"Democracy's Greatest Defect" [must reading from misguided and ill-advised Bigger Government-lovers!]
A
'The Independent Institute'
"Democracy’s Most Critical Defect"
By Robert Higgs on Oct 27, 2009
"Although democracy now comes closer than anything else to serving as a
world religion, it has never lacked critics. For millennia those critics,
such as Aristotle, had large followings among political thinkers and
practicing politicians. Even as late as 1787, when a group of prominent men
met in Philadelphia to compose the U.S. Constitution, democracy was viewed
with trepidation, and the framers created an apparatus of government in
which democracy was hemmed in on all sides, lest the country fall into the
much-dreaded condition of “mob rule.”
Nowadays, democracy’s defects are more likely to be seen as relatively
benign ― its devotees like to quote Winston Churchill’s quip [1] that
“democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that
have been tried from time to time” ― or as defects not of democracy itself,
but of the party shenanigans and other frictions that keep the democratic
system from operating more fully. Thus, people complain of “gridlock” and
bemoan a “do-nothing” Congress because these things impede the unrestricted
functioning of democracy.
Public choice theorists have written countless articles and books spelling
out the manifold ways in which democracy, viewed as a political decision
rule for making collective choices by means of voting, may fail to aggregate
the preferences of individual constituents into an outcome that represents
the “will of the people.” More than fifty years ago, Kenneth Arrow showed
[2] that no such aggregation is possible, given certain seemingly appealing
restrictions on the nature of people’s preferences, such as transitivity (if
A is preferred to B, and B is preferred to C, then C cannot be preferred to
A).
None of this theorizing had the slightest effect on the common people’s idea
that democracy can and should translate the “will of the people” into
collective choices; nor has it kept generations of politicians from talking
as if such a translation were possible and desirable. (Political practice,
in contrast to political rhetoric, has always proceeded in the usual corrupt
fashion, featuring scheming plutocrats, privilege-seeking special-interest
groups, and the iron law of oligarchy.) [3]
I mention these things only by way of introduction, however, because here I
wish to claim that democracy’s gravest defect has little or nothing to do
with the defects traditionally ascribed to it. I maintain that its severest
defect, indeed, a flaw so critical that it gives democracy the potential to
destroy civilization, pertains to its effect in corrupting the people’s
moral judgment.
To see how this corruption comes about, let us begin by recognizing that in
many people’s eyes, certain government functionaries may legitimately take
actions that would be condemned as criminal if anyone else were to take
them. If you or I were to threaten a neighbor with violence unless he handed
over a specified sum of money, we would be universally recognized as
engaged in extortion or attempted robbery. Yet, the functionaries of St.
Tammany Parish, the state of Louisiana, and the United States of America
routinely obtain money from me in precisely this manner. And although many
people subject to such takings may complain that the amounts demanded are
excessive, hardly anybody describes the exactions as constituting nothing
more than extortion or armed robbery. Why not? Because the functionaries who
assess and collect these sums of money ― which they style “taxes,” not loot,
plunder, or swag ― are democratically elected “public officials.”
From a moral point of view, I am hard pressed to see how their employment
status gives them a defensible right to act in ways that everyone would
recognize as criminal if undertaken by a private individual. In political
theory, a representative democratic government is said to derive its just
powers by delegation from the people who are governed, with their consent. I
assure you that I have never consented to have the various governments rob
me, especially for the financing of countless activities that I consider to
be useless, destructive, or inherently criminal. Regardless of the uses to
which a government puts its booty, however, the people cannot justly
delegate to political representatives any rights that they do not possess.
If I do not have a right to plunder my neighbor, how can I delegate that
right to a government functionary who purports to represent me?
The situation is the same with regard to innumerable other actions that
governments carry out, including unjust imprisonment, murder, and demands
for compliance with so-called “regulations.” If you or I were to demand the
same actions that regulators commonly prescribe, our demands would be
plainly seen to constitute unjustified intimidation and lawless coercion, at
best. Likewise, if I were to send a private Predator drone to Pakistan to
fire explosive missiles into villages, killing women, children, and other
innocent persons, I would be seen as a monstrous mass murderer, and demands
would be made that I be apprehended and “brought to justice” or killed. Yet
when President Obama causes deaths in this way, no such demands are made.
How did Barack Obama come by the right to kill innocent people? By
democratic election to the presidency of the United States, of course. Most
people actually believe, and act on the belief, that mere election to a
political office can endow a person with standing to disregard the moral
requirements applicable to people in general. And not only the elected
official, but all those officials beneath him in the chain of command ―
nobody demands that the technician who sits comfortably in the United States
and directs the exact operation of the lethal drone be brought to justice;
he, as the saying goes, is “only following orders.”
In the war-crimes tribunals [4] conducted after World War II, many
defendants pleaded 'not guilty' on the grounds that they were only following
orders. This defense, however, was ruled inadmissible, because the top
authorities of the Nazi regime, from Adolf Hitler on down, were themselves
viewed as war criminals, albeit unavailable in many instances to stand trial
as such. In contrast, none of the military officers and men who carried out
the fire bombings of Tokyo, Hamburg, and Dresden were indicted; nor were
those who dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; nor were
Churchill and Truman (Franklin Roosevelt having already departed this realm
of political strife). Strange to say, Hitler himself originally came to
power through democratic procedures, which shows that sometimes democracy is
not enough to absolve a leader of criminal acts. Winning a war may also
prove decisive when innocence and guilt are being decided and punishments
administered.
I fully understand how most Americans would react to the preceding
observations. They would say that in wartime, certain actions that would be
regarded as crimes during peacetime automatically cease to have this
character. It’s an interesting theory: if the leader, especially a
democratically elected one, prosecutes a war, he thereby overturns the
entire basis of morality ― provided of course that his side wins the war.
