Well … considering what the alternatives are, I'd say that Democracy ends up being a little bit more than just a good tool, assuming one takes libertarian principles such as self ownership at all seriously. That's from a minarchist position, of course; one could certainly argue that anarchy is really the only form of government entirely consistant with libertarian principles, but that extreme is rejected by most libertarians for consequentialist reasons.

Or maybe Patri thinks that his “competitive market for government” will spontaneously create some wonderful new form of government never seen before? Markets are indeed pretty powerful, but I think that such a proposition is extremely dubious.

(Obviously ideal minarchy, from a libertarian perspective, would have powerful constraints upon just what powers even a democratic majority could confer on the government, but a constrained democracy would still be a democracy.)