Wednesday, September 30, 2009
(This is commentary of mine taken from Mike Gogulsk's recent post at NoState.com, but also more generally targeted towards his move towards a version of "anarchism without adjectives" and his post on "why I'm not a voluntaryist", which I think completely misses what the problem with "voluntaryism" is).
Part of the problem with the relativist “can’t we all just put aside philophical differences and unite against the state” meme is that it seems to reduce to fake solidarity. It is usually predicated on the ancap’s bargaining power, or to put the matter more directly, on the assumption that it’s the ancap’s property framework in which the “pluralism” towards the socialist is supposed to be manifested.
Another issue is that saying that we should unite against the common enemy may very well be misleading, in that the qualitative analysis of what that common enemy is may very well be quite different. How can people unite against “the state” when they don’t exactly agree on what “the state” is? If I think that your property norms logically entail, by consequence, the sufficient conditions for a “state”, then pluralistic “anti-statism” between us is illusory.
To take the matter even deeper, whether or not anti-statism is fundamental is in question. For those leftists with very “thick” inclinations, it isn’t. The goal being sought isn’t merely negating “the state” (and only in the fairly narrow sense of the modern democratic nation-state to boot), it’s the movement towards a more just social order in general, of which anti-statism is only one conclusion that is part of a bigger picture. Simply because someone nominally opposes the state doesn’t necessarily mean that we ultimately have compatible goals in the long-run; they could be in favor of virtually everything that one objects to. Sacrificing all of one’s values at the altar of anti-statism is a problem with most of libertarianism.
I used to be of an “anarchist without adjectives” mindset (and, keep in mind, the open-ended interpretation of an w/o adj. being promoted is not what was intended by the initial an w/o adj.es), in which I essentially was apathetic towards inter-libertarian conflict and concluded that the conflict was irrelevant. The problem, in retrospect, is that this was a simplistic reaction in which I was valueing conflict resolution for its own sake, and as a sort of rationalization for the intellectual laziness involved in not deeply thinking through the philosophical conflicts inside of libertarianism.
I came to the realization that if you put aside essentially all of your values simply because of a nominally shared opposition to a single institution, and that if you form a completely open-ended broad coalition of self-proclaimed “anti-statists”, what you end up with is an unstable hodge-podge of people with completely different social goals that will inherently fragment as it plays out. Not only that, it conceptually devolves into absurdity, with things like monarchy and nationalism being snuck into anti-authoritarian movements on the grounds of an illusory “pluralism”. This attitude opens itself up to “entryism”.
What this kind of “voluntaryism” ends up doing is stretching the meaning of freedom to the point of absurdity out of its desire to be all-inclusive. Everything about “the state” that one may have initially set out to oppose can be repacked in a new, relativized framework, and libertarianism ends up looking like a shallow and hypocritical doctrine to the extent that it does this. And it often entails a strange line drawn in which anti-statism and non-aggression is treated as an absolute categorical imperative, while beyond this dividing line all questions of value are left to relativity. I’ve never seen a libertarian sensibly rationalize this line.
There are real conceptual and practical tensions involved here that I don’t think can be simply swept under the rug in the name of “pluralism”. Problems aren’t solved by ignoring them. There is a fundamental structural level of analysis that most libertarians, as well as the open-ended interpretation of anarchism without adjectives, does not take into account. If you think that a vague commitment to opposing the modern democratic nation-state is sufficient to produce a free and flourishing society, you’re wrong.
Part of the problem with the relativist “can’t we all just put aside philophical differences and unite against the state” meme is that it seems to reduce to fake solidarity. It is usually predicated on the ancap’s bargaining power, or to put the matter more directly, on the assumption that it’s the ancap’s property framework in which the “pluralism” towards the socialist is supposed to be manifested.
Another issue is that saying that we should unite against the common enemy may very well be misleading, in that the qualitative analysis of what that common enemy is may very well be quite different. How can people unite against “the state” when they don’t exactly agree on what “the state” is? If I think that your property norms logically entail, by consequence, the sufficient conditions for a “state”, then pluralistic “anti-statism” between us is illusory.
To take the matter even deeper, whether or not anti-statism is fundamental is in question. For those leftists with very “thick” inclinations, it isn’t. The goal being sought isn’t merely negating “the state” (and only in the fairly narrow sense of the modern democratic nation-state to boot), it’s the movement towards a more just social order in general, of which anti-statism is only one conclusion that is part of a bigger picture. Simply because someone nominally opposes the state doesn’t necessarily mean that we ultimately have compatible goals in the long-run; they could be in favor of virtually everything that one objects to. Sacrificing all of one’s values at the altar of anti-statism is a problem with most of libertarianism.
I used to be of an “anarchist without adjectives” mindset (and, keep in mind, the open-ended interpretation of an w/o adj. being promoted is not what was intended by the initial an w/o adj.es), in which I essentially was apathetic towards inter-libertarian conflict and concluded that the conflict was irrelevant. The problem, in retrospect, is that this was a simplistic reaction in which I was valueing conflict resolution for its own sake, and as a sort of rationalization for the intellectual laziness involved in not deeply thinking through the philosophical conflicts inside of libertarianism.
I came to the realization that if you put aside essentially all of your values simply because of a nominally shared opposition to a single institution, and that if you form a completely open-ended broad coalition of self-proclaimed “anti-statists”, what you end up with is an unstable hodge-podge of people with completely different social goals that will inherently fragment as it plays out. Not only that, it conceptually devolves into absurdity, with things like monarchy and nationalism being snuck into anti-authoritarian movements on the grounds of an illusory “pluralism”. This attitude opens itself up to “entryism”.
