George Ayittey is the author of a commentary article titled "Why western-style democracy is not suitable for Africa", published on 20 August 2010 on the CNN news website.
The full text of the article can be read free of charge here:
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/08/20/ayittey.democracy.africa/index.html
Excerpts: "Western-style multi-party democracy is possible but not suitable for Africa. [...] The alternative is to take decisions by consensus. [...] In the early 1990s, following the collapse of the former Soviet Union, the winds of change swept across Africa, toppling long-standing autocrats. In our haste to democratize – and also as a condition for Western aid – we copied and adopted the Western form of democracy and neglected to build upon our own democratic tradition. The Western model allowed an elected leader to use power and the state machinery to advance the economic interests of his ethnic group and exclude all others [...]. Virtually all of Africa's civil wars were started by politically marginalized or excluded groups. At Africa's traditional village level, a chief is chosen by the Queen Mother of the royal family to rule for life. His appointment must be ratified by the Council of Elders, which consists of heads of extended families in the village. In governance, the chief must consult with the Council on all important matters. [...] If the chief and the Council cannot reach unanimous decision on an important issue, a village meeting is called and the issue put before the people, who will debate it until they reach a consensus. [...]
"If the chief is 'bad' he can be recalled by the Queen Mother, removed by the Council of Elders, or abandoned by the people, who will vote with their feet to settle somewhere else. [...] Africans could have built upon this system. In the West, the basic economic and social unit is the individual; in Africa, it is the extended family or the collective. The American says, 'I am because I am.' The African says, 'I am because we are.' The 'we' denotes the community. So let each group choose their leaders and place them in a National Assembly. Next, let each province or state choose their leaders and place them in a National Council. Choose the president from this National Council and avoid the huge expenditures on election campaigning that comes with Western-style democracy. Those resources can be better put to development in poor African countries. Next, let the president and National Council take their decisions by consensus. If there is a deadlock, refer the issue to the National Assembly. This type of democracy is in consonance with our own African heritage."
Ghanaian-born George Ayittey is a Distinguished Economist in Residence at American University, Washington, DC, a Research Fellow at the libertarian Independent Institute, and an Associate Scholar at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI). In 2008, the magazines "Prospect" (UK) and "Foreign Policy" (US) listed him as one of the "Top 100 Public Intellectuals".
Showing posts with label libertarianism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label libertarianism. Show all posts
18 September 2010
Public forum: Power Grab: European Integration in the Post-Democratic Age
Policy forum "Power Grab: European Integration in the Post-Democratic Age", organized by The Cato Institute, F.A. Hayek Auditorium, 1000 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC, USA, 8 October 2010, 12.00 noon-1.30 pm
www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=7390
Description: "The Lisbon Treaty of 2009 massively increased the powers of Brussels and gave the European Union its own resident and foreign service. Supporters of Lisbon claim that it will make the EU more efficient and effective. Critics say that the treaty, which was adopted in spite of its rejection in several national referenda, will further deepen Europe's 'democratic deficit.' Other events, including the violation of the legal arrangements prohibiting the recent bailout of Greece, raise questions about the EU's commitment to the rule of law. By transcending nationalism, the EU was meant to be the way of the future. Today, however, many associate it with an unelected and unaccountable bureaucracy."
Participants include Frits Bolkestein (former European Commissioner for Internal Market and Services); John R. Gillingham (Professor in the Department of History, University of Missouri-St. Louis); and Angelos Pangratis (Deputy Head of the EU Delegation to the United States).
Open to the public free of charge. Early arrival is recommended as seating is limited and not guaranteed. Business attire requested. Followed by a buffet luncheon.
To register for the event, please fill out the form on the website or send an e-mail with full details (name, affiliation, etc.) to: events@cato.org
Alternatively, the event can be watched live on the website.
The Cato Institute is a libertarian public policy think tank.
www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=7390
Description: "The Lisbon Treaty of 2009 massively increased the powers of Brussels and gave the European Union its own resident and foreign service. Supporters of Lisbon claim that it will make the EU more efficient and effective. Critics say that the treaty, which was adopted in spite of its rejection in several national referenda, will further deepen Europe's 'democratic deficit.' Other events, including the violation of the legal arrangements prohibiting the recent bailout of Greece, raise questions about the EU's commitment to the rule of law. By transcending nationalism, the EU was meant to be the way of the future. Today, however, many associate it with an unelected and unaccountable bureaucracy."
Participants include Frits Bolkestein (former European Commissioner for Internal Market and Services); John R. Gillingham (Professor in the Department of History, University of Missouri-St. Louis); and Angelos Pangratis (Deputy Head of the EU Delegation to the United States).
Open to the public free of charge. Early arrival is recommended as seating is limited and not guaranteed. Business attire requested. Followed by a buffet luncheon.
To register for the event, please fill out the form on the website or send an e-mail with full details (name, affiliation, etc.) to: events@cato.org
Alternatively, the event can be watched live on the website.
The Cato Institute is a libertarian public policy think tank.
02 June 2010
Article: The Really Creepy People Behind the Libertarian-Inspired Billionaire Sea Castles
"The Really Creepy People Behind the Libertarian-Inspired Billionaire Sea Castles" is an article by Mark Ames that was published today on the independent news site AlterNet.org.
The full text of the article can be read free of charge here:
www.alternet.org/story/147058/the_really_creepy_people_behind_the_libertarian-inspired_billionaire_sea_castles/
Excerpts: "The super-wealthy are already building their first floating castle, a billion-dollar-plus luxury liner that offers permanent multimillion-dollar housing with the best protection of all: moats made of oceans, keeping the land-based Americans they've plundered at a safe distance. The first such floating castle has been christened the 'Utopia' – the South Korean firm Samsung has been contracted to build the $1.1 billion ship, due to be launched in 2013. Already orders are coming in to buy one of the Utopia's 200 or so mansions for sale – which range in price from about $4 million for the smallest condos to over $26 million for 6,600 square-foot 'estates.' The largest mansion is a whopping 40,000 square feet, and sells for $160 million. [...] The floating castle is a longtime dream of libertarian oligarchs – a place where they can live their lives in peace free from the teeming masses of starving losers and indebted parasites and their tax demands.
"Since they've grown so rich off of America, they have enough spare change to fund projects like the Seasteading Institute, run by Milton Friedman's grandson, Patri Friedman, and financed by the bizarre right-wing PayPal founder, Peter Thiel. [...] Both Thiel and Milton Friedman's grandson see democracy as the enemy – last year, Thiel wrote 'I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible' at about the same time that Milton Friedman's grandson proclaimed, 'Democracy is not the answer.' Both published their anti-democracy proclamations in the same billionaire-Koch-family-funded outlet, Cato Unbound, one of the oldest billionaire-fed libertarian welfare dispensaries. Friedman's answer for Thiel's democracy problem is to build offshore libertarian pod-fortresses where the libertarian way rules."
Whatever one may think of libertarian billionaires or seasteading, this article is a prime example of smear journalism posing as "investigative".
Mark Ames is an American journalist and book author, long based in Russia.
The full text of the article can be read free of charge here:
www.alternet.org/story/147058/the_really_creepy_people_behind_the_libertarian-inspired_billionaire_sea_castles/
Excerpts: "The super-wealthy are already building their first floating castle, a billion-dollar-plus luxury liner that offers permanent multimillion-dollar housing with the best protection of all: moats made of oceans, keeping the land-based Americans they've plundered at a safe distance. The first such floating castle has been christened the 'Utopia' – the South Korean firm Samsung has been contracted to build the $1.1 billion ship, due to be launched in 2013. Already orders are coming in to buy one of the Utopia's 200 or so mansions for sale – which range in price from about $4 million for the smallest condos to over $26 million for 6,600 square-foot 'estates.' The largest mansion is a whopping 40,000 square feet, and sells for $160 million. [...] The floating castle is a longtime dream of libertarian oligarchs – a place where they can live their lives in peace free from the teeming masses of starving losers and indebted parasites and their tax demands.
"Since they've grown so rich off of America, they have enough spare change to fund projects like the Seasteading Institute, run by Milton Friedman's grandson, Patri Friedman, and financed by the bizarre right-wing PayPal founder, Peter Thiel. [...] Both Thiel and Milton Friedman's grandson see democracy as the enemy – last year, Thiel wrote 'I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible' at about the same time that Milton Friedman's grandson proclaimed, 'Democracy is not the answer.' Both published their anti-democracy proclamations in the same billionaire-Koch-family-funded outlet, Cato Unbound, one of the oldest billionaire-fed libertarian welfare dispensaries. Friedman's answer for Thiel's democracy problem is to build offshore libertarian pod-fortresses where the libertarian way rules."
Whatever one may think of libertarian billionaires or seasteading, this article is a prime example of smear journalism posing as "investigative".
