Theory
and History
On the
most abstract level, I want to show how theory is indispensible in correctly
interpreting history. History – the sequence of events unfolding
in time – is "blind." It reveals nothing about causes
and effects. We may agree, for instance, that feudal Europe was poor,
that monarchical Europe was wealthier, and that democratic Europe is
wealthier still, or that nineteenth-century America with its low taxes
and few regulations was poor, while contemporary America with its high
taxes and many regulations is rich. Yet was Europe poor because of feudalism,
and did it grow richer because of monarchy and democracy? Or did Europe
grow richer in spite of monarchy and democracy? Or are these phenomena
unrelated?
Likewise,
is contemporary America wealthier because of higher taxes and more regulations
or in spite of them? That is, would America be even more prosperous
if taxes and regulations had remained at their nineteenth-century levels?
Historians qua historians cannot answer such questions, and no amount
of statistical data manipulation can change this fact. Every sequence
of empirical events is compatible with any of a number of rival, mutually
incompatible interpretations.
To make
a decision regarding such incompatible interpretations, we need a theory.
By theory I mean a proposition whose validity does not depend on further
experience but can be established a priori. This is not to say that
one can do without experience altogether in establishing a theoretical
proposition. However, it is to say that even if experience is necessary,
theoretical insights extend and transcend logically beyond a particular
historical experience. Theoretical propositions are about necessary
facts and relations and, by implication, about impossibilities. Experience
may thus illustrate a theory. But historical experience can neither
establish a theorem nor refute it.
The Austrian
School
Economic
and political theory, especially of the Austrian variety, is a treasure
trove of such propositions. For instance, a larger quantity of a good
is preferred to a smaller amount of the same good; production must precede
consumption; what is consumed now cannot be consumed again in the future;
prices fixed below market-clearing prices will lead to lasting shortages;
without private property in production factors there can be no factor
prices, and without factor prices cost-accounting is impossible; an
increase in the supply of paper money cannot increase total social wealth
but can only redistribute existing wealth; monopoly (the absence of
free entry) leads to higher prices and lower product quality than competition;
no thing or part of a thing can be owned exclusively by more than one
party at a time; democracy (majority rule) and private property are
incompatible.
Theory
is no substitute for history, of course, yet without a firm grasp of
theory serious errors in the interpretation of historical data are unavoidable.
For instance, the outstanding historian Carroll Quigley claims that
the invention of fractional reserve banking has been a major cause of
the unprecedented expansion of wealth associated with the Industrial
Revolution, and countless historians have associated the economic plight
of Soviet-style socialism with the absence of democracy.
From a
theoretical viewpoint, such interpretations must be rejected categorically.
An increase in the paper money supply cannot lead to greater prosperity
but only to wealth redistribution. The explosion of wealth during the
Industrial Revolution took place despite fractional reserve banking.
Similarly, the economic plight of socialism cannot be due to the absence
of democracy. Instead, it is caused by the absence of private property
in factors of production. "Received history" is full of such
misinterpretations. Theory allows us to rule out certain historical
reports as impossible and incompatible with the nature of things. By
the same token, it allows us to uphold certain other things as historical
possibilities, even if they have not yet been tried.
Revisionist
History
More interestingly,
armed with elementary economic and political theory, I present in my
book a revisionist reconstruction of modern Western history: of the
rise of absolute monarchical states out of state-less feudal orders,
and the transformation, beginning with the French Revolution and essentially
completed with the end of World War I, of the Western world from monarchical
to democratic States, and the rise of the US to the rank of "universal
empire." Neo-conservative writers such as Francis Fukuyama have
interpreted this development as civilizational progress, and they proclaim
the "End of History" to have arrived with the triumph of Western
– US – democracy and its globalization
(making the world safe for democracy).
Myth One
My theoretical
interpretation is entirely different. It involves the shattering of
three historical myths. The first and most fundamental is the myth that
the emergence of states out of a prior, non-statist order has caused
subsequent economic and civilizational progress. In fact, theory dictates
that any progress must have occurred in spite – not because –
of the institution of a state.