What this kind of “voluntaryism” ends up doing is stretching the meaning of freedom to the point of absurdity out of its desire to be all-inclusive. Everything about “the state” that one may have initially set out to oppose can be repacked in a new, relativized framework, and libertarianism ends up looking like a shallow and hypocritical doctrine to the extent that it does this. And it often entails a strange line drawn in which anti-statism and non-aggression is treated as an absolute categorical imperative, while beyond this dividing line all questions of value are left to relativity. I’ve never seen a libertarian sensibly rationalize this line.
There are real conceptual and practical tensions involved here that I don’t think can be simply swept under the rug in the name of “pluralism”. Problems aren’t solved by ignoring them. There is a fundamental structural level of analysis that most libertarians, as well as the open-ended interpretation of anarchism without adjectives, does not take into account. If you think that a vague commitment to opposing the modern democratic nation-state is sufficient to produce a free and flourishing society, you’re wrong.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Democracy: Everywhere or Nowhere?
I recently engaged in a discussion in which someone favored the premise that democracy is inescapable, that it is the default of all societies because everyone allegedly "consents" to the social order by virtue of participating in it to any extent whatsoever. My premise (which is part of a paradoxical formula: "democracy is tyranny, democracy is impossible, democracy is liberty") is the exact opposite of this: that democracy is either impossible or illusory, that there has never been such thing as a democracy in the literal sense of the term, because all forms of government in history have been either defacto oligarchies or monarchies.
The only sense in which I can agree that "the people" inherently are reflected in the social order is only in the most superfluous sense: that popular ideas tend to dominate the psyche of the multitude, and most people asquiesce to the power structures. This is all that I get out of Etienne La Boetie's piece on "Voluntary Servitude" - it does *not* mean that the population literally "consents" to all of the decisions that are made, it simply means that they asqueisce precisely because of their situation and options, and that there is an element of ideological legitimacy. It isn't explicitly "voluntary" - no more "voluntary" than having sex with someone under the threat of being evicted is. Yes, rulership isn't maintained by physical force alone - but that doesn't mean that whatever doesn't involve physical force is "voluntary" by default (a problematic assumption of what tends to pass for the "voluntaryist" philosophy these days).
It is quite clear to me that "the people" don't actually have decision-making power over the bulk of what goes on in the society or over how the social order is constituted. This has essentially always been done by a defacto oligarchy, or a multitude of oligarchies. Those that actually make the rules and enforce them constitute a fairly small group of people in comparison to the population as a whole. To imply that everyone "consents" is to essentially stretch the meaning of "consent" to meaninglessness by eliminating the social context in which decisions are made from one's analysis, I.E. the context of people's options being coercively limited and the pre-existing structures into which they are simply born.
Even behind the most inclusive and so-called "democratic" states, I see an oligarchy and a heirarchy. I see a multitude that is almost entirely alienated from the process in which the rules are determined and enforced, with the power to do so delegated to a political elite that acts on the behalf of an economic elite. If anything, it is precisely this notion that "democracy" exists that seems to be an ideological tool of legitimacy, by propogating the illusion that the social order is structured on the basis of the multitude's decisions. To be sure, the multitude do make decisions every day that effect the social order, but these are incredibly marginal decisions (like buying a loaf of bread). When it comes to the decisions that actually have a significant impact on everyone (I.E. the political realm), this power is in the hands of an exclusive elite.
The only sense in which I can agree that "the people" inherently are reflected in the social order is only in the most superfluous sense: that popular ideas tend to dominate the psyche of the multitude, and most people asquiesce to the power structures. This is all that I get out of Etienne La Boetie's piece on "Voluntary Servitude" - it does *not* mean that the population literally "consents" to all of the decisions that are made, it simply means that they asqueisce precisely because of their situation and options, and that there is an element of ideological legitimacy. It isn't explicitly "voluntary" - no more "voluntary" than having sex with someone under the threat of being evicted is. Yes, rulership isn't maintained by physical force alone - but that doesn't mean that whatever doesn't involve physical force is "voluntary" by default (a problematic assumption of what tends to pass for the "voluntaryist" philosophy these days).
It is quite clear to me that "the people" don't actually have decision-making power over the bulk of what goes on in the society or over how the social order is constituted. This has essentially always been done by a defacto oligarchy, or a multitude of oligarchies. Those that actually make the rules and enforce them constitute a fairly small group of people in comparison to the population as a whole. To imply that everyone "consents" is to essentially stretch the meaning of "consent" to meaninglessness by eliminating the social context in which decisions are made from one's analysis, I.E. the context of people's options being coercively limited and the pre-existing structures into which they are simply born.
Even behind the most inclusive and so-called "democratic" states, I see an oligarchy and a heirarchy. I see a multitude that is almost entirely alienated from the process in which the rules are determined and enforced, with the power to do so delegated to a political elite that acts on the behalf of an economic elite. If anything, it is precisely this notion that "democracy" exists that seems to be an ideological tool of legitimacy, by propogating the illusion that the social order is structured on the basis of the multitude's decisions. To be sure, the multitude do make decisions every day that effect the social order, but these are incredibly marginal decisions (like buying a loaf of bread). When it comes to the decisions that actually have a significant impact on everyone (I.E. the political realm), this power is in the hands of an exclusive elite.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Monarchy and Democracy
There are some theories floating around in libertarian and anarchist circles, both new and not so new, that analize monarchy and democracy while ultimately maintaining that one is inherently superior to the other. For example, Hans Hoppe and the "Hoppeans" that follow in his footsteps argue that monarchy is inherently superior to democracy, while Noam Chomsky and the "Chomskyians" that follow in his footsteps argue that contemporary democracies are inherently more "accountable to the people" than any "private" alternative.