Mark Ames is an American journalist and book author, long based in Russia.
04 May 2010
Book: The Rule of Law without the State
The late Michael van Notten's book "The Law of the Somalis: A Stable Foundation for Economic Development in the Horn of Africa" was published posthumously, edited by Spencer Heath MacCallum (Red Sea Press, 2005):
www.africaworldpressbooks.com/servlet/Detail?no=9
Publisher's description: "Written by a trained and sympathetic observer, this book shows how Somali customary law differs fundamentally from most statutory law. Lawbreakers, instead of being punished, are simply required to compensate their victim. Because every Somali is insured by near kin against his or her liabilities under the law, a victim seldom fails to receive compensation. Somali law, being based on custom, has no need of legislation or legislators. It is therefore happily free of political influences. The author notes some specific areas that stand in need of change, but finds such change already implicit in further economic development. Somali politics is based on consensus. The author explains how it works and shows why any attempt to establish democracy, which would divide the population into two classes – those who rule and those who are ruled – must inevitably produce chaos. Viewed in global perspective, Somali law stands with the Latin and Medieval laws and the English common law against the statutory law that became prominent in Europe with the modern nation-state. This book explains many seeming anomalies about present-day Somalia and describes its prospects as well as the dangers facing it."
Dutch-born libertarian Michael van Notten (1933-2002), a Law graduate of Leiden University, spent the last twelve years of his life promoting economic development in Awdal, Somalia.
The book's editor, Spencer Heath MacCallum, is also the author of a number of articles on Somalia, among them "The Rule of Law without the State", published by the libertarian Ludwig von Mises Institute in its "Mises Daily" on 12 September 2007.
The article can be read free of charge here:
http://mises.org/daily/2701
Excerpts: "Were there such a category, Somalia would hold a place in Guinness World Records as the country with the longest absence of a functioning central government. When the Somalis dismantled their government in 1991 and returned to their precolonial political status, the expectation was that chaos would result – and that, of course, would be the politically correct thing to expect. Imagine if it were otherwise. Imagine any part of the globe not being dominated by a central government and the people there surviving, even prospering. If such were to happen and the idea spread to other parts of Africa or other parts of the world, the mystique of the necessity of the state might be irreparably damaged, and many politicians and bureaucrats might find themselves walking about looking for work. [...]
"[A] study published last year by Benjamin Powell of the Independent Institute, concludes: 'We find that Somalia's living standards have improved generally ... not just in absolute terms, but also relative to other African countries since the collapse of the Somali central government.' Somalia's pastoral economy is now stronger than that of either neighboring Kenya or Ethiopia. It is the largest exporter of livestock of any East African country. Telecommunications have burgeoned in Somalia; a call from a mobile phone is cheaper in Somalia than anywhere else in Africa. [...] All of this is terribly politically incorrect for the reason I suggested. Consequently, the United Nations has by now spent well over two billion dollars attempting to re-establish a central government in Somalia. But here is the irony: it is the presence of the United Nations that has caused virtually all of the turbulence we have seen in Somalia. [...]
"Like most of precolonial Africa, Somalia is traditionally a stateless society. When the colonial powers withdrew, in order to better serve their purposes, they hastily trained local people and set up European-style governments in their place. These were supposed to be democratic. But they soon devolved into brutal dictatorships. Democracy is unworkable in Africa for several reasons. The first thing that voting does is to divide a population into two groups – a group that rules and a group that is ruled. This is completely at variance with Somali tradition. Second, if democracy is to work, it depends in theory, at least, upon a populace that will vote on issues. But in a kinship society such as Somalia, voting takes place not on the merit of issues but along group lines; one votes according to one's clan affiliation. Since the ethic of kinship requires loyalty to one's fellow clansmen, the winners use the power of government to benefit their own members, which means exploitation of the members of other clans.
"Consequently when there exists a governmental apparatus with its awesome powers of taxation and police and judicial monopoly, the interests of the clans conflict. Some clan will control that apparatus. To avoid being exploited by other clans, each must attempt to be that controlling clan. The turmoil in Somalia consists in the clans maneuvering to position themselves to control the government whenever it might come into being, and this has been exacerbated by the governments of the world, especially the United States, keeping alive the expectation that a government will soon be established and supplying arms to whoever seems at present most likely to be able to 'bring democracy' to Somalia. [...]
"A [...] point about the Xeer [customary law] is that there is no monopoly of police or judicial services. Anyone is free to serve in those capacities as long as he is not at the same time a religious or political dignitary, since that would compromise the sharp separation of law, politics, and religion. Also, anyone performing in such a role is subject to the same laws as anyone else – and more so: if he violates the law, he must pay heavier damages or fines than would apply to anyone else. Public figures are expected to show exemplary conduct. [...] Michael van Notten's book describing this system of law deserves to be better known and widely read. It is the first study of any customary law to treat it not as a curiosity of the past, but as potentially instructive for a future free society."
Spencer Heath MacCallum, a social anthropologist and business consultant, is a Research Fellow at the libertarian Independent Institute.
www.africaworldpressbooks.com/servlet/Detail?no=9
Publisher's description: "Written by a trained and sympathetic observer, this book shows how Somali customary law differs fundamentally from most statutory law. Lawbreakers, instead of being punished, are simply required to compensate their victim. Because every Somali is insured by near kin against his or her liabilities under the law, a victim seldom fails to receive compensation. Somali law, being based on custom, has no need of legislation or legislators. It is therefore happily free of political influences. The author notes some specific areas that stand in need of change, but finds such change already implicit in further economic development. Somali politics is based on consensus. The author explains how it works and shows why any attempt to establish democracy, which would divide the population into two classes – those who rule and those who are ruled – must inevitably produce chaos. Viewed in global perspective, Somali law stands with the Latin and Medieval laws and the English common law against the statutory law that became prominent in Europe with the modern nation-state. This book explains many seeming anomalies about present-day Somalia and describes its prospects as well as the dangers facing it."
Dutch-born libertarian Michael van Notten (1933-2002), a Law graduate of Leiden University, spent the last twelve years of his life promoting economic development in Awdal, Somalia.
The book's editor, Spencer Heath MacCallum, is also the author of a number of articles on Somalia, among them "The Rule of Law without the State", published by the libertarian Ludwig von Mises Institute in its "Mises Daily" on 12 September 2007.
The article can be read free of charge here:
http://mises.org/daily/2701
Excerpts: "Were there such a category, Somalia would hold a place in Guinness World Records as the country with the longest absence of a functioning central government. When the Somalis dismantled their government in 1991 and returned to their precolonial political status, the expectation was that chaos would result – and that, of course, would be the politically correct thing to expect. Imagine if it were otherwise. Imagine any part of the globe not being dominated by a central government and the people there surviving, even prospering. If such were to happen and the idea spread to other parts of Africa or other parts of the world, the mystique of the necessity of the state might be irreparably damaged, and many politicians and bureaucrats might find themselves walking about looking for work. [...]
"[A] study published last year by Benjamin Powell of the Independent Institute, concludes: 'We find that Somalia's living standards have improved generally ... not just in absolute terms, but also relative to other African countries since the collapse of the Somali central government.' Somalia's pastoral economy is now stronger than that of either neighboring Kenya or Ethiopia. It is the largest exporter of livestock of any East African country. Telecommunications have burgeoned in Somalia; a call from a mobile phone is cheaper in Somalia than anywhere else in Africa. [...] All of this is terribly politically incorrect for the reason I suggested. Consequently, the United Nations has by now spent well over two billion dollars attempting to re-establish a central government in Somalia. But here is the irony: it is the presence of the United Nations that has caused virtually all of the turbulence we have seen in Somalia. [...]
"Like most of precolonial Africa, Somalia is traditionally a stateless society. When the colonial powers withdrew, in order to better serve their purposes, they hastily trained local people and set up European-style governments in their place. These were supposed to be democratic. But they soon devolved into brutal dictatorships. Democracy is unworkable in Africa for several reasons. The first thing that voting does is to divide a population into two groups – a group that rules and a group that is ruled. This is completely at variance with Somali tradition. Second, if democracy is to work, it depends in theory, at least, upon a populace that will vote on issues. But in a kinship society such as Somalia, voting takes place not on the merit of issues but along group lines; one votes according to one's clan affiliation. Since the ethic of kinship requires loyalty to one's fellow clansmen, the winners use the power of government to benefit their own members, which means exploitation of the members of other clans.
"Consequently when there exists a governmental apparatus with its awesome powers of taxation and police and judicial monopoly, the interests of the clans conflict. Some clan will control that apparatus. To avoid being exploited by other clans, each must attempt to be that controlling clan. The turmoil in Somalia consists in the clans maneuvering to position themselves to control the government whenever it might come into being, and this has been exacerbated by the governments of the world, especially the United States, keeping alive the expectation that a government will soon be established and supplying arms to whoever seems at present most likely to be able to 'bring democracy' to Somalia. [...]
