If a democracy is just a government that is supported by the majority, then it isn’t a contradiction to say that a democracy doesn’t require fair elections or even have voting at all. Is that really how you want to define democracy? Wouldn’t that mean that you could have a democratic monarchy?
For pete’s sake, Epicurus, you make the danger of confirmation bias and narrative fallacy here.
Your attempt to make historical relations between forms of government fails on one grounds - the progress of human beings has always been upwards in any and all regimes.
The success people of Qin China makes no more a case for Legalism than the success of people of Han China makes for Confucianism, than the success of people under Tokugawa makes for Shintoism, than the success of people under Asoka does for Buddhism, and so on.
Germans have shown upward progress all the way throughout their monarchist days, their republic days, their nationalist socialist days, and their democratic days, and so on. The upward progress of homo sapiens is always there because they are homo sapiens.
So let’s not waste our time with historicism and empiricism.
Some things to take into account.
A majority of votes does not necessarily indicate the “will of the majority”, whatever that actually means.
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10% of the populace can win an election or a referendum if only 19% of the populace votes.
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Issues are never so simple as “do you want a or b?” You may want c but because you are lumped into a winner-take-all system, you choose a or b.
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Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem
It seems that Hoppe did a much better job defining monarchy vs. representative democracy. The monarch owns the tax revenue whereas the democratic representative does not. If the monarch buys a fancy car with tax money, that’s his right. If a democratic representative does the same, he is labeled an embezzler, stripped of his state designation, and treated as a common criminal.
I think one should question how democratic our form of government is. Surely the representatives aren’t receiving ownership of tax revenue (other than their salaries…they are surely corrupt to some degree but such embezzlement is considered illegitimate). However, it may be a feasible argument that those subsidized by the government come close to privately owning it - their lobbyists have great influence over policy, and their media influence greatly determines elections. they must support welfare policies and other public expenditures to maintain their rule in the electoral system, so there is definitely a “public” component to our government, but I don’t think it’s a big stretch to say a large part of it is quasi-privately-owned.
Ultimately, however, Hoppe’s conclusions seem undeniably correct:
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The 20th century was the most glorious century in human history in spite of, not because of, democracy - almost all of the increase in labor productivity and technology came from the private sector, stemming from property rights. democracy appears more opposed to property rights than monarchs; however, each system opposes them to some degree - neither can claim responsibility for progress when each is based upon at least partially hindering it.
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Democracy promotes shorter-term time preferences in both the rulers and subjects, and undermines the development of a capital goods structure.
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Democracy promotes high taxation, public debt, and inflation in keeping with short-term goals.
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Democracy eliminates class solidarity between the rulers and ruled, making revolution and political protest more difficult.
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Democratic rulers are more likely to engage in conscription, send soldiers to die, advance war as ideological rather than strategic or wealth-enhancing, and kill innocent people than monarchs.
Since WWI, monarchy has vanished and democracy come to rule. During this time, numerous democratic regimes have completely undermined private property rights, often adopting fascism or socialism. Taxation rates have dramatically increased. Public debts have dramatically increased. Several nations have fallen into hyperinflation, while others have experienced high inflation. War is prevalent, with far more civilian casualties. Savings rates have fallen.
All this being said, we can play devil’s advocate. Is modern war more conducive to civilian casualties because of weapons technology? Even if high taxes and lower time preferences are bad economic policy, could this be what the common individual desires? Have crime rates increased simply because of democratic economic feasibility and bad policies, or due to a lack of frontiers, increasing population density, and increased access to weapons and security-defeating devices?
I had numerous questions like this pass through my head, as I read the book. I think Hoppe goes a little too far in doling out blame for democracy, but in his defense he does qualify such empirical evidence as requiring solid logical theories to identify cause and effect.
Is modern war more conducive to civilian casualties because of weapons technology?
Weapons are designed to the objectives to be conquered. It was democracy and only democracy that created an objective for which a mass-murder weapon could be designed.