Democracy as tyranny
Published by sauvik January 23rd, 2006 in Libertarian, Anarcho Capitalism, PhilosophyHere is an excellent review of Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s Democracy: The God that Failed by Keith Preston, who is billed as America’s revolutionary vanguard.
Sauvik,
I completely agree with the diagnosis of democracy as tyranny, albeit one well-disguised in high moral patina. However, diagnosis is one thing, prescription is another.
While I am in sympathy with the libertarian vision as espoused here, as a practical matter I dont think it will exist in a game-theoretic equilibrium in the modern world wher so much value beyond subsistence is created. In a hunter-gatherer society where people barely produced any surplus true voluntary association could exist in equilibrium. Also, migration was unrestricted. In the modern world, migration between countries is restrictive. Even if communities as you imagine did arise, free migraion may not obtain. Without the second condition, in the presence of sizable surplus, there will always be predators who will want to skim off the top. That is how centralized monarcy arose with the spread of agriculure and the potential to extract huge surplus out of sednatry populations. The massive advantage of scale in armed power makes it likely for more consolidation and centralization. The US civil war is a modern day example of how what was essentially a voluntary association became de facto a forced union.
I am not as pessimistic about the fate of “democracies,” at least not the US democracy. Libertarians can work to whittle away at the state power. It is not an impossible task, at least not as impossible as anarcho capitalism.
I think Hoppe’s critique of democracy must be thoroughly studied. The idea propounded by Francis Fukuyama that liberal democracy is the ‘end of history’ must be refuted. Only then can we champion change towards a more desirable ‘future of history’. This must first be an intellectual exercise, during which practical difficulties can be sorted out.
About immigration restrictions: they are a violation of property rights. If I have paid for a hotel room in New York, the US immigration authorities violate property rights when they keep me out. This will not be allowed in a genuine ‘rule of law society’.
Of course, ‘anarcho-capitalism’ implies the ‘rule of law’, without which we would have the ‘anarcho’ but not the ‘capitalism’, which requires property rights. The fundamental question is whether the rule of law requires ‘democracy’ Actually, it does not. Indeed, democratic legislation (and legislation passed by majorities of ‘representatives of the people” is distinct from LAW in the true ‘natural law’ sense) is considered by many to be totally incompatible with the ‘rule of law’.
Hoppe’s book is a must read for all those who wish to explore these ideas further.