"A [...] point about the Xeer [customary law] is that there is no monopoly of police or judicial services. Anyone is free to serve in those capacities as long as he is not at the same time a religious or political dignitary, since that would compromise the sharp separation of law, politics, and religion. Also, anyone performing in such a role is subject to the same laws as anyone else – and more so: if he violates the law, he must pay heavier damages or fines than would apply to anyone else. Public figures are expected to show exemplary conduct. [...] Michael van Notten's book describing this system of law deserves to be better known and widely read. It is the first study of any customary law to treat it not as a curiosity of the past, but as potentially instructive for a future free society."
Spencer Heath MacCallum, a social anthropologist and business consultant, is a Research Fellow at the libertarian Independent Institute.
23 April 2010
Article: William Graham Sumner: Against Democracy, Plutocracy, and Imperialism
H.A. Scott Trask, "William Graham Sumner: Against Democracy, Plutocracy, and Imperialism" ("Journal of Libertarian Studies", 18 [4], fall 2004: pp. 1-27).
The article can be read free of charge here:
http://mises.org/journals/jls/18_4/18_4_1.pdf
Excerpts: "Pioneering sociologist William Graham Sumner (1840-1910) was a prolific and astute historian of the early American republic. His work is informed by both his classical liberalism and his understanding of economics. [...] Sumner's political insights can be found throughout his histories and biographies, but [...] [c]onsidering them together, it is possible to reconstruct Sumner's political thought. This reconstruction reveals that Sumner was a first-rate diagnostician of the vices and flaws endemic to modern democracy, and that he saw with remarkable prevision how it would develop into the twentieth century. [...] Democracy is more than a term for a certain type of government; it is [...] an ideology, a quasi-religious faith, a 'superstition,' and it is false. Its two foundational dogmas – human equality and social atomization – have no support in human nature or experience. [...]
"The advance of civilization has been marked at every stage by an increase in inequality, social differentiation, and complexity. The principle of one-man one-vote, by giving no political recognition to differences in intelligence and wealth among persons, to the natural divisions within society, or to the existence of classes, is unjust, and can only lead to laws that are unjust and unwise. He also questioned the democratic dogma that the same form of government was suitable for all kinds of different societies and collectivities, without regard to their level of education, industrial development, and internal diversity. [...] Because Sumner rejected the moralistic, equalitarian, and atomistic dogmas upon which democracy rested, he was not in favor of extending the suffrage to ex-slaves or to women. He denied that either group could claim a moral right to vote, as he denied that anyone had such a right. [...]
"There is no reason to believe that democracy would prove friendlier to liberty than would monarchy, aristocracy, or other forms of elitist rule. [...] If political power be vested in the masses, '[t]hey will commit abuse, if they can and dare, just as others have done.' Ruling elites have misused their power for selfish ends because it was in their nature to do so. The people share the same nature. Greed, selfishness, and other 'vices are confined to no nation, class, or age.' [...] The theory behind extending the suffrage to all adult males was that this would ensure that legislation was framed to benefit the interests of all, rather than of the few. Sumner demonstrated in his historical studies that it did not work out that way. [...] 'The fate of modern democracy is to fall into subjection to plutocracy.' The term plutocracy [...] meant a type of government in which effective control rested with men of wealth who sought to use political means to increase their wealth. Sumner believed that there is no form of government better suited to their control than democracy. [...] The plutocrats have [...] no qualms about flattering, lying to, or bribing the masses. [...]
"At election time, the voters are given a choice between two candidates who may stand for essentially the same thing, or nothing. [...] [G]iven that the nature of democracy is to throw off all limitations upon government power, elections become 'struggles for power – war between the two parties' for control of the state. [...] One election is hardly over before the intrigue and planning for the next one begins. [...] Party platforms are full of 'empty phrases and Janus-faced propositions,' and often 'two contradictory propositions are combined in the same sentence, or a non-proposition is so stated that each man may read there just what will suit his own notions.' [...] The object of political campaigning is not to educate the public at all, but to energize one's supporters and win over by means of deception the non-committed middle. [...] No idea more annoyed Sumner than the superstition that democratic elections are a magic elixir from which flow liberty, justice, and wise governance. [...]
"Sumner feared that American 'democracy' would grow even worse by becoming paternal while not ceasing to be plutocratic. Plutocracy would prove to be the parent of paternalism [...] such as limitations on the length of the working day, unemployment insurance, government health care, and other means of providing for economic and social 'security.' The plutocrats may conclude that extending such benefits is the price they must pay for retaining power and their own lucrative privileges, while the masses will regard paternalism as their right to a share in the spoils of the state. Sumner condemned the incipient welfare state as incompatible with freedom and inimical to liberty. Those citizens who favor it are hypocrites who clamor for security with the same insistence and sense of entitlement as they demand freedom and equality. [...] There was also a danger that 'democratic' government would enact moral reforms or try to alter the structure of society. [...] 'The taxing power is especially something after which the reformer's finger always itches,' as it offers endless potential for rewarding certain behaviors and punishing others. [...]
"The Bush doctrine – American world dominion is justified by her divine mission to spread freedom and democracy – is not new. The Spanish-American War and its imperial aftermath were justified on the same grounds. Sumner noted how a senator had claimed that the United States would occupy the Philippines only long enough to teach them self-government. [...] If America attempts 'to be schoolmistress to others, it will shrivel up into the same vanity and self-conceit,' and be the object of the same loathing and hatred as the other imperial powers. Moral imperialism is as 'false and wrong' as any other kind of imperialism, for it violates freedom and self-government. The nation that says, 'We know what is good for you better than you know yourself and we are going to make you do it' cares nothing for liberty or national self-determination, since liberty 'means leaving people to live out their own lives in their own way.' It is also a recipe for endless intervention and perpetual war, as the subsequent history of the United States demonstrated. [...]
"Sumner's final judgment on nineteenth-century American democracy was that it had failed to secure liberty or good government, and it would do worse in the next century. Who was to blame? He blamed the people. 'The root of all our troubles at present and in the future is in the fact that the people fails of what was assumed about it and attributed to it.' The people complain about the politicians, about the special interests, and about the power of corporations to corrupt the political process. But who elected the politicians? Who makes up the special interests? Who elected corruptible legislatures and presidents? 'He who rules is responsible, be it Tsar, Pope, Emperor, Aristocracy, Oligarchy, or Demos.' The 'people is altogether at fault. It has not done its first duty in the premises, and therefore the whole system has gone astray.' [...] What is [our] destiny? A paternalistic, plutocratic, imperial state, in which freedom and individuality will slowly suffocate and civilization coarsen and die. A century of war and collectivism has vindicated Sumner's pessimism, and it appears that the twentieth century has bequeathed even worse to the twenty-first."
H. Arthur Scott Trask, PhD, an independent historian, is an Adjunct Scholar at the libertarian Ludwig von Mises Institute.
The article can be read free of charge here:
http://mises.org/journals/jls/18_4/18_4_1.pdf
Excerpts: "Pioneering sociologist William Graham Sumner (1840-1910) was a prolific and astute historian of the early American republic. His work is informed by both his classical liberalism and his understanding of economics. [...] Sumner's political insights can be found throughout his histories and biographies, but [...] [c]onsidering them together, it is possible to reconstruct Sumner's political thought. This reconstruction reveals that Sumner was a first-rate diagnostician of the vices and flaws endemic to modern democracy, and that he saw with remarkable prevision how it would develop into the twentieth century. [...] Democracy is more than a term for a certain type of government; it is [...] an ideology, a quasi-religious faith, a 'superstition,' and it is false. Its two foundational dogmas – human equality and social atomization – have no support in human nature or experience. [...]
"The advance of civilization has been marked at every stage by an increase in inequality, social differentiation, and complexity. The principle of one-man one-vote, by giving no political recognition to differences in intelligence and wealth among persons, to the natural divisions within society, or to the existence of classes, is unjust, and can only lead to laws that are unjust and unwise. He also questioned the democratic dogma that the same form of government was suitable for all kinds of different societies and collectivities, without regard to their level of education, industrial development, and internal diversity. [...] Because Sumner rejected the moralistic, equalitarian, and atomistic dogmas upon which democracy rested, he was not in favor of extending the suffrage to ex-slaves or to women. He denied that either group could claim a moral right to vote, as he denied that anyone had such a right. [...]
