We urgently need an expanded concept of democracy.
Formally, Western states are democracies because they contain the essential elements of democracy, i.e. free elections and majority voting. However, minorities are respected and fundamental and human rights are guaranteed.
Democracy means popular government. But is it really "the people" who are ruling in the parliaments? Or isn't it ruled by what's inevitably prevailing everywhere, namely simply money, sometimes also called the "power of the factual"? A power that forces parliamentarians to make so-called "market-conform" decisions?
In any case: The power of the parliaments is quite limited. As long as the welfare of most voters depends on provided jobs, the re-election of a party or government will also depend on those jobs provided. In this sense, they're open to blackmail. This remains the case as long as the majority of people are so-called employees. The jobs they need as wage earners are not created by themselves and are usually not created by the government. Jobs usually require investment. Capital owners and entrepreneurs in the free economy create these jobs.
No government, however democratic, will come out that way by-passing the capital owners as the owners of jobs and therefore the holders of the power of the factual. Parliamentarians' decisions in line with the market to the advantage of the capital owners are inevitably the result of this constellation.