Maybe top-100 population US cities don’t count as “small democracies” in your definition. But if they do, I’d argue that small democracies do plenty to protect owners of capital at the expense of people in the lower half of wealth owners.

For example, take the surveillance and excess force against protestors during the summer of 2020 in the US (various judges and courts have agreed that some of the most high-profile police actions were illegal.)