"There is no reason to believe that democracy would prove friendlier to liberty than would monarchy, aristocracy, or other forms of elitist rule. [...] If political power be vested in the masses, '[t]hey will commit abuse, if they can and dare, just as others have done.' Ruling elites have misused their power for selfish ends because it was in their nature to do so. The people share the same nature. Greed, selfishness, and other 'vices are confined to no nation, class, or age.' [...] The theory behind extending the suffrage to all adult males was that this would ensure that legislation was framed to benefit the interests of all, rather than of the few. Sumner demonstrated in his historical studies that it did not work out that way. [...] 'The fate of modern democracy is to fall into subjection to plutocracy.' The term plutocracy [...] meant a type of government in which effective control rested with men of wealth who sought to use political means to increase their wealth. Sumner believed that there is no form of government better suited to their control than democracy. [...] The plutocrats have [...] no qualms about flattering, lying to, or bribing the masses. [...]
"At election time, the voters are given a choice between two candidates who may stand for essentially the same thing, or nothing. [...] [G]iven that the nature of democracy is to throw off all limitations upon government power, elections become 'struggles for power – war between the two parties' for control of the state. [...] One election is hardly over before the intrigue and planning for the next one begins. [...] Party platforms are full of 'empty phrases and Janus-faced propositions,' and often 'two contradictory propositions are combined in the same sentence, or a non-proposition is so stated that each man may read there just what will suit his own notions.' [...] The object of political campaigning is not to educate the public at all, but to energize one's supporters and win over by means of deception the non-committed middle. [...] No idea more annoyed Sumner than the superstition that democratic elections are a magic elixir from which flow liberty, justice, and wise governance. [...]
"Sumner feared that American 'democracy' would grow even worse by becoming paternal while not ceasing to be plutocratic. Plutocracy would prove to be the parent of paternalism [...] such as limitations on the length of the working day, unemployment insurance, government health care, and other means of providing for economic and social 'security.' The plutocrats may conclude that extending such benefits is the price they must pay for retaining power and their own lucrative privileges, while the masses will regard paternalism as their right to a share in the spoils of the state. Sumner condemned the incipient welfare state as incompatible with freedom and inimical to liberty. Those citizens who favor it are hypocrites who clamor for security with the same insistence and sense of entitlement as they demand freedom and equality. [...] There was also a danger that 'democratic' government would enact moral reforms or try to alter the structure of society. [...] 'The taxing power is especially something after which the reformer's finger always itches,' as it offers endless potential for rewarding certain behaviors and punishing others. [...]
"The Bush doctrine – American world dominion is justified by her divine mission to spread freedom and democracy – is not new. The Spanish-American War and its imperial aftermath were justified on the same grounds. Sumner noted how a senator had claimed that the United States would occupy the Philippines only long enough to teach them self-government. [...] If America attempts 'to be schoolmistress to others, it will shrivel up into the same vanity and self-conceit,' and be the object of the same loathing and hatred as the other imperial powers. Moral imperialism is as 'false and wrong' as any other kind of imperialism, for it violates freedom and self-government. The nation that says, 'We know what is good for you better than you know yourself and we are going to make you do it' cares nothing for liberty or national self-determination, since liberty 'means leaving people to live out their own lives in their own way.' It is also a recipe for endless intervention and perpetual war, as the subsequent history of the United States demonstrated. [...]
"Sumner's final judgment on nineteenth-century American democracy was that it had failed to secure liberty or good government, and it would do worse in the next century. Who was to blame? He blamed the people. 'The root of all our troubles at present and in the future is in the fact that the people fails of what was assumed about it and attributed to it.' The people complain about the politicians, about the special interests, and about the power of corporations to corrupt the political process. But who elected the politicians? Who makes up the special interests? Who elected corruptible legislatures and presidents? 'He who rules is responsible, be it Tsar, Pope, Emperor, Aristocracy, Oligarchy, or Demos.' The 'people is altogether at fault. It has not done its first duty in the premises, and therefore the whole system has gone astray.' [...] What is [our] destiny? A paternalistic, plutocratic, imperial state, in which freedom and individuality will slowly suffocate and civilization coarsen and die. A century of war and collectivism has vindicated Sumner's pessimism, and it appears that the twentieth century has bequeathed even worse to the twenty-first."
H. Arthur Scott Trask, PhD, an independent historian, is an Adjunct Scholar at the libertarian Ludwig von Mises Institute.
31 March 2010
Book: Property, Freedom, and Society: Essays in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe
In July 2009, the libertarian Ludwig von Mises Institute published the book "Property, Freedom, and Society: Essays in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe" (Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and a Distinguished Fellow with the Mises Institute), edited by Jörg Guido Hülsmann (University of Angers, France/Mises Institute) and Stephan Kinsella (Mises Institute).
The full text of the book can be read free of charge here:
http://mises.org/books/property_freedom_society_kinsella.pdf
Part Four of this contributed volume is titled "Democracy Reconsidered" and comprises of four short articles. Among them:
Doug French (Mises Institute), "The Trouble with Democracy: Maslow Meets Hoppe" (pp. 237-42).
Excerpts: "[T]o be elected and stay elected in American politics to any full-time position requires the suspension of any ethics or good sense a person may possess. [...] Democracy makes it possible for the demagogue to inflame the childish imagination of the masses, 'by virtue of his talent for nonsense.' [...] Because democracy is open to any and all who can get themselves elected, either through connections, personality, or personal wealth, it is a social system where leadership positions become a hotbed for sociopaths. [...]
[T]hose stuck on the need for esteem are drawn to it like flies to dung. [...] So while the electorate recognizes that they are electing, at best incompetents, and at worst crooks, the constant, naïve, pro-democracy mantra is that 'we just need to elect the right people.' But, the 'right people' aren't (and won't be) running for office."
Robert Higgs (Independent Institute), "Democracy and Faits Accomplis" (pp. 249-62).
Excerpts: "No institution of modern life commands as much veneration as democracy. It comes closer than anything else to being the supreme object of adoration in a global religion. Anyone who denies its righteousness and desirability soon finds himself a pariah. [...] Many people are atheists, but few are anti-democrats. [...] Although democracy made giant ideological strides in the nineteenth century, a few writers had the courage to condemn it even well into the twentieth century. [...] [O]ffice-seekers typically either speak in vague, emotion-laden generalities or simply lie about their intentions. After taking office, they may act in complete disregard of their campaign promises, trusting that when they run for reelection, they will be able to concoct a plausible excuse for their infidelity and betrayal of trust. Thus, the voters remain permanently immersed in a fog of disinformation, emotional manipulation, and bald-faced mendacity. No matter what a candidate promises, the voters have no means of holding him to those promises or of punishing his misbehavior until it may be too late to matter. [...] Contemplating this situation, one readily recalls Goethe's dictum that 'none are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.'"
Some other articles from the book also discuss Hoppe's anti-democratic convictions.
The full text of the book can be read free of charge here:
http://mises.org/books/property_freedom_society_kinsella.pdf
Part Four of this contributed volume is titled "Democracy Reconsidered" and comprises of four short articles. Among them:
Doug French (Mises Institute), "The Trouble with Democracy: Maslow Meets Hoppe" (pp. 237-42).
Excerpts: "[T]o be elected and stay elected in American politics to any full-time position requires the suspension of any ethics or good sense a person may possess. [...] Democracy makes it possible for the demagogue to inflame the childish imagination of the masses, 'by virtue of his talent for nonsense.' [...] Because democracy is open to any and all who can get themselves elected, either through connections, personality, or personal wealth, it is a social system where leadership positions become a hotbed for sociopaths. [...]
[T]hose stuck on the need for esteem are drawn to it like flies to dung. [...] So while the electorate recognizes that they are electing, at best incompetents, and at worst crooks, the constant, naïve, pro-democracy mantra is that 'we just need to elect the right people.' But, the 'right people' aren't (and won't be) running for office."
Robert Higgs (Independent Institute), "Democracy and Faits Accomplis" (pp. 249-62).
Excerpts: "No institution of modern life commands as much veneration as democracy. It comes closer than anything else to being the supreme object of adoration in a global religion. Anyone who denies its righteousness and desirability soon finds himself a pariah. [...] Many people are atheists, but few are anti-democrats. [...] Although democracy made giant ideological strides in the nineteenth century, a few writers had the courage to condemn it even well into the twentieth century. [...] [O]ffice-seekers typically either speak in vague, emotion-laden generalities or simply lie about their intentions. After taking office, they may act in complete disregard of their campaign promises, trusting that when they run for reelection, they will be able to concoct a plausible excuse for their infidelity and betrayal of trust. Thus, the voters remain permanently immersed in a fog of disinformation, emotional manipulation, and bald-faced mendacity. No matter what a candidate promises, the voters have no means of holding him to those promises or of punishing his misbehavior until it may be too late to matter. [...] Contemplating this situation, one readily recalls Goethe's dictum that 'none are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.'"
Some other articles from the book also discuss Hoppe's anti-democratic convictions.