I think that the truth of the matter may be more subtle and complicated than the people in these various camps tend to make it out to be. On one hand, all of the formulations in question can be objected to for the same fundamental reasons, and hence the distinctions begin to break down or lose their relevancy. On the other hand, while one can likely find some legitimate senses in which one has an advantage over the other, one can just as easily find a counterpoint that immediately negates the premise that either of them are inherently superior.
In many ways, these questions and debates are not new; they can be traced back to the greeks, who played a signicant role in formulating the theories of governance in question. In the greeks we find classic democratic sentiments, monarchical sentiments, and various philosophers attempting to find a mean between them in the form of some sort of republic or an enlightened aristocracy. We even find primitive notions of communism. The fundamental debate has simply been elaborated upon as time has passed and experience has accumulated. Let us take a closer look at these theories and formulations of governance.
Democracy
The term democracy is generally understood to mean "rule by the people". In its most direct and literal form ("direct democracy" or "participatory democracy"), this means that everyone in society participates in the process of legislation, adjudication, and enforcement (although it is unclear if all of these branches of governance are supposed to be purely "democratic" rather than just the legislative branch or some combination of two branches while not with one of them). This may more specifically end up meaning "rule by the citizens", while those that are not officially citezens are not allowed to participate.
However, this more literal sense of democracy is not the sole form or manifestation that there is. There is also "representative democracy", which is the form of democracy that the west has come to generally adopt. In "representative democracy", the people or citizens do not directly participate in any of the processes of governance. Instead, there are indirect mechanisms through which they choose "representives" that participate in such processes and wield the governmental powers for them. In terms of the legislative branch, this group of representatives form into senates or "houses" that are constituted by a small portion of the population, and usually a single person in the case of the excecutive branch.
With this definition of democracy in mind, as well as the distinction between direct and representative forms of democracy, the classic questions and debates about democracy should become fairly obvious. Let's first take a look at direct democracy. One of the primary objections to direct democracy is that it seems inherently chaotic and inefficient. With so many people participating in the process, how is a decision ever to be made in the absence of unanimous consensus? Everyone would endlessly debate and nothing would get done; the government would just be frenzied debating society. Since unanimous consensus seems like a very high bar that would practically screech the process to a halt, some threshold of majoritarianism seems like the only way to get it to function.
Consequentially, "rule by the people" devolves into "rule by the majority" and is no longer a "pure" democracy. And majoritarianism, in turn, can be objected to on the grounds that it reduces politics to nothing but an ad populum fallacy that negates what sometimes might be a minority that is actually right. Furthermore, from a rights-based perspective, majoritarianism can override all individual rights as long as enough people agree on it. Hence, democracy appears to be arbitrary in this sense: it has no consistent or restraining principles, no "rule of law". It is simply a value-neutral process of decision-making that sanctions whatever is most popular, and is therefore subject to the problem of "the tyranny of the majority".
What's more, if we take an elitist perspective or simply have a rather pessemistic accessment of "human nature", the multitude tends to be stupid and emotional; the average person doesn't know what's best for themselves let alone anyone else. They have petty desires, are often swept up in fashionable crazes, and are naturally envious of those with more than them (insert Neitzschean or La Bonian talk of "the herd" here). The multitude are fundamentally "unfit to govern"; the art of governance requires one to have specially endowed wisdom or is a profession that one must have proper training and credentials to obtain.
For such reasons, philosophers are often tempted to either jump to the opposite extreme of monarchy or to propose a more limited form of democracy in which something along the lines of "constitutionalism" or a "democratic republic" is adopted. The idea is to preserve a limited sphere of freedom and decision-making power for "the people" while simultaneously restraining them from overstepping their "proper boundaries". Perhaps let them select their rulers, but their rulers must ultimately make the decisions for them from that point onwards. Let there be restrictions with respect to who is able to have political power in order to keep the multitude in check, and let the law be so written as to restrain "the republic" from devolving into a monarchy or encroaching too much upon "the people".
Here we have reached "representative democracy" and "constitutional republicanism". But is this really a solution? Perhaps representative democracy shouldn't even be called democracy, since it restricts political decision-making power to what constitutes a defacto oligarchy. It might not be quite as exclusive as a monarchy, but it ultimately places poliical power in the hands of a small few all the same. If the proponents of such a system wish to maintain the spirit and consent of "the people", such a model clearly fails. To claim that "the people" maintain their sovereignty while, as a matter of fact, an oligarchy rules over them, is surely a sick joke.
And what is to ensure that this oligarchy that rules in the name of "the people" will be constituted by people that are any better than the multitude? The only way to even attempt to solve this problem is to maintain an aristocratic sentiment in which only "philosopher kings" or those that happen to be specially endowed are allowed to hold political power; or at least to hope that such over-men will happen to be the ones that are selected for office. Such was the utopia of Plato: "the republic" will be ruled by brilliant philosophers who exclusively know what true virtue is and are uncorruptable by both military and economic influences.
But if we maintain a generally pessemistic accessment of the multitude in the first place, it makes no sense to suppose that they will choose those who are "best fit to govern", and if we consequentially severely restrict the people's decision-making power to select representatives, then we've essentially removed any last vestige of "democracy" from the system altogether. In effect, we're left with either a monarchy or an aristocratic oligarchy. And even under such a completely non-democratic system, why should we assume that those in power are going to be any better than the dull multitude? Are they not, afterall, human beings too? It seems that whatever generalizations we make about "human nature" must apply to humans vested with political power. Rulers are not deities.