A state
is defined conventionally as an agency that exercises a compulsory territorial
monopoly of ultimate decison-making (jurisdiction) and of taxation.
By definition then, every state, regardless of its particular constitution,
is economically and ethically deficient. Every monopolist is "bad"
from the viewpoint of consumers. Monopoly is hereby understood as the
absence of free entry into a particular line of production: only one
agency, A, may produce X.
Any monopoly
is "bad" for consumers because, shielded from potential new
entrants into its line of production, the price for its product will
be higher and the quality lower than with free entry. And a monopolist
with ultimate decison-making powers is particularly bad. While other
monopolists produce inferior goods, a monopolist judge, besides producing
inferior goods, will produce bads, because he who is the ultimate judge
in every case of conflict also has the last word in each conflict involving
himself. Consequently, instead of preventing and resolving conflict,
a monopolist of ultimate decision-making will cause and provoke conflict
in order to settle it to his own advantage.
Not only
would no one accept such a monopoly judge provision, but no one would
ever agree to a provision that allowed this judge to determine the price
to be paid for his "service" unilaterally. Predictably, such
a monopolist would use up ever more resources (tax revenue) to produce
fewer goods and perpetrate more bads. This is not a prescription for
protection but for oppression and exploitation. The result of a state,
then, is not peaceful cooperation and social order, but conflict, provocation,
aggression, oppression, and impoverishment, i.e., de-civilization. This,
above all, is what the history of states illustrates. It is first and
foremost the history of countless millions of innocent state victims.
Myth Two
The second
myth concerns the historic transition from absolute monarchies to democratic
states. Not only do neoconservatives interpret this development as progress;
there is near-universal agreement that democracy represents an advance
over monarchy and is the cause of economic and moral progress. This
interpretation is curious in light of the fact that democracy has been
the fountainhead of every form of socialism: of (European) democratic
socialism and (American) liberalism and neo-conservatism as well as
of international (Soviet) socialism, (Italian) fascism, and national
(Nazi) socialism. More importantly, however, theory contradicts this
interpretation; whereas both monarchies and democracies are deficient
as states, democracy is worse than monarchy.
Theoretically
speaking, the transition from monarchy to democracy involves no more
or less than a hereditary monopoly "owner" – the prince
or king – being replaced by temporary and interchangeable –
monopoly "caretakers" – presidents, prime ministers,
and members of parliament. Both kings and presidents will produce bads,
yet a king, because he "owns" the monopoly and may sell or
bequeath it, will care about the repercussions of his actions on capital
values. As the owner of the capital stock on "his" territory,
the king will be comparatively future-oriented. In order to preserve
or enhance the value of his property, he will exploit only moderately
and calculatingly. In contrast, a temporary and interchangeable democratic
caretaker does not own the country, but as long as he is in office he
is permitted to use it to his advantage. He owns its current use but
not its capital stock. This does not eliminate exploitation. Instead,
it makes exploitation shortsighted (present-oriented) and uncalculated,
i.e., carried out without regard for the value of the capital stock.
Nor is
it an advantage of democracy that free entry into every state position
exists (whereas under monarchy entry is restricted by the king's discretion).
To the contrary, only competition in the production of goods is a good
thing. Competition in the production of bads is not good; in fact, it
is sheer evil. Kings, coming into their position by virtue of birth,
might be harmless dilettantes or decent men (and if they are "madmen,"
they will be quickly restrained or if need be, killed, by close relatives
concerned with the possessions of the dynasty). In sharp contrast, the
selection of government rulers by means of popular elections makes it
essentially impossible for a harmless or decent person to ever rise
to the top. Presidents and prime ministers come into their position
as a result of their efficiency as morally uninhibited demagogues. Hence,
democracy virtually assures that only dangerous men will rise to the
top of government.