18 March 2010
Article: What's So Good About Democracy?
The article "What's So Good About Democracy?" by Norman Barry was published in "The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty" (53 [5], May 2003: pp. 44-8), the near-monthly magazine of the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE).
The article can be read free of charge here:
www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/whats-so-good-about-democracy/
Excerpts: "Some words convey descriptive information about the world – like those used in the weather forecast – while others are designed not to tell us anything factually important but to act on our emotions and garner our support, such as advertising slogans and political words. This is true of democracy: If anybody confesses to being anti-democratic he is likely to be called a fascist. In its emotive sense, all sorts of good things, such as liberty, rights, majority rule, and the public interest, are bundled up and marketed under the label 'democracy.' [...] A modern critique of democracy must proceed from [...] nineteenth-century skeptical insights – but with one crucially important qualification: the threat to civilization has not actually come from the unfettered mob but from the uncontrollable influence of pressure groups ([James] Madison's 'factions') on the social and economic process. They are much more dangerous than majoritarianism precisely because they can claim the imprimatur of liberal democracy for their anti-individualistic and anti-market effects. [...]
"It was the Italian theorists of elitism who first produced a powerful, theoretical critique of democracy, and some of their strictures are relevant to modern considerations. [...] Although [Joseph] Schumpeter had the key to a wholesale critique of democracy, he still supported it. Democracy could work, he thought, if a society were reasonably homogeneous, had a reliable bureaucracy [...], and not too many affairs were subject to political, as opposed to private economic, decision-making. He thought that the level of rationality fell as soon as people left the marketplace and played politics, either as voters or activists. This seems to be true. Just watch the supreme rationality of the housewife quickly responding to price changes at Wal-Mart, compared to her ignorance of the policy proposals of political parties at an election. [...] The problem is that it is not in her interest to be well-informed about politics. It is simply in no one's rational self-interest to be informed about what is in the 'public interest.' Least of all is it in anyone's interest to sacrifice his well-being for the 'common good.' Democratic theorists have never solved the problem of why rational people vote at all, given the nugatory effect a single vote can have on the result of an election. [...]
"A coherent critique of democracy requires things of which Schumpeter never dreamt: first, a logical explanation of why the public good cannot often be transmitted through the voting mechanism (not merely the casual observation that it rarely happens) and, second, a theory of why, in practice, democratic politics degenerates into a squabble over benefits among rival interest groups. [...] In fact, a democracy would work better if the people voted directly on separate issues rather than having their representatives vote on bundles produced by the parties. Contra conventional conservatism, direct democracy is actually better than representative government. [...] Because of its emotive appeal, selling an anti-democratic idea is politically difficult. Various alternatives have been suggested, but most are infeasible whatever their internal logic. As suggested above, an effective approach, paradoxically, might be to demand more democracy, with choices put to the people rather than to their elected representatives. [...] All of this is rather tame for an anti-democrat. Even the Swiss [model's] constraints are not insurmountable; they have failed to resist some advances of centralized government. But they do constitute a model from which further dents in the edifice of conventional majority rule and almost unlimited sovereignty might be made."
Personal experience from Switzerland tells me that there is no significant difference in outcomes between representative democracy and direct democracy.
The late Norman Barry (1944-2008) was a libertarian Professor of Social and Political Theory at the University of Buckingham.
The article can be read free of charge here:
www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/whats-so-good-about-democracy/
Excerpts: "Some words convey descriptive information about the world – like those used in the weather forecast – while others are designed not to tell us anything factually important but to act on our emotions and garner our support, such as advertising slogans and political words. This is true of democracy: If anybody confesses to being anti-democratic he is likely to be called a fascist. In its emotive sense, all sorts of good things, such as liberty, rights, majority rule, and the public interest, are bundled up and marketed under the label 'democracy.' [...] A modern critique of democracy must proceed from [...] nineteenth-century skeptical insights – but with one crucially important qualification: the threat to civilization has not actually come from the unfettered mob but from the uncontrollable influence of pressure groups ([James] Madison's 'factions') on the social and economic process. They are much more dangerous than majoritarianism precisely because they can claim the imprimatur of liberal democracy for their anti-individualistic and anti-market effects. [...]
"It was the Italian theorists of elitism who first produced a powerful, theoretical critique of democracy, and some of their strictures are relevant to modern considerations. [...] Although [Joseph] Schumpeter had the key to a wholesale critique of democracy, he still supported it. Democracy could work, he thought, if a society were reasonably homogeneous, had a reliable bureaucracy [...], and not too many affairs were subject to political, as opposed to private economic, decision-making. He thought that the level of rationality fell as soon as people left the marketplace and played politics, either as voters or activists. This seems to be true. Just watch the supreme rationality of the housewife quickly responding to price changes at Wal-Mart, compared to her ignorance of the policy proposals of political parties at an election. [...] The problem is that it is not in her interest to be well-informed about politics. It is simply in no one's rational self-interest to be informed about what is in the 'public interest.' Least of all is it in anyone's interest to sacrifice his well-being for the 'common good.' Democratic theorists have never solved the problem of why rational people vote at all, given the nugatory effect a single vote can have on the result of an election. [...]
"A coherent critique of democracy requires things of which Schumpeter never dreamt: first, a logical explanation of why the public good cannot often be transmitted through the voting mechanism (not merely the casual observation that it rarely happens) and, second, a theory of why, in practice, democratic politics degenerates into a squabble over benefits among rival interest groups. [...] In fact, a democracy would work better if the people voted directly on separate issues rather than having their representatives vote on bundles produced by the parties. Contra conventional conservatism, direct democracy is actually better than representative government. [...] Because of its emotive appeal, selling an anti-democratic idea is politically difficult. Various alternatives have been suggested, but most are infeasible whatever their internal logic. As suggested above, an effective approach, paradoxically, might be to demand more democracy, with choices put to the people rather than to their elected representatives. [...] All of this is rather tame for an anti-democrat. Even the Swiss [model's] constraints are not insurmountable; they have failed to resist some advances of centralized government. But they do constitute a model from which further dents in the edifice of conventional majority rule and almost unlimited sovereignty might be made."
Personal experience from Switzerland tells me that there is no significant difference in outcomes between representative democracy and direct democracy.
The late Norman Barry (1944-2008) was a libertarian Professor of Social and Political Theory at the University of Buckingham.
22 February 2010
Article: Bioethics and Deliberative Democracy: Five Warnings from Hobbes
Griffin Trotter, "Bioethics and Deliberative Democracy: Five Warnings from Hobbes" ("Journal of Medicine and Philosophy", 31 [3], June 2006: pp. 235-50).
Abstract: "Thomas Hobbes is one of the most ardent and thoroughgoing opponents of participatory democracy among Western political philosophers. Though Hobbes's alternative to participatory democracy – assent by subjects to rule by an absolute sovereign – no longer constitutes a viable political alternative for Westerners, his critique of participatory democracy is a potentially valuable source of insight about its liabilities. This essay elaborates five theses from Hobbes that stand as cogent warnings to those who embrace participatory democracy, especially those (such as most bioethicists) advocating for deliberative democracy based on a rational consensus model. In light of these warnings, the author suggests an alternative, modus vivendi approach to deliberative democracy that would radically alter the current practice of bioethics."
The full text of the article can be read free of charge here:
http://pdfserve.informaworld.com/761063__748843840.pdf
Excerpts: "Unlike Hobbes, I have no particular disdain for democracy. My intention here is to improve our conception of it. To that end, I will employ Hobbesian notions as leading ideas. [...] Hobbes is uniquely prominent among Enlightenment philosophers for his critical stance toward democracy [...]. He believes, first of all, that participatory democracy is difficult to carry off on a grand scale, and always devolves into rule by an aristocracy of vain-glorious public personalities [...], the most adroit manipulators of public sentiment will hold power and use this power in the way power is typically used – to serve their individual ends (whether these ends be egoistic, as Hobbes frequently presumes, or of the nature of imposing a comprehensive moral vision upon dissenting subjects). [...]
"Hobbes [...] worries about the politicization of ordinary human activities. The purpose of the state, on his view, is to carve out a secure area where such activities can be conducted without hostile interference. [...] [P]ublic advocacy [...] is profitless, not merely because it cannot succeed in producing a robust moral consensus, but more importantly because liberty and individual felicity would be enhanced by allowing opposing individuals and groups to establish their own practices, free from government interference and from each other [....] Democratic processes strongly tend to enhance both government's power (ability to enforce obedience) and its dominion (scope of things enforced). Because the citizens of a democracy participate in its rule, they tend to confuse dominion with liberty [...].
