On the Topic of Democracy: A Refutation of the “Ultimate” Political System.

“Democracy has nothing to do with freedom. Democracy is a soft variant of communism, and rarely in the history of ideas has it been taken for anything else.” – Hoppe

I will start by saying that I normally don’t “do” these types of articles, but I feel compelled to share with you my thoughts on a topic that supersedes gaming, technology or the occasional picture or YouTube post.

Democracy has been forced to the masses since the Greek golden age in history. It has been viewed as the fairest, most efficient way of allowing a populous to come together and make decisions, laws and to appoint leaders to carry out said decisions and laws.  Each man has a vote and with that vote he gets to decide what suits him the best out of a handful of options presented to him. Then the votes are counted and the majority wins. I ask is this fair? Is this efficient? More so I ask you is this just? Not really, not in a long shot.

Democracy’s main issue is that the power of the (country, land, state, etc.) is simply leased to those that the populous chose to govern, the leader has NO direct investment in the control of the land and state. Thus the leader can wield his/her power in any way that they see fit and merely brush the shortcomings off on the next leasee. Thus this only benefits the elected leader and his/her comrades that they appointed to various positions in the government.  You might say that this is handled with a system of Checks and Balances. Much to your disappointment, it is not, because these people who need to keep a check on the other elected officials are still just leasing power, that has been given to them by the people. The Check to these officials is the people, however since we have foolishly given the officials power, we the people remain powerless under a democracy.

Heres a scenario: We all came together and voted, and “Person A” won the majority of votes and is now president of the state. Then president “A” appoints people who share similar views to various posts in the government, he is now able to write laws and make potential life altering decisions at the behest of the country, who is to stop him? The current minority? Not a chance. Now imagine president “A” feels that the state would be safer if we increased our defence and protection services. He and his cohorts write a bill, given that he has the majority, it passes into law and within 30 days we have 2x bigger defence and protection services. Now you person “B” does not like this one bit, in a democracy what can you do about it?  You can stand up and protest. You can write your “Representative.” You can find others who share your opinion on the matter. However in the end, you are powerless because you are a member of the minority. So you and a group of people start a protest, but because of what senator “G” earmarked in the current defence and protection bill, you are now labeled a threat to the citizens around you and are then punished. Ergo, because of Democracy you are now punished. I really do not see how democracy is so great. I would venture to say that a legit Monarchy works better and is potentially a better society to live in than a Democratic society. How so you ask? KEEP READING!

Now a monarchy and the concepts behind it are simple to understand. We have a king or queen who own a large chunk of land and control all the day-to-day operations of the land. The king then employs the common man to build a castle, walls, gates and smaller dwellings and buildings on said land.  How this is better than a democracy? It is fairly simple to see that the current monarch has a DIRECT investment in the kingdom. He is not leasing power like an elected official is. The current monarch if he remains lax in the upkeep of their kingdom will directly suffer, the kingdom could be invaded or the subjects could simply leave the kingdom, essentially leaving the monarch with nothing. It is in the monarchs best interests that he maintains a prosperous, safe and blissful kingdom. If the monarch starts charging high taxes to its subjects he risks said subjects to rise up and potentially harm his investment. However, if the monarch provides basic necessities of life to its subjects and asks them simply to do an assigned job (e.g.. Gardening, tailoring, defence services, butcher). This allows the king to maximize his investment all while keeping the subjects happy. Imagine that you are living under a monarchs rule, and they provide you a home, that is already being paid for by the kingdom, all the monarch asks you to do is maintain the royal gardens. Seems like a fair trade. There is only one problem with this system. While being better than a democracy, where power is not abused and where majority rule does not destroy the opinions of the minority. A monarchy lacks personal freedom, which is the ultimate prize.

Why should we the people be forced to accept the views and values of others? Can it be possible that we would be able to govern ourselves with no established government? I believe so. It is no ones job to force anyone to live by a certain standard. The most powerful force in this world is the Free Market, a TRUE free market, not the imaginary one that the Neo-Cons claim to support and the one Democrats brand as the enemy. With a stateless free market it allows all the issues that are constantly being tossed back and forth by our elected officials to be handled in a fast and efficient and better yet FAIR way. How so? Lets look at the controversial Stem Cell issue that is a hot topic of our time. In a stateless free market if a group wants to get together and support it, they can, if a research center wants to study stem cells they would be able to. Heres the kicker, because there would be a DEMAND for cures to common illnesses that plague us. As long as there is a demand for something in a free market that demand will be met. With a government in the way to write laws and pass regulations its is impossible for there to be breakthroughs in various fields of study, industry and life. Since the majority does not find it to be ethical to study stem cells, the minority now has to stop researching a potential life altering method of curing the masses.

This can be applied to any issue. With a stateless free market, there would be no force on the individual to conform to any legislation or monarch rule. By infringing on others right to privacy and property the aggressor only harms himself. If you are allowed to protect your property, and someone transgressed the boundaries of your property, they (the transgressor) is more than likely going to get seriously hurt. The way a democracy would handle this would be, they vote to establish a domestic defence bureau, they then force the citizens to pay taxes to upkeep the defence bureau and the facilities to detain criminals, some of which are beyond rehabilitation, and in the end because of earmarking, corruption and coercion there is little to no progress in effectively dealing with crime, yet you the citizen are forced to pay for it. Under a monarchy crime is handled as the monarch sees fit, you still pay taxes and in the end it is up to the monarch what the process of dealing with crime and criminals are. Under the process chosen there is potential for you to be directly effected in a negative way. Since this is a monarchy, you the subject are powerless to do anything about this decision. There are limitless examples that can be discussed as to how a Monarchy is superior to a Democracy and how a stateless free market is superior to all political systems.

While it is hard to comprehend and even I do not have all the answers, I can without hesitation say that democracy is the system that failed, and it is unfortunate that through this system your liberties are trampled without you knowing it. Will it ever change? I cannot see it happening soon. Can steps be taken to move towards a system that works? Of course. There are a group of individuals who have discussed this very topic before me. One way would be to elect officials who want to reduce the size and power of government. The best place to start is educating yourself, go and listen to these individuals, read their books, change starts with you. Hans-Hermann Hoppe wrote a whole book on this very topic: Democracy: The God That Failed. If my small write-up has intrigued you, I suggest you check out his work. It is basically this write-up just more detailed and provides more evidence on the matter.

Heres another quote by Hoppe that in short explains why democracy fails: “As for the moral status of majority rule, it must be pointed out that it allows for A and B to band together to rip off C, C and A in turn joining to rip off B, and then B and C conspiring against A, and so on.”