In particular,
democracy is seen as promoting an increase in the social rate of time
preference (present-orientation) or the "infantilization"
of society. It results in continually increased taxes, paper money and
paper money inflation, an unending flood of legislation, and a steadily
growing "public" debt. By the same token, democracy leads
to lower savings, increased legal uncertainty, moral relativism, lawlessness,
and crime. Further, democracy is a tool for wealth and income confiscation
and redistribution. It involves the legislative "taking" of
the property of some – the haves of something – and the
"giving" of it to others – the have-nots of things.
And since it is presumably something valuable that is being redistributed
– of which the haves have too much and the have-nots too little
– any such redistribution implies that the incentive to be of
value or produce something valuable is systematically reduced. In other
words, the proportion of not-so-good people and not-so-good personal
traits, habits, and forms of conduct and appearance will increase, and
life in society will become increasingly unpleasant.
Last but not least, democracy is described as resulting in a radical
change in the conduct of war. Because they can externalize the costs
of their own aggression onto others (via taxes), both kings and presidents
will be more than 'normally' aggressive and warlike. However, a king's
motive for war is typically an ownership-inheritance dispute. The objective
of his war is tangible and territorial: to gain control over some piece
of real estate and its inhabitants. And to reach this objective it is
in his interest to distinguish between combatants (his enemies and targets
of attack) and non-combatants and their property (to be left out of
the war and undamaged). Democracy has transformed the limited wars of
kings into total wars. The motive for war has become ideological –
democracy, liberty, civilization, humanity. The objectives are intangible
and elusive: the ideological "conversion" of the losers preceded
by their "unconditional" surrender (which, because one can
never be certain about the sincerity of conversion, may require such
means as the mass murder of civilians). And the distinction between
combatants and non-combatants becomes fuzzy and ultimately disappears
under democracy, and mass war involvement – the draft and popular
war rallies – as well as "collateral damage" become
part of war strategy.
Myth Three
Finally,
the third myth shattered is the belief that there is no alternative
to Western welfare-democracies à la US. Again, theory
demonstrates otherwise. First, this belief is false because the modern
welfare-state is not a "stable" economic system. It is bound
to collapse under its own parasitic weight, much like Russian-style
socialism imploded a decade ago. More importantly, however, an economically
stable alternative to democracy exists. The term I propose for this
alternative is "natural order."
In a natural
order every scarce resource, including all land, is owned privately,
every enterprise is funded by voluntarily paying customers or private
donors, and entry into every line of production, including that of property
protection, conflict arbitration, and peacemaking, is free. A large
part of my book concerns the explanation of the workings – the
logic – of a natural order and the requirements for the transformation
from democracy to a natural order.
Whereas
states disarm their citizens so as to be able to rob them more surely
(thereby rendering them more vulnerable also to criminal and terrorist
attack), a natural order is characterized by an armed citizenry. This
feature is furthered by insurance companies, which play a prominent
role as providers of security and protection in a natural order. Insurers
will encourage gun ownership by offering lower premiums to armed (and
weapons-trained) clients. By their nature insurers are defensive agencies.
Only "accidental" – not: self-inflicted, caused or provoked
– damage is "insurable." Aggressors and provocateurs
will be denied insurance coverage and are thus weak. And because insurers
must indemnify their clients in case of victimization, they must be
concerned constantly about the prevention of criminal aggression, the
recovery of misappropriated property, and the apprehension of those
liable for the damage in question.
Furthermore,
the relationship between insurer and client is contractual. The rules
of the game are mutually accepted and fixed. An insurer cannot "legislate,"
or unilaterally change the terms of the contract. In particular, if
an insurer wants to attract a voluntarily paying clientele, it must
provide for the foreseeable contingency of conflict in its contracts,
not only between its own clients but especially with clients of other
insurers. The only provision satisfactorily covering the latter contingency
is for an insurer to bind itself contractually to independent third-party
arbitration. However, not just any arbitration will do. The conflicting
insurers must agree on the arbitrator or arbitration agency, and in
order to be agreeable to insurers, an arbitrator must produce a product
(of legal procedure and substantive judgment) that embodies the widest
possible moral consensus among insurers and clients alike. Thus, contrary
to statist conditions, a natural order is characterized by stable and
predictable law and increased legal harmony.