The problem with representative democracy runs even deeper, at the very heart of the notion of "representation". As soon as someone delegates political power to a "representative", they cease to have any meaningful decision-making power from that point onwards. There is no cosmical gaurantee that their "representative" will enforce their wishes. Their "representative" could very well go against their wishes. It seems like saying that an individual, let alone an entire society of people, is "represented" by an individual or group that ultimately makes decisions on their behalf makes no sense. There is a sense in which only an individual can represent themselves, in that they quite literally have their own will that cannot be alienated from them.
The citizen is almost entirely alienated from the process of decision-making in so-called representative democracy. They only get to occasionally vote on who will be their master from an extremely limited scope of options that is predetermined for them. And does nominally selecting a new master mean that someone is really free? Most certainly not. A very obvious concern is that representative democracy reduces to a sort of game of musical chairs in which various members of an oligarchy function as demagogues to the masses as a means to power, only to do what is ultimately their own will or to serve the general purpose of the oligarchy to which they belong once political power is obtained. Once such power is obtained, the members of the oligarchy make decisions regaurdless of consent, and in this way representative democracy only has "the illusion of consent".
Politicians are definitely not "accountable to the people" in representative democracies. They might pander to the people and occasionally throw them some crumbs as an incentive to ideologically support them, but this doesn't mean that the people have any meaningful decision-making power over that which effects their own lives when it comes to the political process. They can occasionally be voted out of office, but this is a rare occurance and there are plenty of institutional barriers to such a thing happening; neither does it undo the damage done during the time that they are in office. Democracy is not a means of "accountability", it is a means of legitimization for political power and as what reduces to a feedback mechanism for an oligarchy.
The last hope for saving representative democracy lies in constitutionalism, I.E. a legal document that is supposed to restrain both the ruling oligarchy and the potential mob rule of the people. But the greatest experiment in constitutionalism, I.E. America, clearly demonstrates the failure of constitutionalism. Constitutions are a dead letter within a generation, if that. The courts that the oligarchy already controls will interpret the constitution to their benefit to the point of effectively nullifying its substance, original intention, and plain language. A piece of paper is not going to bind people with political power. It can be nullified by both democratic uprisings by the people and by the decisions that the oligarchy makes over the course of the political process.
What's more, constitutions do not even qualify as legitimate contracts by the basic standards of a what constitutes a contract. In normal contracts, noone in their right mind would accept the enforcement of a contract onto people that never signed it. The entire society never signed the constitution, only a handfull of men in a room did, men that just so happened to be either part of or closely linked with the ruling class. There is also a problem with the idea of a perpetual or permanent contract. Not only did not everyone that the constitution was enforced upon not sign it, but everyone that did sign it and everyone existing during the time that it was signed is now dead. It makes little sense to suppose that a document that was signed hundreds of years ago applies as absolute law indefinitely into the future.
One way to try to get around this issue is to propose that constitutions be changed or redrafted through constitutional conventions over and over again. But that in itself would seem to reduce right back to direct democracy if everyone involved participated in the process, and there still would be the lingering question of how it is to be enforced onto the entire society in the absence of unanimous consent. If the purpose of a constitution is, at least partially, as a constraint on absolute democracy, then it makes no sense to make the process of developing constitutions democratic; it would cease to meaningfully be a "rule of law" if it can be changed on a whim. And drafting a new form of government over and over again seems rather inefficient. It seems that written constitutions do very little to determine how a government is constituted; how they are constituted will depend on whatever processes occur and whoever happens to be in power.
Democracy appears to be fairly torn to shreds before us. But does it follow from any of this that what is considered to be the opposite of democracy, I.E. monarchy, is a preferable alternative? I most emphatically insist: No, No, No!
Monarchy
The term monarchy quite literally means "rule by one". In this sense, monarchy is the most "private" form of government in the sense of its extreme exclusivity. Ultimate decision-making power is held by a single individual or family, and in this sense monarchy represents the most dense concentration of political power possible. On a small scale, this is essentially what most tribal systems (other than the more egalitarian ones) are - the tribal chief is the defacto monarch of the tribe, and the tribe is more or less an extended family. On larger scales, it is constituted by "kingdoms" in which a single individual (a "king" or "queen") absolutely rules over an entire society. In the most unified form of monarchy, the king can simultaneously be both the political and religious leader of the society.
However, not all monarchies are "pure". One often finds that a king is in alliance with a landed oligarchy or with religious institutions. Sometimes monarchies have even had a smidgen of democracy added to them, such as a constitution or the coexistance of a parlaiment. But all monarchies tend to have the general supremacy of the monarch as a defining characteristic. Generally, monarchies are hereditary institutions in which a particular bloodline is associated with political power. Sometimes these bloodlines are overthrown by rival bloodlines or a particular bloodline is unable to adequately continue itself. Monarchies have a history of mixing bloodlines with foreign nations to continue themselves or maintain an aura of legitimacy.
To the extent that monarchies have traditionally been connected with religious institutions ("the union of church and state"), they have relied on notions such as "the divine right of kings" for their legitimacy. Of course, if one rejects the authority of the church to begin with or if one sees no particular reason why a particular bloodline should be favored by god any more than others, "the divine right of kings" immediately crumbles. In situations in which the union of church and state is so strong that the king is literally considered to be a deity themselves, an empirical investigation into the humanity of the king immediately crumbles their legitimacy. Kings are just flesh and blood human beings like everyone else.
More generally, monarchy tends to be defined by its hereditary aspect. Hereditary monarchy is essentially "rule by inheritance"; political power is simply inherited by being from the bloodline of the previous monarch. This offends democratic sensibilities because the people have no decision-making power in the process of selecting who has political power. But it also rubs up against aristocratic sentiments because an inherited position of power by no means implies a position of power that is held by someone with any particular merit or wisdom. Indeed, such a position of power is gained through sheer luck. The monarch could very well be a sluggard, an unvirtuous man, an unwise man. And their singlular position of power is all the more dangerous in the lack of merit. Why should an individual's mere bloodline constitute a measure of their worth? Let them demonstrate their intellect and worldlyness, then maybe the aristocrat will respect them.
