Re: Down with Democracy!
Daniel C. Burton (dburton@ocf.berkeley.edu)
24 Dec 1997 08:59:31 GMT
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Jeff Bishop <jeff@bishop-nospam.net> wrote:
: Daniel C. Burton wrote:
: > Go up on the shock value props and on the good ideas and I imagine we'd
: > get quite a bit of attention.
: I hate to sound like an old fuddy-duddy, but this "great libertarian flasher"
: tactic is likely to backfire.
You're probably right. What seems like a good idea at first does not
always turn out to be so after some further thought. If even one person
has this kind of reaction, I'm inclined to call the whole thing off.
: I'm also curious why so many [L/l]ibertarians
: assume that a republic will protect liberty any more than a direct democracy
: would. Spare me all the neat quotations; history does not bear it out. [The
: Weimar *Republic* being a gross example, but not the only one.]
The Weimar republic in and of itself is not a good example. Germany was a
country with no prior tradition of representative democracy and the
republic was imposed on it from abroad after losing a war. The people of
Germany rightfully voted this state out of existence, but unfortunately
they replaced it with something even worse than the monarchies before it.
I agree that the democratic republic does not exactly have a good track
record in defending liberty. The whole idea of separation of powers in
particular doesn't seem to work very well. It turns out that when each
branch can block functions of government that people in the other branches
view as absolutely essential they tend to all enact eachothers programs
rather than halt the expansion of the state.
However, compared to the some of the Ancient Greek direct democracies, the
democratic republic seems to be doing pretty well. The Ancient Greek
democracies enacted all sorts of tyrranies, not just on the large
non-voting classes, but by the majority of voting citizens on the
minority. This was one of the things the Romans noted about direct
democracy and wanted to check with a republic....
: In a democracy, we would only have to persuade 51% (actually 50.00000025% or
: so) to respect each other's autonomy and we'd be finished. When will 51% of
: our Congresscritters vote to end the war on drugs? Probably not until 90% of
: the general population wants them to, since any Congressman who votes his
: conscience will soon be an ex-Congressman. Convince a citizen that X is a bad
: idea, and he'll vote against X with no fear of repercussions. Given the
: unfortunate choice, I'd sooner trust 51% of my fellow citizens than 51% of the
: legislators to vote libertarian issues.
You paint things as if the only possibilities are absolute rule by the
majority or absolute rule by the majority of a small group of
representatives, but the best kind of checks against direct democracy are
the ones that require the action of multiple layers of representative
bodies to do anything. These can protect your liberty even if less than
50% of the populace believes in doing so.
One of the best of these would be federalism if it was still worth
anything in this country. When powers of government can only be enacted
on a local level, but they can be limited on a national level, there will
always be small islands of freedom. If 75% of the country believes in
some infringement in your liberty, but 51% of the citizens of some locale
don't want to enact it, it won't happen. Conversely if 75% of the
citizens of some locale believe in it, but 51% of the country doesn't, it
also won't happen.
Good systems of checks and balances also have some very democratic layers
pitted against much less democratic layers. Certain types of laws in
California are impossible to pass without a referendum from the people and
I think that's an example of checks that are working pretty well. Not
only do two houses of the legislature have to pass a bill, but the
governor has to sign it, and then in addition to that, a majority of the
people have to vote it into law. It's impossible to pass that type of law
a majority of the people, but it can easily be defeated even with a
majority behind it.
If it was up to me, I would increase the scope of the referendum
requirements (like for ANY tax increase, etc.) but get rid of the power to
raise taxes through the initiative without leglislative approval.
I guess my suggestions would amount to radical decentralism -- powers
being enacted on as local a level as practially feasible -- and multiple
layers of bodies with different constituents able to block eachother's
actions.
If only 5% of the populace really believes in individual liberty, there
might be nothing you can do to keep any system working for it, but I'm
confident that there is some way to organize a government so that maybe
35% of the populace can keep its powers in check and the rest will be
happy enough with things not to keep the system running and not start a
revolution.
A really interesting idea that I think I like is the virtual canton
constitution proposed by the Free Nation Foundation (a new country
project). A canton is a sort of subunit in a Switzerland's decentralized
system (which is so decentralized most people don't even know the name of
their national president). In the virtual canton constitution,
jurisdiction of the cantons is based not on territory, but voluntary
membership. Think your taxes are too high? Don't worry, just join
another virtual canton with lower ones. That would certainly nip the
welfare state at the bud....
It's sort of designed to be the next best thing to anarchy for people who
want to buy out territory somewhere and have it recognized by the United
Nations and protected from the kind of meddling a region with no
government at all would be subject to.
Actually, they're negotiating with certain tribal leaders in the breakaway
region of Somaliland for the rights to create an independent libertarian
country. For the uniformed, the former Republic of Somalia has had no
governemnt for the last seven years and the region of Somaliland wants no
part in any new national government. (Interestingly enough, in the
absence of government, Somalia has developed a sort of defacto
laissez-faire economy and it now has about five times as many exports as
the last year for which government statistics were available. It has also
developed a telecommunications network which rivals any of those in
sub-Saharan Africa. The Freedom Network News had a recent article called
"Does Somalia Really Need a Government?" in which a Somalian argued that
it doesn't.)
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