I'm really lucky that the two things I remember from college are actually good things to know.
One is the median voter model which predicts representative democracies naturally are two party states.
The other is that in binary choice elections, outcomes can be completely arbitrary because of math. I'm talking about intransitive preferences. Turning many individual preferences into one big social preference can create random outcomes.
And it's good to know these things because people are going to make assumptions when you're a commmunist who isn't 100% enthusiastic about democracy. So if anybody tries me, I can actually sketch it out on a piece of paper.
The recent Chapo segment on California's Prop 22 is a nice topical summary of why direct democracy isn't always the answer. Not everyone has the time, energy, or just desire in general to research every single thing that the government needs to legislate. It's also an easy system to game and manipulate people.
California's fucked up property tax system that bankrupts the state is also an example of direct democracy at work.
Now imagine a future where every issue is decided based on what amounts to a Twitter poll.
It would be much harder to mislead people, to run massive disinformation campaigns against good things, if the means of production were in the hands of the proletariat. That is one of the biggest ways that capitalism undermines democracy.
Additionally, putting tons of resources into education is a staple of communist governments, making the entire population much better suited to make decisions for themselves. Just look at the amount of support M4A had right before the ad campaigns against it. It was almost a supermajority of support even among americans.
I would personally be more in favor of a liquid democracy system, I was just using direct democracy as an example of what I think of when I think about the "pure" form of "democracy".
Twitter is hardly representative, and I think people are much less likely to vote ironically when it has actual weight.
If I'm wrong, and embarrassing myself here then I say this; I'm still a baby leftist who has a lot of deprogramming to do. I'm open to book recommendations.