Normative thinking around democracy often emphasizes the supremacy of electoral politics, underplaying the salience of education as a defining feature to produce a more meaningful, engaged, inclusive form of democracy. Critical pedagogy can be an extremely useful, illuminating and transformative means and process of deconstructing how democracy is conceptualized, understood and developed. Critiquing the epistemological, experiential and hegemonic predispositions, manifestations, and intricate thinking that underpin inequitable power relations is fundamental to achieving a more politically literate and liberated populace. Being humble enough to acknowledge that one's epistemological framework may limit his/her understanding of democracy--along with a diagnosis of mainstream and normative assessments that are constrained by a tepid educational experienced dominated by a neo-liberal political economy--is fundamental to re-formulating how democracy is understood, and, more important, how it may become more empowering for marginalized groups and all peoples. This paper explores a re-conceptualization of democracy, premised on a more critical and engaged education, questioning and problematizing how power works. In outlining "econ-ocracy" and various conditions, issues and determinants related to democracy, the author provides some examples (American Idol, Haiti, categorization of democracies, development assistance to the South, and support for unsavory regimes) of how facile interpretations of democracy have had a nefarious effect on more structurally relevant concerns related to power. (Contains 7 figures and 24 notes.)