarchy, especially if I was poor and so firmly excluded from that particular political process (I know, as a woman I’d have been excluded from every kind of ancient political system – but I’m leaving that on one side just for the moment). And I wouldn’t much have fancied getting caught up in the civil wars that periodically broke out between oligarchs and democrats. But having some viable alternative did at least keep democracy on its toes – and it kept “democracy” meaning something."

I do recommend reading the whole article. She makes great points about how we misuse the word democracy aned how that is playing out in current events. She does so without mentioning the slippery made of democracy by George W. Bush and/or Richard Cheney, or how we confuse the term republic with democracy. Do read the comments, too.

One other thing: what if we chose our presidential candidates by lottery instead of election. Something that came to mind while reading the article.