Well, it never happens at the 49%-51% level, but that’s because there aren’t any countries where 49% of the country is wealthy enough to be worth plundering (see Pareto). Massive redistribution of wealth away from minorities has happened quite a bit, as in Zimbabwe, Haiti, Germany, and others. The various communist revolutions seem to be an example of this, if you allow ‘democracy of the sword’, and I would suspect pogroms are as well, to the extent that property is looted as well as destroyed.
One counterexample is sufficient to break a “never.” To the extent that ‘good’ democracies do not do this, it is not a statement about the incentive structure of democracy, but a statement about the preferences of the voters of that particular polity.
Well, it never happens at the 49%-51% level, but that’s because there aren’t any countries where 49% of the country is wealthy enough to be worth plundering (see Pareto). Massive redistribution of wealth away from minorities has happened quite a bit, as in Zimbabwe, Haiti, Germany, and others. The various communist revolutions seem to be an example of this, if you allow ‘democracy of the sword’, and I would suspect pogroms are as well, to the extent that property is looted as well as destroyed.
I don’t think you have many good examples of democracies there.
One counterexample is sufficient to break a “never.” To the extent that ‘good’ democracies do not do this, it is not a statement about the incentive structure of democracy, but a statement about the preferences of the voters of that particular polity.
Or the details of the exact structure of the democracy which may create relevant incentives.