Killing the innocent, for example, carries no stigma; nor does wanton
destruction of property, unjust punishment or imprisonment, and a thousand
other actions that would be regarded as flagrant crimes during peacetime.
As the government has grown in this country (and others) during the past
century, the scope of government action has widened greatly. Government
officials now demand vastly greater sums of money from their subjects, and
they demand compliance with vastly more regulations. They and they alone may
act in these ways without bringing moral denunciation down on themselves. No
wonder they sometimes deport themselves as gods: by their election they have
been loosed from the moral bonds that constrain you and me, and, thus
unencumbered, they have soared to ever greater heights of criminality and
savagery. “When the president does it,” Richard Nixon insisted [5], “that
means that it is not illegal.” Interviewer David Frost pursued the point,
asking: “the dividing line is the president’s judgment?” To which Nixon
responded, “Yes, and the dividing line and, just so that one does not get
the impression, that a president can run amok in this country and get away
with it, we have to have in mind that a president has to come up before the
electorate.” Ah, yes, blessed election ― that “accountability moment,” as
George W. Bush described [6] it ― surely covers a multitude of sins. We may
think of those sins as democracy in action.
Libertarians often argue about whether they might more successfully recruit
followers by showing that a free society works best or by showing that an
unfree society is unjust. Most libertarians, as I see the matter, have
chosen to base their arguments on utilitarian grounds, often because they
despair of ever convincing the average person that government officials
chronically, or even intrinsically, violate moral strictures. Although I
have no doubt whatsoever that free societies do work better than unfree
ones, that they deliver, for example, greater prosperity and more rapid
economic progress for the masses, I am skeptical that we can cut deeply into
the current mass support for the welfare-warfare-therapeutic state UNLESS WE
OPEN PEOPLE'S EYES TO SEE THAT THE GOVERNMENT ACTIONS THEY NOW SUPPORT ―AND
DEMAND EVER MORE OF ―ARE UTTERLY IMMORAL BECAUSE THEY VIOLATE INDIVIDUALS'
JUST RIGHTS ON A GIGANTIC SCALE AND BECAUSE THE GOVERNMENT LEADERS WHO
PROPOSE AND IMPLEMENT THESE MEASURES ACQUIRE NOT AN OUNCE OF MORAL
JUSTIFICATION FROM THEIR DEMOCRATIC SELECTION FOR OFFICE. [*] “What works
best” remains ever open to dispute, as public policy debate on almost any
current issue illustrates: each side has its academic experts, prestigious
scientists, or other authorities to prop up its position, and although these
two sides rarely offer equally compelling evidence, the lay person can
scarcely be expected to see through all of the disinformation and rhetorical
flimflam.
Everybody understands, however, without any advanced instruction in the
matter, that murder and robbery are wrong, and that no one has a justifiable
right to bully his neighbors simply because he does [not] like the way in
which they are conducting their lives. The greatest barrier to libertarian
progress continues to be that most people give a moral pass to such criminal
actions when democratically elected functionaries take them. This presumed
moral immunity by virtue of election to public office is the sheerest
superstition ― a montrous mistake in moral reasoning ― and if people can be
brought to see it for what it really is, then they will be able to act more
effectively to regain some of their lost freedom."
[1] http://www.iwise.com/apNh7
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Choice_and_Individual_Values
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_oligarchy
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Trials
[5] http://www.landmarkcases.org/nixonview.html
[6] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12570-2005Jan15.html
---
[*] my emphasis
"Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only
sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty."
--Thomas Jefferson
"Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and
mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day."
--Thomas Jefferson
"It would be a dangerous delusion were a confidence in the
men of our choice to silence our fears for the safety of our
rights... Our Constitution has accordingly fixed the limits
to which, and no further, our confidence may go... In
questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence
in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the
Constitution."
--Thomas Jefferson, 1798
"Where the people fear the government, there is tyranny. Where the
government fears the people, there is liberty."
--Thomas Jefferson
"It is strangely absurd to suppose that a million of human beings
collected together are not under the same moral laws which bind each of them
separately."
--Thomas Jefferson, 1816
"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of
himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have
we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer
this question."
--Thomas Jefferson, Inaugural Address, Mar. 4, 1801
"The POWERS not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor
prohibited by it to the States, are RESERVED to the States respectively, or
to the PEOPLE."
--10th Amendment, Bill of Rights
(still a part of the U.S. Constitution and not to be ignored)
"I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public
debt as the greatest of dangers to be feared...To preserve our independence,
we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt... We must make our
choice between economy and liberty or confusion and servitude...The same
prudence which in private life would forbid our paying money for unexplained
projects, forbids it in the disposition of public money. We are endeavoring
to reduce the government to the practice of rigid economy to avoid burdening
the people..."
--Thomas Jefferson
"The two enemies of the people are criminals
and government, so let us tie the second down
with the chains of the Constitution so the
second will not become the legalized version
of the first."
-- Thomas Jefferson
Those who hammer their guns into plows will
plow for those who do not.
--Thomas Jefferson
"It does not take a majority to prevail ... but
rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on
setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of
men."
--Samuel Adams
"The strongest reason for the people to retain
the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last
resort, to protect themselves against tyranny
in government."
-- Thomas Jefferson
"A free people ought not only to be armed and
disciplined, but they should have sufficient
arms and ammunition to maintain a status of
independence from any who might attempt to
abuse them, which would include their own
government."
-- George Washington
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."
-- Thomas Jefferson
"If the freedom of speech is taken away then
dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep, to
the slaughter."
-- George Washington
"Oppressors can tyrannize only when they achieve a
standing army, an enslaved press, and a disarmed
populace."
-- James Madison