Moreover,
insurance companies promote the development of another "security
feature." States have not just disarmed their citizens by taking
away their weapons, democratic states in particular have also done so
in stripping their citizens of the right to exclusion and by promoting
instead – through various non-discrimination, affirmative action,
and multiculturalist policies – forced integration. In a natural
order, the right to exclusion inherent in the very idea of private property
is restored to private property owners.
Accordingly,
to lower the production cost of security and improve its quality, a
natural order is characterized by increased discrimination, segregation,
spatial separation, uniculturalism (cultural homogeneity), exclusivity,
and exclusion. In addition, whereas states have undermined intermediating
social institutions (family households, churches, covenants, communities,
and clubs) and the associated ranks and layers of authority so as to
increase their own power vis-a-vis equal and isolated individuals, a
natural order is distinctly un-egalitarian: "elitist," "hierarchical,"
"proprietarian," "patriarchical," and "authoritorian,"
and its stability depends essentially on the existence of a self-conscious
natural – voluntarily acknowledged – aristocracy.
Strategy
Finally,
I discuss strategic matters and questions. How can a natural order arise
out of democracy? I explain the role of ideas, intellectuals, elites,
and public opinion in the legitimation and de-legitimation of state
power. In particular, I discuss the role of secession – and the
proliferation of independent political entities – as an important
step toward the goal of natural order, and I explain how to properly
privatize "socialized" and "public" property.
The book
grew out of speeches I presented at various Mises Institute and CLS
conferences during the 1990s. These conferences, organized by Lew Rockwell,
Burt Blumert, and, until his death in 1995, Murray Rothbard, had the
purpose of advancing libertarianism by locating and anchoring abstract
libertarian theory historically, sociologically, and culturally and
thereby creating what has become known in the meantime as paleo-libertarianism
(in contrast to left-countercultural-libertarianism and cold-and-hot-war
"new" and "neo"-conservatism). The Rothbard-Rockwell
Report, the precusor to LRC, was the first and most immediate expression
and reflection of this intellectual movement. Others included The Costs
of War, Reassessing the Presidency, and The Irrepressible Rothbard.
Democracy the God That Failed is my attempt to define and give
expression to the paleo-libertarian movement.
Down
With Democracy
by Hans-Hermann Hoppe
Imagine
a world government, democratically elected according to the principle
of one-man-one-vote on a world wide scale. What would the probable outcome
of an election be? Most likely, we would get a Chinese-Indian coalition
government. And what would this government most likely decide to do
in order to satisfy its supporters and be reelected? The government
would probably find that the so-called Western world had far too much
wealth and the rest of the world, in particular China and India, had
far too little, and hence, that a systematic wealth and income redistribution
would be called for. Or imagine, for your own country, that the right
to vote were expanded to seven year olds. While the government would
not likely be made up of children, its policies would most definitely
reflect the 'legitimate concerns' of children to have 'adaequate' and
'equal' access to 'free' hamburgers, lemonade, and videos.
In light
of these 'thought experiments', is there any doubt about the consequences
which resulted from the process of democratization that began in Europe
and the U.S. in the second half of the nineteenth century and has come
to fruition since the end of World War I? The successive expansion of
the franchise and finally the establishment of universal adult suffrage
did within each country what a world democracy would do for the entire
globe: it set in motion a seemingly permanent tendency toward wealth
and income redistribution.
One-man-one-vote
combined with 'free entry' into government – democracy –
implies that every person and his personal property comes within reach
of – and is up for grabs by – everyone else. A 'tragedy
of the commons' is created. It can be expected that majorities of 'have-nots'
will relentlessly try to enrich themselves at the expense of minorities
of 'haves'. This is not to say that there will be only one class of
have-nots and one class of haves, and that the redistribution will be
uniformly one from the rich onto the poor. To the contrary. While the
redistribution from rich to poor will always play a prominent role everywhere,
it would be a sociological blunder to assume that it will be the sole
or even the predominant form of redistribution. After all, the 'permanently'
rich and the 'permanently' poor are usually rich or poor for a reason.