But the monarch can be objected to from a more populist and societarian perspective in addition to considerations about merit. What makes them think that they are so special that only them alone should rule? Can't individuals potentially accomplish much more by forming into associations? Multiple people can potentially do greater things in concert. The monarch is likely to be horrible at making decisions all by themselves - they inherently need the help of professionals that actually have knowledge about various things (here enters the aristocracy). And what does a single individual in an ivory tower know about the world? He lives his life largely in alienation from the people. He doesn't know what their needs are, and he is a singular leech on the whole of society, gobbling up the resources of everyone only for his individual purposes. The commoner has no decision-making power over what affects their lives (here enters the call for democratic uprising).
Vesting so much power in a single person is dangerous, especially when the decisions of that single person can effect everyone else in society. No single individual deserves that much power. While democracy is at least theoretically predicated on the idea that the government should be the servant of the people, monarchy functions under no such pretense - the decree of so-and-so reigns, regaurdless of the input of anyone effected by it (save perhaps a handful of aristocratic advisors to the king). In terms of political power, monarchy is the most centralized and unilateral in the sense that the decision-making power is concentrated in the fewest possible people (theoretically one person or family). There is barely any semblance of a consensual process.
Some propose that monarchy is the best form of government precisely because it doesn't have to water itself down in any collective decision-making process, and in this sense it is "efficient". Yes, it is efficient - at ruling. But if one objects to being ruled in the first place, this hardly seems to be a talking point in favor of monarchy. It is the most sustainable form of government; democracies tend to be fleeting formulations that merely represent the change from one form of government to another, and in this sense democracy isn't even a form of government so much as a process of transition. And again, from an anti-rulership perspective, this isn't a talking point in monarchy's favor. A rigid, unadaptable government that rules with an iron fist isn't exactly a libertarian wet dream.
The largely economic arguments more recently presented by Hans Hoppe trying to make a case against democracy by comparatively touting the alleged virtues of monarchy seems misguided. Even if we largely take his premises for granted, we don't have to embrace the conclusion. Hoppe essentially argues, via time preferance theory, that the monarch has an incentive to preserve the "capital value" of the state precisely because the state is his "private property". But who cares about the "capital value" of the state - why would a libertarian want it to be preserved? This all seems to basically reduce to the notion that a "private" slave will be taken better care of by their master. That's just rank paternalism. There is no logical connection between the state being "privately" held by a single individual and their subjects being treated well. The entire thing is predicated on people being treated as property by virtue of being on the king's land.
There is no praxeological law of nature that makes it so that a king is inherently more lenient than a career politician, or that it is harder for a king to rule their subjects. If anything, it is easier for a king to rule their subjects in the sense that they do not even have to bother with the semblance of a political process, both internal and relational. And it seems like Hoppe is falling back on the fallacy of the homo economicus to sustain his point, I.E. by assuming that people make decisions based on economic incentives alone. But people don't make decisions based on economic incentives alone. A person that is strongly motivated by racism will discriminate regaurdless of the economic incentives against it; and likewise, a king that is strongly motivated to rule will rule regaurdless of the economic incentives against it.
It by no means inherently follows from the fact that the state is "privately" owned that it will be particularly restrained. "Ultimate decision-making power" is ultimate decision-making power, regaurdless of whether or not it's "private" or how many people wield that power. If anything, restricting such power to a single person merely removes multiliteral obstacles to directly excersizing it. Yes, perhaps a monarch is not as likely to develope a large welfare state since they don't even have to pretend to be "democratic", but welfare statism is hardly the be-all-end-all of the political problem. There are plenty of other projects that they can pursue in substitute of a welfare state - such as a nobility system, which is just a different kind of welfare state (an explicitly regressive one).
Ultimately, while kings do not have to pander to the people at large, they often do end up having to ally themselves with a landed oligarchy (and why a landed oligarchy is supposed to inherently be better than a modern welfare state is beyond me). They reinforce eachother - the king grants land titles to the duke of such and such, and the duke of such and such pledges loyalty to the king. This is the same kind of give-and-take that is involved in "democracy", only it is restricted to a smaller group. There is barely a semblance of a middle class other than areas *outside* of the king's reign (the middle classes formed out of independant cities and with the rise of democracies). Otherwise, there is essentially just a peasantry class, a landed oligarchy and the monarch.
As industrialization occurs, monarchies and the landed oligarchies often associated with them begin to crumble. They simple cannot handle the formation of meaningful middle classes, in which the rigid connection to the land is broken up by people's capacity to get their own piece of the pie and have greater access to the means of economically sustaining themselves independantly of any nobility. The intertia of history has clearly made monarchy archiac. They didn't dissapear simply because of some egalitarian conspiracy, or because democracy became popular as an ideology, but because it is a form of government that simply is not adapted for an industrial society with a middle class.
Conclusion
My suggestion is that both monarchy and democracy, defined as state systems, are (1) equally bad for the same fundamental reasons that any anti-statist would level against a state and (2) approximately equally bad in terms of the particular pros and cons of each. Monarchy is bad because its power is unilateral and concentrated in the fewest possible people - it is "limited government" in the conservative sense of political power being limited to the few and excersized over the many. Democracy is bad because it is ultimately an illusion that isn't that far from monarchy in reality - it is merely a process through which political power can be legitimized and transitioned, and even when it begins to come close to living up to its promise it ends up devolving into rank majoritarianism.