"In participatory democracy, many are involved, each with their own particular interests, desires, and objectives to which political power is an available means. [...] Each of these mini-demagogues is potentially capable of converting his/her personal concerns into political issues. Cooperation with disinterested demagogues is negotiated via a quid pro quo (well illustrated in the United States by our congressional earmarks) – begetting layer upon layer of political accretions. As we have witnessed in recent years, the metastasis of public projects eventually produces an unwieldy workload that overwhelms elected officials. Rather than viewing this predicament as a signal to scale down government, these officials create committees, commissions, and agencies – filled with political allies and authorized to create or enact more rules and prohibitions. [...]
"Insofar as citizens conflate their political dominion with their liberty or their felicity, they will tend to conjure grand visions of what they can achieve with like-minded political allies (against the will of dissenters). The typical result, on Hobbes's account, is a suffocating profusion of collective thinking. [...] Hobbes spends quite a bit of time delineating the ways in which public discourse amplifies realistic personal fears into irrational public hysteria. [...] The credo seems to be that it is better to do something coercively in large aggregates than to do it by consent in small groups. [...]
"[P]olitical processes aimed at moral consensus exacerbate each of the aforementioned dangers of participatory democracy. Founded, as it is, on the false claim that extensive moral consensus is possible, the quest for consensus requires multiple layers of deception. Citizens must be deceived into believing that the opinions of statesmen or moral experts are morally authoritative for the whole group (Hobbes's sovereign would never pose such a ludicrous claim). They must be deceived into believing that their well-being is enhanced by acquiescing to the purported moral consensus. And they must be deceived into believing that this acquiescence is in important respects autonomous and voluntary (despite the obvious fact that it is coerced). [...]
"Hobbes's critique of democracy-by-rational-consensus, and its bioethical counterpart, opens the door to a much longer and more difficult discussion. [...] Real political discourse is fractious; it involves the whole gamut of moral, immoral, and amoral human motives; and it succeeds primarily by producing cooperative activity, not moral consensus. Hobbes prefers monarchy over participatory democracy primarily because he thinks it is less apt to produce tyrannical accretions of government power and dominion, leaving citizens and diverse moral communities at relative liberty to chart their own moral destinies."
I read this as a libertarian take on democracy.
Griffin Trotter, who received both an MD and a PhD in Philosophy, is Associate Professor in the Department of Health Care at Saint Louis University.
Abstract: "Thomas Hobbes is one of the most ardent and thoroughgoing opponents of participatory democracy among Western political philosophers. Though Hobbes's alternative to participatory democracy – assent by subjects to rule by an absolute sovereign – no longer constitutes a viable political alternative for Westerners, his critique of participatory democracy is a potentially valuable source of insight about its liabilities. This essay elaborates five theses from Hobbes that stand as cogent warnings to those who embrace participatory democracy, especially those (such as most bioethicists) advocating for deliberative democracy based on a rational consensus model. In light of these warnings, the author suggests an alternative, modus vivendi approach to deliberative democracy that would radically alter the current practice of bioethics."
The full text of the article can be read free of charge here:
http://pdfserve.informaworld.com/761063__748843840.pdf
Excerpts: "Unlike Hobbes, I have no particular disdain for democracy. My intention here is to improve our conception of it. To that end, I will employ Hobbesian notions as leading ideas. [...] Hobbes is uniquely prominent among Enlightenment philosophers for his critical stance toward democracy [...]. He believes, first of all, that participatory democracy is difficult to carry off on a grand scale, and always devolves into rule by an aristocracy of vain-glorious public personalities [...], the most adroit manipulators of public sentiment will hold power and use this power in the way power is typically used – to serve their individual ends (whether these ends be egoistic, as Hobbes frequently presumes, or of the nature of imposing a comprehensive moral vision upon dissenting subjects). [...]
"Hobbes [...] worries about the politicization of ordinary human activities. The purpose of the state, on his view, is to carve out a secure area where such activities can be conducted without hostile interference. [...] [P]ublic advocacy [...] is profitless, not merely because it cannot succeed in producing a robust moral consensus, but more importantly because liberty and individual felicity would be enhanced by allowing opposing individuals and groups to establish their own practices, free from government interference and from each other [....] Democratic processes strongly tend to enhance both government's power (ability to enforce obedience) and its dominion (scope of things enforced). Because the citizens of a democracy participate in its rule, they tend to confuse dominion with liberty [...].
"In participatory democracy, many are involved, each with their own particular interests, desires, and objectives to which political power is an available means. [...] Each of these mini-demagogues is potentially capable of converting his/her personal concerns into political issues. Cooperation with disinterested demagogues is negotiated via a quid pro quo (well illustrated in the United States by our congressional earmarks) – begetting layer upon layer of political accretions. As we have witnessed in recent years, the metastasis of public projects eventually produces an unwieldy workload that overwhelms elected officials. Rather than viewing this predicament as a signal to scale down government, these officials create committees, commissions, and agencies – filled with political allies and authorized to create or enact more rules and prohibitions. [...]
"Insofar as citizens conflate their political dominion with their liberty or their felicity, they will tend to conjure grand visions of what they can achieve with like-minded political allies (against the will of dissenters). The typical result, on Hobbes's account, is a suffocating profusion of collective thinking. [...] Hobbes spends quite a bit of time delineating the ways in which public discourse amplifies realistic personal fears into irrational public hysteria. [...] The credo seems to be that it is better to do something coercively in large aggregates than to do it by consent in small groups. [...]
"[P]olitical processes aimed at moral consensus exacerbate each of the aforementioned dangers of participatory democracy. Founded, as it is, on the false claim that extensive moral consensus is possible, the quest for consensus requires multiple layers of deception. Citizens must be deceived into believing that the opinions of statesmen or moral experts are morally authoritative for the whole group (Hobbes's sovereign would never pose such a ludicrous claim). They must be deceived into believing that their well-being is enhanced by acquiescing to the purported moral consensus. And they must be deceived into believing that this acquiescence is in important respects autonomous and voluntary (despite the obvious fact that it is coerced). [...]
"Hobbes's critique of democracy-by-rational-consensus, and its bioethical counterpart, opens the door to a much longer and more difficult discussion. [...] Real political discourse is fractious; it involves the whole gamut of moral, immoral, and amoral human motives; and it succeeds primarily by producing cooperative activity, not moral consensus. Hobbes prefers monarchy over participatory democracy primarily because he thinks it is less apt to produce tyrannical accretions of government power and dominion, leaving citizens and diverse moral communities at relative liberty to chart their own moral destinies."
I read this as a libertarian take on democracy.
Griffin Trotter, who received both an MD and a PhD in Philosophy, is Associate Professor in the Department of Health Care at Saint Louis University.
04 January 2010
Article: The Enemies of Democracy
Published in 2007 in the rather obscure and hard to find "International Journal of World Peace" (24 [2]: pp. 63-83), one of the latest articles concerning "The Enemies of Democracy" was written by Laurie L. Calhoun.
Abstract: "In recent years, one of the most frequently cited reasons for unleashing military force upon the world [as part of the "war on terror"] has been the importance of democratization. The inhabitants of the lands attacked in interventions rationalized (in part) by the need to spread democracy are often said by war supporters to be the recipients of beneficence on the part of those who intervene. However, some of the people allegedly being 'saved' are through these missions instead killed or maimed. Accordingly, claims on the part of the warriors to be promoting democracy need to be scrutinized, not simply accepted as true on the basis of the accounts offered by the killers themselves. A closer examination reveals that the assumptions funding the reigning pro-military paradigm conflict with the most basic principles of democracy. The erosion of American democracy occasioned by the twentieth-century expansion and transformation of the U.S. military has been exacerbated by the concomitant effects of capitalization upon the mainstream media."
The full article can be bought from Amazon:
www.amazon.com/enemies-democracy-International-Journal-World/dp/B000X4EESM/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262600236&sr=1-12
Laurie L. Calhoun is Executive Editor of "Transition" magazine at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard and a Research Fellow at the libertarian Independent Institute.
Abstract: "In recent years, one of the most frequently cited reasons for unleashing military force upon the world [as part of the "war on terror"] has been the importance of democratization. The inhabitants of the lands attacked in interventions rationalized (in part) by the need to spread democracy are often said by war supporters to be the recipients of beneficence on the part of those who intervene. However, some of the people allegedly being 'saved' are through these missions instead killed or maimed. Accordingly, claims on the part of the warriors to be promoting democracy need to be scrutinized, not simply accepted as true on the basis of the accounts offered by the killers themselves. A closer examination reveals that the assumptions funding the reigning pro-military paradigm conflict with the most basic principles of democracy. The erosion of American democracy occasioned by the twentieth-century expansion and transformation of the U.S. military has been exacerbated by the concomitant effects of capitalization upon the mainstream media."
