Re: Down with Democracy!

Seth D. Schoen (schoen@soda.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU)
4 Jan 1998 20:01:32 GMT 

Daniel C. Burton writes:

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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.

Since most people are _not libertarians_ and most people in the U.S. _support
Democracy_ it doesn't seem likely that a lot of people are going to agree
right off.  But one of the points of the protest was presumably that many
people haven't even thought about it; if the protest can raise the
consciousness of a few people even while annoying a few people, it may be
worthwhile.

This protest can work if someone sees it and says "They're crazy for protesting
Democracy" and then, a few years later, is ganged-up upon (metaphorically) by
a majority and is moved to remember what we had to say and, perhaps, to agree
with it a little more.  We should aim to legitimize the dislike of majority
rule, and not expect that everyone will agree immediately.

>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.

The economic monetarists have advocated _automatic_ rather than
_discretionary_ economic policies (which is why economic liberals don't
like them that much).  The idea there is that you figure out a general
principle or algorithm to decide your government policy.

The Elastic Clause in the Constitution is frustrating because it undermines
any attempts to do something like this.  I like the idea of governments
behaving mechanically rather than interactively, I think, and I'd like to
see more automatic and less discretionary government activity.

>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....

Wow, an explicit social contract!  Are people allowed to belong to no canton
at all, since there's presumably no territorial sovereignty?

>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.)

Wow, that's interesting.  Have you heard any criticisms or reports that
life in Somaliland leaves something to be desired?

George Soros is back in the _Atlantic Monthly_ criticizing capitalism
again.  He said something close to "capitalism commodifies everything, so
you can have a capitalist economy, but not a capitalist society".

-- 
Seth David Schoen, schoen@soda.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU or @UCLink4
WWW: http://ishmael.nmh.northfield.ma.us/~sigma/english