I think that the truth of the matter may be more subtle and complicated than the people in these various camps tend to make it out to be. On one hand, all of the formulations in question can be objected to for the same fundamental reasons, and hence the distinctions begin to break down or lose their relevancy. On the other hand, while one can likely find some legitimate senses in which one has an advantage over the other, one can just as easily find a counterpoint that immediately negates the premise that either of them are inherently superior.
In many ways, these questions and debates are not new; they can be traced back to the greeks, who played a signicant role in formulating the theories of governance in question. In the greeks we find classic democratic sentiments, monarchical sentiments, and various philosophers attempting to find a mean between them in the form of some sort of republic or an enlightened aristocracy. We even find primitive notions of communism. The fundamental debate has simply been elaborated upon as time has passed and experience has accumulated. Let us take a closer look at these theories and formulations of governance.
Democracy
The term democracy is generally understood to mean "rule by the people". In its most direct and literal form ("direct democracy" or "participatory democracy"), this means that everyone in society participates in the process of legislation, adjudication, and enforcement (although it is unclear if all of these branches of governance are supposed to be purely "democratic" rather than just the legislative branch or some combination of two branches while not with one of them). This may more specifically end up meaning "rule by the citizens", while those that are not officially citezens are not allowed to participate.
However, this more literal sense of democracy is not the sole form or manifestation that there is. There is also "representative democracy", which is the form of democracy that the west has come to generally adopt. In "representative democracy", the people or citizens do not directly participate in any of the processes of governance. Instead, there are indirect mechanisms through which they choose "representives" that participate in such processes and wield the governmental powers for them. In terms of the legislative branch, this group of representatives form into senates or "houses" that are constituted by a small portion of the population, and usually a single person in the case of the excecutive branch.
With this definition of democracy in mind, as well as the distinction between direct and representative forms of democracy, the classic questions and debates about democracy should become fairly obvious. Let's first take a look at direct democracy. One of the primary objections to direct democracy is that it seems inherently chaotic and inefficient. With so many people participating in the process, how is a decision ever to be made in the absence of unanimous consensus? Everyone would endlessly debate and nothing would get done; the government would just be frenzied debating society. Since unanimous consensus seems like a very high bar that would practically screech the process to a halt, some threshold of majoritarianism seems like the only way to get it to function.
Consequentially, "rule by the people" devolves into "rule by the majority" and is no longer a "pure" democracy. And majoritarianism, in turn, can be objected to on the grounds that it reduces politics to nothing but an ad populum fallacy that negates what sometimes might be a minority that is actually right. Furthermore, from a rights-based perspective, majoritarianism can override all individual rights as long as enough people agree on it. Hence, democracy appears to be arbitrary in this sense: it has no consistent or restraining principles, no "rule of law". It is simply a value-neutral process of decision-making that sanctions whatever is most popular, and is therefore subject to the problem of "the tyranny of the majority".
What's more, if we take an elitist perspective or simply have a rather pessemistic accessment of "human nature", the multitude tends to be stupid and emotional; the average person doesn't know what's best for themselves let alone anyone else. They have petty desires, are often swept up in fashionable crazes, and are naturally envious of those with more than them (insert Neitzschean or La Bonian talk of "the herd" here). The multitude are fundamentally "unfit to govern"; the art of governance requires one to have specially endowed wisdom or is a profession that one must have proper training and credentials to obtain.
For such reasons, philosophers are often tempted to either jump to the opposite extreme of monarchy or to propose a more limited form of democracy in which something along the lines of "constitutionalism" or a "democratic republic" is adopted. The idea is to preserve a limited sphere of freedom and decision-making power for "the people" while simultaneously restraining them from overstepping their "proper boundaries". Perhaps let them select their rulers, but their rulers must ultimately make the decisions for them from that point onwards. Let there be restrictions with respect to who is able to have political power in order to keep the multitude in check, and let the law be so written as to restrain "the republic" from devolving into a monarchy or encroaching too much upon "the people".
Here we have reached "representative democracy" and "constitutional republicanism". But is this really a solution? Perhaps representative democracy shouldn't even be called democracy, since it restricts political decision-making power to what constitutes a defacto oligarchy. It might not be quite as exclusive as a monarchy, but it ultimately places poliical power in the hands of a small few all the same. If the proponents of such a system wish to maintain the spirit and consent of "the people", such a model clearly fails. To claim that "the people" maintain their sovereignty while, as a matter of fact, an oligarchy rules over them, is surely a sick joke.
And what is to ensure that this oligarchy that rules in the name of "the people" will be constituted by people that are any better than the multitude? The only way to even attempt to solve this problem is to maintain an aristocratic sentiment in which only "philosopher kings" or those that happen to be specially endowed are allowed to hold political power; or at least to hope that such over-men will happen to be the ones that are selected for office. Such was the utopia of Plato: "the republic" will be ruled by brilliant philosophers who exclusively know what true virtue is and are uncorruptable by both military and economic influences.
But if we maintain a generally pessemistic accessment of the multitude in the first place, it makes no sense to suppose that they will choose those who are "best fit to govern", and if we consequentially severely restrict the people's decision-making power to select representatives, then we've essentially removed any last vestige of "democracy" from the system altogether. In effect, we're left with either a monarchy or an aristocratic oligarchy. And even under such a completely non-democratic system, why should we assume that those in power are going to be any better than the dull multitude? Are they not, afterall, human beings too? It seems that whatever generalizations we make about "human nature" must apply to humans vested with political power. Rulers are not deities.