The full article can be bought from Amazon:
www.amazon.com/enemies-democracy-International-Journal-World/dp/B000X4EESM/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262600236&sr=1-12
Laurie L. Calhoun is Executive Editor of "Transition" magazine at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard and a Research Fellow at the libertarian Independent Institute.
03 January 2010
Book: Democracy – The God That Failed
A 2001 book that sells rather well as it deals with themes of political economy: "Democracy – The God That Failed: The Economics and Politics of Monarchy, Democracy, and Natural Order" by Hans-Hermann Hoppe (Transaction Publishers):
www.transactionpub.com/cgi-bin/transactionpublishers.storefront/en/product/0-7658-0868-4
From the publisher's description: "The core of this book is a systematic treatment of the historic transformation of the West from monarchy to democracy. Revisionist in nature, it reaches the conclusion that monarchy is a lesser evil than democracy, but outlines deficiencies in both. Its methodology is axiomatic-deductive, allowing the writer to derive economic and sociological theorems, and then apply them to interpret historical events. [...]
"Hoppe deconstructs the classical liberal belief in the possibility of limited government and calls for an alignment of conservatism and libertarianism as natural allies with common goals. [...] Having established a natural order as superior on utilitarian grounds, the author goes on to assess the prospects for achieving a natural order. Informed by his analysis of the deficiencies of social democracy, and armed with the social theory of legitimation, he forsees secession as the likely future of the US and Europe, resulting in a multitude of region and city-states."
Clyde N. Wilson, in his review for "The American Conservative", wrote: "Hans-Hermann Hoppe's theoretically disciplined examination of the present sad state of Western governments has received considerable and well-deserved attention. His diagnosis of the disease is superb. His recommended cure – the maximum individual disengagement and community secession from the state – is worth serious consideration by those who have learned that government is now without limits and its growth unstoppable by a mere change of parties."
The book is fully searchable on Google Book Search (including table of contents):
http://books.google.com/books?id=zRyOSljcB0AC&printsec=frontcover
A volume in the libertarian/anarcho-capitalist tradition. I perceive a lack of understanding for the fact that every form of capitalism will, in time, lead to some form of democracy. A permanent separation is impossible.
German-born Hans-Hermann Hoppe is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and a Distinguished Fellow with the Ludwig von Mises Institute. His doctoral advisor (in Philosophy) at the Goethe University Frankfurt was Jürgen Habermas.
www.transactionpub.com/cgi-bin/transactionpublishers.storefront/en/product/0-7658-0868-4
From the publisher's description: "The core of this book is a systematic treatment of the historic transformation of the West from monarchy to democracy. Revisionist in nature, it reaches the conclusion that monarchy is a lesser evil than democracy, but outlines deficiencies in both. Its methodology is axiomatic-deductive, allowing the writer to derive economic and sociological theorems, and then apply them to interpret historical events. [...]
"Hoppe deconstructs the classical liberal belief in the possibility of limited government and calls for an alignment of conservatism and libertarianism as natural allies with common goals. [...] Having established a natural order as superior on utilitarian grounds, the author goes on to assess the prospects for achieving a natural order. Informed by his analysis of the deficiencies of social democracy, and armed with the social theory of legitimation, he forsees secession as the likely future of the US and Europe, resulting in a multitude of region and city-states."
Clyde N. Wilson, in his review for "The American Conservative", wrote: "Hans-Hermann Hoppe's theoretically disciplined examination of the present sad state of Western governments has received considerable and well-deserved attention. His diagnosis of the disease is superb. His recommended cure – the maximum individual disengagement and community secession from the state – is worth serious consideration by those who have learned that government is now without limits and its growth unstoppable by a mere change of parties."
The book is fully searchable on Google Book Search (including table of contents):
http://books.google.com/books?id=zRyOSljcB0AC&printsec=frontcover
A volume in the libertarian/anarcho-capitalist tradition. I perceive a lack of understanding for the fact that every form of capitalism will, in time, lead to some form of democracy. A permanent separation is impossible.
German-born Hans-Hermann Hoppe is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and a Distinguished Fellow with the Ludwig von Mises Institute. His doctoral advisor (in Philosophy) at the Goethe University Frankfurt was Jürgen Habermas.
02 January 2010
Experimental "competitive government" instead of democracy
Until recently, the term "competitive government" has been used to refer to competing policies with regard to democratic institutional arrangements and to the (neo-liberal) introduction of (market-)competitive elements to public administration, such as the privatization and outsourcing of public services (provision of water and electricity, waste disposal, public transportation, health care, etc.), public-private partnerships, and so on.
The term now is about to receive a new meaning thanks to the work of Patri Friedman and others. For them, "competitive government" describes the competition between the political arrangements of entire (future) nation states, be they democratic or otherwise. It is about the freedom of people to decide themselves in what political system they prefer to live and the freedom for every individual to move to a "nation" state/country of his or her choosing. It is about diversity in the forms of government worldwide rather than the uniformity of international "democracy promotion".
For a number of reasons the term "competitive government" may not be ideal, though, for what Friedman and others envisage. After all, unlike today there would be no real competition between such (new) nation states/countries. (Traditionally, competition between national governments and nations too often ends in war.) It's not about dominance, but rather about co-existence and tolerance for other, alternative, diverse forms of government, even "niche" government (political systems that only a minority of people would volunteer to live in). In a competition-theoretical sense, "competitive government" means, however: no monopoly for democracy.
At the same time, the "nation" would have to lose any connotation of blood, ethnicity, and nationalism and come to stand for communities of politically like-minded people instead.
It is safe to say that Friedman is stuck in the terminology of Economics ("competition" rather than accommodation or tolerance, "nation" as the basic entity of political-economic discourse – western democracy promotion suffers from the same competitive misapprehension, inherent in its linkage to capitalist market philosophy and mechanisms).
In Patri Friedman's case this is owed to his family heritage and background. His grandfather, Milton Friedman, 1976 Nobel Prize laureate in Economics, was one of the professors who turned the University of Chicago into a centre of so-called neo-liberal thought. The author of books such as "Capitalism and Freedom" (1962), Milton Friedman was a stout defender of the view that capitalism and democracy are inextricably linked.
Albeit deeply critical of the (welfare) state and pleading for a government that refrains from interventions in the economy, limits its activities to the bare minimum, and leaves the individual as much as possible alone, he still charged the state with the promotion of competition and the provision of a legal and monetary framework for individual and corporate action, primarily in the market place.
Political power should be dispersed as widely as possible, though, so as to avoid coercion of the individual by his fellow men. Dismissing "welfare" and "equality" as the "catchwords" of paternalistic politics against which classical liberalism fought, Milton Friedman held democracy to be merely a means guaranteeing individual freedom.
Now his grandson, Patri Friedman, declares his opposition to democracy.
Taking his clues from his grandfather and father (David D. Friedman) as much as from the libertarian and anarcho-capitalist traditions, Patri Friedman goes further when claiming – on the most elaborate of his many fragmentary websites and blogs – that he is "deeply dissatisfied with current forms of social organization (western democracy)".
http://patrifriedman.com/aboutme/politics.html
He finds "[s]ocial organization (aka government) [...] is being done really badly right now (democracy is better than previous forms, but still awful), and it can be done better. [...] I think most political discussion is [...] nonsensical reasoning about a useless tradition which has accumulated concentrated interests who benefit from it and have entrenched themselves [...]. By stepping up a level, we neatly avoid getting trapped in endless policy debates, debates which are almost pure intellectual masturbation because the problem is not figuring out a good policy, the problem is that the system (say, democracy) doesn't optimize for 'good'. We can argue for hours about the best tax system – but politicians don't want 'the best', they want one where they can profit by selling loopholes."
The solution Patri Friedman proposes is "competitive government" – and the creation of new spaces in which various forms of government and institutional arrangements (some of them non- or anti-democratic) can develop in their own "nation" states/countries. While people (unless they live in some form of democracy) may no longer get to elect their leaders, they would get to decide under what system of government they wish to live – and move there.
Friedman writes: "My path is not just a path to libertarianism, but to a wider variety of governments and societies. I wish to convince non-libertarians that this is an attractive vision, and that it is something they would like to see happen. I also want to help people of many different political persuasions to get along by seeing ways in which each group can have what they want, instead of arguing endlessly over what they should all have."
The way of getting there, according to him, is experimentation: "Government has stagnated. Very little experimentation. (What do you expect when it's basically impossible to start a new country or change an existing one? How do you expect to get technological advances without experimentation?) [...] Experimenting has some important benefits: It gives us empirical evidence about what rule-systems work. This is enormously more valuable than theoretical debates which depend on model assumptions; It enables people to live under a system while learning about it; It gives people a specific, real example to point to when debating the merits of various systems; They let people actually experience a society, physically and emotionally rather than as a mental abstraction. [...]