The rich are characteristically bright and industrious, and the poor
typically dull, lazy, or both. It is not very likely that dullards,
even if they make up a majority, will systematically outsmart and enrich
themselves at the expense of a minority of bright and energetic individuals.
Rather, most redistribution will take place within the group of the
'non-poor', and frequently it will actually be the better-off who succeed
in having themselves subsidized by the worse-off. Just think of the
almost universal practice of offering a 'free' university education,
whereby the working class, whose children rarely attend universities,
is made to pay for the education of middle-class children! Moreover,
it can be expected that there will be many competing groups and coalitions
trying to gain at the expense of others. There will be various changing
criteria defining what it is that makes one person a 'have' (deserving
to be looted) and another a 'have-not' (deserving to receive the loot).
At the same time, individuals will be members of a multitude of groups
of 'haves' and/or 'have-nots', losing on account of one of their characteristic
and gaining on account of another, with some individuals ending up net-losers
and others net-winners of redistribution.
The recognition
of democracy as a machinery of popular wealth and income redistribution,
then, in conjunction with one of the most fundamental principles in
all of economics – that one will end up getting more of whatever
it is that is being subsidized – provides the key to an understanding
of the present age.
All redistribution,
regardless of the criterion on which it is based, involves 'taking'
from the original owners and/or producers (the 'havers' of something)
and 'giving' to non-owners and non-producers (the 'non-havers' of something).
The incentive to be an original owner or producer of the thing in question
is reduced, and the incentive to be a non-owner and non-producer is
raised. Accordingly, as a result of subsidizing individuals because
they are poor, there will be more poverty. In subsidizing people because
they are unemployed, more unemployment will be created. Supporting single
mothers out of tax funds will lead to an increase in single motherhood,
'illegitimacy', and divorce. In outlawing child labor, income is transfered
from families with children to childless persons (as a result of the
legal restriction on the supply of labor, wage rates will rise). Accordingly,
the birthrate will fall. On the other hand, by subsidizing the education
of children, the opposite effect is created. Income is transfered from
the childless and those with few children to those with many children.
As a result the birthrate will increase. Yet then the value of children
will again fall, and birthrates will decline as a result of the so-called
Social Security System, for in subsidizing retirees (the old) out of
taxes imposed on current income earners (the young), the institution
of a family – the intergenerational bond between parents, grandparents,
and children – is systematically weakened. The old need no longer
rely on the assistance of their children if they have made no provision
for their own old age, and the young (with typically less accumulated
wealth) must support the old (with typically more accumulated wealth)
rather than the other way around, as is typical within families. Parents'
wish for children, and children's wish for parents will decline, family
breakups and dysfunctional families will increase, and provisionary
action – saving and capital formation – will fall, while
consumption rises.
In subsidizing
the malingerers, the neurotics, the careless, the alcoholics, the drug
addicts, the Aids-infected, and the physically and mentally 'challenged'
through insurance regulation and compulsory health insurance, there
will be more illness, malingering, neuroticism, carelessness, alcoholism,
drug addiction, Aids infection, and physical and mental retardation.
By forcing non-criminals, including the victims of crime, to pay for
the imprisonment of criminals (rather than making criminals compensate
their victims and pay the full cost of their own apprehension and incarceration),
crime will increase. By forcing businessmen, through 'affirmative action'
('non-discrimination') programs, to employ more women, homosexuals,
blacks, or other 'minorities' than they would like to, there will be
more employed minorities, and fewer employers and fewer male, heterosexual,
and white employment. By compelling private land owners to subsidize
('protect') 'endangered species' residing on their land through environmental
legislation, there will be more and better-off animals, and fewer and
worse-off humans.
Most importantly,
by compelling private property owners and/or market income earners (producers)
to subsidize 'politicians', 'political parties', and 'civil servants'
(politicians and government employees do not pay taxes but are paid
out of taxes), there will be less wealth formation, fewer producers
and less productivity, and ever more waste, 'parasites' and parasitism.