The problem with representative democracy runs even deeper, at the very heart of the notion of "representation". As soon as someone delegates political power to a "representative", they cease to have any meaningful decision-making power from that point onwards. There is no cosmical gaurantee that their "representative" will enforce their wishes. Their "representative" could very well go against their wishes. It seems like saying that an individual, let alone an entire society of people, is "represented" by an individual or group that ultimately makes decisions on their behalf makes no sense. There is a sense in which only an individual can represent themselves, in that they quite literally have their own will that cannot be alienated from them.
The citizen is almost entirely alienated from the process of decision-making in so-called representative democracy. They only get to occasionally vote on who will be their master from an extremely limited scope of options that is predetermined for them. And does nominally selecting a new master mean that someone is really free? Most certainly not. A very obvious concern is that representative democracy reduces to a sort of game of musical chairs in which various members of an oligarchy function as demagogues to the masses as a means to power, only to do what is ultimately their own will or to serve the general purpose of the oligarchy to which they belong once political power is obtained. Once such power is obtained, the members of the oligarchy make decisions regaurdless of consent, and in this way representative democracy only has "the illusion of consent".
Politicians are definitely not "accountable to the people" in representative democracies. They might pander to the people and occasionally throw them some crumbs as an incentive to ideologically support them, but this doesn't mean that the people have any meaningful decision-making power over that which effects their own lives when it comes to the political process. They can occasionally be voted out of office, but this is a rare occurance and there are plenty of institutional barriers to such a thing happening; neither does it undo the damage done during the time that they are in office. Democracy is not a means of "accountability", it is a means of legitimization for political power and as what reduces to a feedback mechanism for an oligarchy.
The last hope for saving representative democracy lies in constitutionalism, I.E. a legal document that is supposed to restrain both the ruling oligarchy and the potential mob rule of the people. But the greatest experiment in constitutionalism, I.E. America, clearly demonstrates the failure of constitutionalism. Constitutions are a dead letter within a generation, if that. The courts that the oligarchy already controls will interpret the constitution to their benefit to the point of effectively nullifying its substance, original intention, and plain language. A piece of paper is not going to bind people with political power. It can be nullified by both democratic uprisings by the people and by the decisions that the oligarchy makes over the course of the political process.
What's more, constitutions do not even qualify as legitimate contracts by the basic standards of a what constitutes a contract. In normal contracts, noone in their right mind would accept the enforcement of a contract onto people that never signed it. The entire society never signed the constitution, only a handfull of men in a room did, men that just so happened to be either part of or closely linked with the ruling class. There is also a problem with the idea of a perpetual or permanent contract. Not only did not everyone that the constitution was enforced upon not sign it, but everyone that did sign it and everyone existing during the time that it was signed is now dead. It makes little sense to suppose that a document that was signed hundreds of years ago applies as absolute law indefinitely into the future.
One way to try to get around this issue is to propose that constitutions be changed or redrafted through constitutional conventions over and over again. But that in itself would seem to reduce right back to direct democracy if everyone involved participated in the process, and there still would be the lingering question of how it is to be enforced onto the entire society in the absence of unanimous consent. If the purpose of a constitution is, at least partially, as a constraint on absolute democracy, then it makes no sense to make the process of developing constitutions democratic; it would cease to meaningfully be a "rule of law" if it can be changed on a whim. And drafting a new form of government over and over again seems rather inefficient. It seems that written constitutions do very little to determine how a government is constituted; how they are constituted will depend on whatever processes occur and whoever happens to be in power.
Democracy appears to be fairly torn to shreds before us. But does it follow from any of this that what is considered to be the opposite of democracy, I.E. monarchy, is a preferable alternative? I most emphatically insist: No, No, No!
Monarchy
The term monarchy quite literally means "rule by one". In this sense, monarchy is the most "private" form of government in the sense of its extreme exclusivity. Ultimate decision-making power is held by a single individual or family, and in this sense monarchy represents the most dense concentration of political power possible. On a small scale, this is essentially what most tribal systems (other than the more egalitarian ones) are - the tribal chief is the defacto monarch of the tribe, and the tribe is more or less an extended family. On larger scales, it is constituted by "kingdoms" in which a single individual (a "king" or "queen") absolutely rules over an entire society. In the most unified form of monarchy, the king can simultaneously be both the political and religious leader of the society.
However, not all monarchies are "pure". One often finds that a king is in alliance with a landed oligarchy or with religious institutions. Sometimes monarchies have even had a smidgen of democracy added to them, such as a constitution or the coexistance of a parlaiment. But all monarchies tend to have the general supremacy of the monarch as a defining characteristic. Generally, monarchies are hereditary institutions in which a particular bloodline is associated with political power. Sometimes these bloodlines are overthrown by rival bloodlines or a particular bloodline is unable to adequately continue itself. Monarchies have a history of mixing bloodlines with foreign nations to continue themselves or maintain an aura of legitimacy.
To the extent that monarchies have traditionally been connected with religious institutions ("the union of church and state"), they have relied on notions such as "the divine right of kings" for their legitimacy. Of course, if one rejects the authority of the church to begin with or if one sees no particular reason why a particular bloodline should be favored by god any more than others, "the divine right of kings" immediately crumbles. In situations in which the union of church and state is so strong that the king is literally considered to be a deity themselves, an empirical investigation into the humanity of the king immediately crumbles their legitimacy. Kings are just flesh and blood human beings like everyone else.
More generally, monarchy tends to be defined by its hereditary aspect. Hereditary monarchy is essentially "rule by inheritance"; political power is simply inherited by being from the bloodline of the previous monarch. This offends democratic sensibilities because the people have no decision-making power in the process of selecting who has political power. But it also rubs up against aristocratic sentiments because an inherited position of power by no means implies a position of power that is held by someone with any particular merit or wisdom. Indeed, such a position of power is gained through sheer luck. The monarch could very well be a sluggard, an unvirtuous man, an unwise man. And their singlular position of power is all the more dangerous in the lack of merit. Why should an individual's mere bloodline constitute a measure of their worth? Let them demonstrate their intellect and worldlyness, then maybe the aristocrat will respect them.