"The fewer, larger political systems we have, the less experimentation there will be. Also, the less different types of society we will have. I believe that a world with a diverse set of governments, peacefully competing for citizens, would be a much better one. We might see the technologies of social organization advancing as fast as other areas of science and technology."
Patri Friedman recognizes the difficulty of experimenting with political systems in existing nation states/countries. Much like the Zionists at the beginning of the twentieth century, he aims to solve this problem by creating new nations. (One of the blogs he writes on is entitled "Let A Thousand Nations Bloom".) He proposes to "open the new frontier of the oceans", because international waters provide "a very low barrier to entry to creating a new government, and avoid the powers-that-be". " By building cities on the ocean in a modular fashion, the ocean becomes a permanent frontier, because any dissatisfied group can go to a new, empty patch of ocean, and take their houses and offices with them!. This lets them reset at far lower cost."
"And if we build these cities out of modular platforms, so that people can vote with their house (instead of just their feet), we get a world of unprecendented mobility (ie free association). Together, these have the potential to transform the governing industry from an oligopoly into a competitive market."
Patri Friedman calls this "seasteading". He even founded his own organization, the Seadsteading Institute in Palo Alto, California, whose mission statement reads: "To further the establishment and growth of permanent, autonomous ocean communities, enabling innovation with new political and social systems". It may be the first serious project in the direction of "competitive government" since it received a financial contribution of half a million US dollars from billionaire Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal.
http://www.seasteading.org/
Questions remain, of course, like on what basis people are supposed to come together to form a new "nation"/country/community if they do not before have an abstract idea, model, conception of a future society all of them aspire to?
Like anarchist, capitalist libertarians, others too will have to find ways of conceptualizing such non- or anti-democratic societies first, and then put their ideas into practice and to the test in existing or new states, while never ceasing to experiment.
Patri's own libertarian project (which attracted the Silicon Valley start-up funding for his Seasteading Institute) suffers from his erring belief that capitalism can durably be separated from democracy. As his grandfather, Milton, knew full well a capitalist economy will (in the long run) always lead to democratic forms of government – and thus the same old problems.
New forms of government will not be democratic. They will not be capitalist either.
To build a swimming country will always require a lot of money. New non-democratic, non-capitalist societies are therefore unlikely to arise on the high seas. But arise they will.
The term now is about to receive a new meaning thanks to the work of Patri Friedman and others. For them, "competitive government" describes the competition between the political arrangements of entire (future) nation states, be they democratic or otherwise. It is about the freedom of people to decide themselves in what political system they prefer to live and the freedom for every individual to move to a "nation" state/country of his or her choosing. It is about diversity in the forms of government worldwide rather than the uniformity of international "democracy promotion".
For a number of reasons the term "competitive government" may not be ideal, though, for what Friedman and others envisage. After all, unlike today there would be no real competition between such (new) nation states/countries. (Traditionally, competition between national governments and nations too often ends in war.) It's not about dominance, but rather about co-existence and tolerance for other, alternative, diverse forms of government, even "niche" government (political systems that only a minority of people would volunteer to live in). In a competition-theoretical sense, "competitive government" means, however: no monopoly for democracy.
At the same time, the "nation" would have to lose any connotation of blood, ethnicity, and nationalism and come to stand for communities of politically like-minded people instead.
It is safe to say that Friedman is stuck in the terminology of Economics ("competition" rather than accommodation or tolerance, "nation" as the basic entity of political-economic discourse – western democracy promotion suffers from the same competitive misapprehension, inherent in its linkage to capitalist market philosophy and mechanisms).
In Patri Friedman's case this is owed to his family heritage and background. His grandfather, Milton Friedman, 1976 Nobel Prize laureate in Economics, was one of the professors who turned the University of Chicago into a centre of so-called neo-liberal thought. The author of books such as "Capitalism and Freedom" (1962), Milton Friedman was a stout defender of the view that capitalism and democracy are inextricably linked.
Albeit deeply critical of the (welfare) state and pleading for a government that refrains from interventions in the economy, limits its activities to the bare minimum, and leaves the individual as much as possible alone, he still charged the state with the promotion of competition and the provision of a legal and monetary framework for individual and corporate action, primarily in the market place.
Political power should be dispersed as widely as possible, though, so as to avoid coercion of the individual by his fellow men. Dismissing "welfare" and "equality" as the "catchwords" of paternalistic politics against which classical liberalism fought, Milton Friedman held democracy to be merely a means guaranteeing individual freedom.
Now his grandson, Patri Friedman, declares his opposition to democracy.
Taking his clues from his grandfather and father (David D. Friedman) as much as from the libertarian and anarcho-capitalist traditions, Patri Friedman goes further when claiming – on the most elaborate of his many fragmentary websites and blogs – that he is "deeply dissatisfied with current forms of social organization (western democracy)".
http://patrifriedman.com/aboutme/politics.html
He finds "[s]ocial organization (aka government) [...] is being done really badly right now (democracy is better than previous forms, but still awful), and it can be done better. [...] I think most political discussion is [...] nonsensical reasoning about a useless tradition which has accumulated concentrated interests who benefit from it and have entrenched themselves [...]. By stepping up a level, we neatly avoid getting trapped in endless policy debates, debates which are almost pure intellectual masturbation because the problem is not figuring out a good policy, the problem is that the system (say, democracy) doesn't optimize for 'good'. We can argue for hours about the best tax system – but politicians don't want 'the best', they want one where they can profit by selling loopholes."
The solution Patri Friedman proposes is "competitive government" – and the creation of new spaces in which various forms of government and institutional arrangements (some of them non- or anti-democratic) can develop in their own "nation" states/countries. While people (unless they live in some form of democracy) may no longer get to elect their leaders, they would get to decide under what system of government they wish to live – and move there.
Friedman writes: "My path is not just a path to libertarianism, but to a wider variety of governments and societies. I wish to convince non-libertarians that this is an attractive vision, and that it is something they would like to see happen. I also want to help people of many different political persuasions to get along by seeing ways in which each group can have what they want, instead of arguing endlessly over what they should all have."
The way of getting there, according to him, is experimentation: "Government has stagnated. Very little experimentation. (What do you expect when it's basically impossible to start a new country or change an existing one? How do you expect to get technological advances without experimentation?) [...] Experimenting has some important benefits: It gives us empirical evidence about what rule-systems work. This is enormously more valuable than theoretical debates which depend on model assumptions; It enables people to live under a system while learning about it; It gives people a specific, real example to point to when debating the merits of various systems; They let people actually experience a society, physically and emotionally rather than as a mental abstraction. [...]
"The fewer, larger political systems we have, the less experimentation there will be. Also, the less different types of society we will have. I believe that a world with a diverse set of governments, peacefully competing for citizens, would be a much better one. We might see the technologies of social organization advancing as fast as other areas of science and technology."
Patri Friedman recognizes the difficulty of experimenting with political systems in existing nation states/countries. Much like the Zionists at the beginning of the twentieth century, he aims to solve this problem by creating new nations. (One of the blogs he writes on is entitled "Let A Thousand Nations Bloom".) He proposes to "open the new frontier of the oceans", because international waters provide "a very low barrier to entry to creating a new government, and avoid the powers-that-be". " By building cities on the ocean in a modular fashion, the ocean becomes a permanent frontier, because any dissatisfied group can go to a new, empty patch of ocean, and take their houses and offices with them!. This lets them reset at far lower cost."
"And if we build these cities out of modular platforms, so that people can vote with their house (instead of just their feet), we get a world of unprecendented mobility (ie free association). Together, these have the potential to transform the governing industry from an oligopoly into a competitive market."
Patri Friedman calls this "seasteading". He even founded his own organization, the Seadsteading Institute in Palo Alto, California, whose mission statement reads: "To further the establishment and growth of permanent, autonomous ocean communities, enabling innovation with new political and social systems". It may be the first serious project in the direction of "competitive government" since it received a financial contribution of half a million US dollars from billionaire Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal.
http://www.seasteading.org/
Questions remain, of course, like on what basis people are supposed to come together to form a new "nation"/country/community if they do not before have an abstract idea, model, conception of a future society all of them aspire to?
Like anarchist, capitalist libertarians, others too will have to find ways of conceptualizing such non- or anti-democratic societies first, and then put their ideas into practice and to the test in existing or new states, while never ceasing to experiment.
Patri's own libertarian project (which attracted the Silicon Valley start-up funding for his Seasteading Institute) suffers from his erring belief that capitalism can durably be separated from democracy. As his grandfather, Milton, knew full well a capitalist economy will (in the long run) always lead to democratic forms of government – and thus the same old problems.
New forms of government will not be democratic. They will not be capitalist either.
To build a swimming country will always require a lot of money. New non-democratic, non-capitalist societies are therefore unlikely to arise on the high seas. But arise they will.
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