Businessmen
(capitalists) and their employees cannot earn an income unless they
produce goods or services which are sold in markets. The buyers' purchases
are voluntary. By buying a good or service, the buyers (consumers) demonstrate
that they prefer this good or service over the sum of money that they
must surrender in order to acquire it. In contrast, politicians, parties,
and civil servants produce nothing which is sold in markets. No one
buys government 'goods' or 'services'. They are produced, and costs
are incurred to produce them, but they are not sold and bought. On the
one hand, this implies that it is impossible to determine their value
and find out whether or not this value justifies their costs. Because
no one buys them, no one actually demonstrates that he considers government
goods and services worth their costs, and indeed, whether or not anyone
attaches any value to them at all. From the viewpoint of economic theory,
it is thus entirely illegitimate to assume, as is always done in national
income accounting, that government goods and services are worth what
it costs to produce them, and then to simply add this value to that
of the 'normal', privately produced (bought and sold) goods and services
to arrive at gross domestic (or national) product, for instance. It
might as well be assumed that government goods and services are worth
nothing, or even that they are not "goods" at all but "bads";
hence, that the cost of politicians and the entire civil service should
be subtracted from the total value of privately produced goods and services.
Indeed, to assume this would be far more justified. For on the other
hand, as to its practical implications, the subsidizing of politicians
and civil servants amounts to a subsidy to 'produce' with little or
no regard for the well-being of one's alleged consumers, and with much
or sole regard instead for the well-being of the 'producers', i.e.,
the politicians and civil servants. Their salaries remain the same,
whether their output satisfies consumers or not. Accordingly, as a result
of the expansion of 'public' sector employment, there will be increasing
laziness, carelessness, incompeence, disservice, maltreatment, waste,
and even destruction – and at the same time ever more arrogance,
demagogery, and lies ('we work for the public good').
After less
than one hundred years of democracy and redistribution, the predictable
results are in. The 'reserve fund' that was inherited from the past
is apparently exhausted. For several decades (since the late 1960s or
the early 1970s), real standards of living have stagnated or even fallen
in the West. The 'public' debt and the cost of the existing social security
and health care system have brought on the prospect of an imminent economic
meltdown. At the same time, almost every form of undesirable behavior
– unemployment, welfare dependency, negligence, recklessness,
uncivility, psychopathy, hedonism and crime – has increased, and
social conflict and societal breakdown have risen to dangerous heights.
If current trends continue, it is safe to say that the Western welfare
state (social democracy) will collapse just as Eastern (Russian-style)
socialism collapsed in the late 1980s.
However,
economic collapse does not automatically lead to improvement. Matters
can become worse rather than better. What is necessary besides a crisis
are ideas – correct ideas – and men capable of understanding
and implementing them once the opportunity arises. Ultimately, the course
of history is determined by ideas, be they true or false, and by men
acting upon and being inspired by true or false ideas. The current mess
is also the result of ideas. It is the result of the overwhelming acceptance,
by public opinion, of the idea of democracy. As long as this acceptance
prevails, a catastrophy will be unavoidable, and there is no hope for
improvement even after its arrival. On the other hand, once the idea
of democracy is recognized as false and vicious – and ideas can,
in principle, be changed almost instantaneously – a catastrophy
can be avoided.