But the monarch can be objected to from a more populist and societarian perspective in addition to considerations about merit. What makes them think that they are so special that only them alone should rule? Can't individuals potentially accomplish much more by forming into associations? Multiple people can potentially do greater things in concert. The monarch is likely to be horrible at making decisions all by themselves - they inherently need the help of professionals that actually have knowledge about various things (here enters the aristocracy). And what does a single individual in an ivory tower know about the world? He lives his life largely in alienation from the people. He doesn't know what their needs are, and he is a singular leech on the whole of society, gobbling up the resources of everyone only for his individual purposes. The commoner has no decision-making power over what affects their lives (here enters the call for democratic uprising).
Vesting so much power in a single person is dangerous, especially when the decisions of that single person can effect everyone else in society. No single individual deserves that much power. While democracy is at least theoretically predicated on the idea that the government should be the servant of the people, monarchy functions under no such pretense - the decree of so-and-so reigns, regaurdless of the input of anyone effected by it (save perhaps a handful of aristocratic advisors to the king). In terms of political power, monarchy is the most centralized and unilateral in the sense that the decision-making power is concentrated in the fewest possible people (theoretically one person or family). There is barely any semblance of a consensual process.
Some propose that monarchy is the best form of government precisely because it doesn't have to water itself down in any collective decision-making process, and in this sense it is "efficient". Yes, it is efficient - at ruling. But if one objects to being ruled in the first place, this hardly seems to be a talking point in favor of monarchy. It is the most sustainable form of government; democracies tend to be fleeting formulations that merely represent the change from one form of government to another, and in this sense democracy isn't even a form of government so much as a process of transition. And again, from an anti-rulership perspective, this isn't a talking point in monarchy's favor. A rigid, unadaptable government that rules with an iron fist isn't exactly a libertarian wet dream.
The largely economic arguments more recently presented by Hans Hoppe trying to make a case against democracy by comparatively touting the alleged virtues of monarchy seems misguided. Even if we largely take his premises for granted, we don't have to embrace the conclusion. Hoppe essentially argues, via time preferance theory, that the monarch has an incentive to preserve the "capital value" of the state precisely because the state is his "private property". But who cares about the "capital value" of the state - why would a libertarian want it to be preserved? This all seems to basically reduce to the notion that a "private" slave will be taken better care of by their master. That's just rank paternalism. There is no logical connection between the state being "privately" held by a single individual and their subjects being treated well. The entire thing is predicated on people being treated as property by virtue of being on the king's land.
There is no praxeological law of nature that makes it so that a king is inherently more lenient than a career politician, or that it is harder for a king to rule their subjects. If anything, it is easier for a king to rule their subjects in the sense that they do not even have to bother with the semblance of a political process, both internal and relational. And it seems like Hoppe is falling back on the fallacy of the homo economicus to sustain his point, I.E. by assuming that people make decisions based on economic incentives alone. But people don't make decisions based on economic incentives alone. A person that is strongly motivated by racism will discriminate regaurdless of the economic incentives against it; and likewise, a king that is strongly motivated to rule will rule regaurdless of the economic incentives against it.
It by no means inherently follows from the fact that the state is "privately" owned that it will be particularly restrained. "Ultimate decision-making power" is ultimate decision-making power, regaurdless of whether or not it's "private" or how many people wield that power. If anything, restricting such power to a single person merely removes multiliteral obstacles to directly excersizing it. Yes, perhaps a monarch is not as likely to develope a large welfare state since they don't even have to pretend to be "democratic", but welfare statism is hardly the be-all-end-all of the political problem. There are plenty of other projects that they can pursue in substitute of a welfare state - such as a nobility system, which is just a different kind of welfare state (an explicitly regressive one).
Ultimately, while kings do not have to pander to the people at large, they often do end up having to ally themselves with a landed oligarchy (and why a landed oligarchy is supposed to inherently be better than a modern welfare state is beyond me). They reinforce eachother - the king grants land titles to the duke of such and such, and the duke of such and such pledges loyalty to the king. This is the same kind of give-and-take that is involved in "democracy", only it is restricted to a smaller group. There is barely a semblance of a middle class other than areas *outside* of the king's reign (the middle classes formed out of independant cities and with the rise of democracies). Otherwise, there is essentially just a peasantry class, a landed oligarchy and the monarch.
As industrialization occurs, monarchies and the landed oligarchies often associated with them begin to crumble. They simple cannot handle the formation of meaningful middle classes, in which the rigid connection to the land is broken up by people's capacity to get their own piece of the pie and have greater access to the means of economically sustaining themselves independantly of any nobility. The intertia of history has clearly made monarchy archiac. They didn't dissapear simply because of some egalitarian conspiracy, or because democracy became popular as an ideology, but because it is a form of government that simply is not adapted for an industrial society with a middle class.
Conclusion
My suggestion is that both monarchy and democracy, defined as state systems, are (1) equally bad for the same fundamental reasons that any anti-statist would level against a state and (2) approximately equally bad in terms of the particular pros and cons of each. Monarchy is bad because its power is unilateral and concentrated in the fewest possible people - it is "limited government" in the conservative sense of political power being limited to the few and excersized over the many. Democracy is bad because it is ultimately an illusion that isn't that far from monarchy in reality - it is merely a process through which political power can be legitimized and transitioned, and even when it begins to come close to living up to its promise it ends up devolving into rank majoritarianism.
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