The central
task ahead of those wanting to turn the tide and prevent an outright
breakdown is the 'delegitimation' of the idea of democracy as the root
cause of the present state of progressive 'decivilization'. To this
purpose, one should first point out that it is difficult to find many
proponents of democracy in the history of political theory. Almost all
major thinkers had nothing but contempt for democracy. Even the Founding
Fathers of the U.S., nowadays considered the model of a democracy, were
strictly opposed to it. Without a single exception, they thought of
democracy as nothing but mob-rule. They considered themselves to be
members of a 'natural aristocracy', and rather than a democracy they
advocated an aristocratic republic. Furthermore, even among the few
theoretical defenders of democracy such as Rousseau, for instance, it
is almost impossible to find anyone advocating democracy for anything
but extremely small communities (villages or towns). Indeed, in small
communities where everyone knows everyone else personally most people
cannot but acknowledge that the position of the 'haves' is typically
based on their superior personal achievement just as the position of
the 'have-nots' finds its typical explanation in their personal deficiencies
and inferiority. Under these circumstances, it is far more difficult
to get away with trying to loot other people and their personal property
to one's advantage. In distinct contrast, in large territories encompassing
millions or even hundreds of millions of people, where the potential
looters do not know their victims, and vice versa, the human desire
to enrich oneself at another's expense is subject to little or no restraints.
More importantly,
it must be made clear again that the idea of democracy is immoral as
well as uneconomical. 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, etc..This is not justice but a moral outrage, and rather
than treating democracy and democrats with respect, they should be treated
with open contempt and ridiculed as moral frauds. On the other hand,
as for the economic quality of democracy, it must be stressed relentlessly
that it is not democracy but private property, production, and voluntary
exchange that are the ultimate sources of human civilization and prosperity.
In particular, contrary to widespread myths, it needs to be emphasized
that the lack of democracy had essentially nothing to do with the bankruptcy
of Russian-style socialism. It was not the selection principle for politicians
that constituted socialism's problem. It was politics and political
decision-making as such. Instead of each private producer deciding independently
what to do with particular resources, as under a regime of private property
and contractualism, with fully or partially socialized factors of production
each decision requires someone else's permission. It is irrelevant to
the producer how those giving permission are chosen. What matters to
him is that permission must be sought at all. As long as this is the
case, the incentive of producers to produce is reduced and impoverishment
will result. Private property is as incompatible with democracy, then,
as with any other form of political rule. Rather than democracy, justice
as well as economic efficiency require a pure and unrestricted private
property society – an 'anarchy of production' – in which
no one rules anybody, and all producers' relations are voluntary, and
thus mutually beneficial.
Lastly,
as for strategic considerations, in order to approach the goal of a
non-exploitative social order, i.e., a private property anarchy, the
idea of majoritarianism should be turned against democratic rule itself.
Under any form of governmental rule, including a democracy, the 'ruling
class' (politicians and civil servants) makes up only a small proportion
of the total population. While it is possible that one hundred parasites
may lead a comfortable life on the products of one thousand hosts, one
thousand parasites cannot live off of one hundred hosts. Based on the
recognition of this fact, it would appear possible to persuade a majority
of the voters that it is adding insult to injury to let those living
off of other peoples' taxes have a say in how high these taxes are,
and to thus decide, democratically, to take the right to vote away from
all government employees and everyone who receives government benefits,
whether they are welfare recipients or government contractors. In addition,
in conjunction with this strategy it is necessary to recognize the overwhelming
importance of secession and secessionist movements. If majority decisions
are 'right', then the largest of all possible majorities, a world majority
and a democratic world government, must be considered ultimately 'right'
with the consequences predicted at the outset of this article. In contrast,
secession always involves the breaking away of smaller from larger populations.
It is thus a vote against the principle of democracy and majoritarianism.
The further the process of secession proceeds – to the level of
small regions, cities, city districts, towns, villages, and ultimately
individual households and voluntary associations of private households
and firms – the more difficult it will become to maintain the
current level of redistributive policies. At the same time, the smaller
the territorial units, the more likely it will be that a few individuals,
based on the popular recognition of their economic independence, outstanding
professional achievement, morally impeccable personal life, superior
judgement, courage, and taste, will rise to the rank of natural, voluntarily
acknowledged elites and lend legitimacy to the idea of a natural order
of competing (non-monopolistic) and freely (voluntarily) financed peacekeepers,
judges, and overlapping jurisdictions as exists even now in the arena
of international trade and travel – a pure private law society
– as the answer to democracy and any other form of political (coercive)
rule.
November
17, 2000
Copyright
2000 by Hans-Hermann Hoppe