I would like to ask a question: has anyone every written anything regarding the changing attitude of Austrian and Libertarian thinkers/scholars regarding democracy?
If you pick any writing from Mises from the '20s or '30s he appears to be a strong believer in the democratic system, even after it brought Mussolini (1922) and Hitler (1933) into power. Among present day Austrians/Libertarians the attitude is exemplified by Hans Herman Hoppe and his Democracy…
In short it would appear that the Austrian school either completely lost its faith in the democratic system or went through such radical changes in the political theory department as to reject a once treasured value. Has anyone chronicled/explained how this came to be?
Most thinkers associate with the LvMI would be “anti-democracy”, for lack of better words, perhaps Roderick Long is the exception. However, some other thinkers associated with GMU and fellow travelers favour some form of democracy. Be it scholars such as Buchanan who favours constitutional democracy or others such as Prychitko and, I believe, Leeson who look favourably upon voluntary, democratic associations (see Leeson’s work on pirates, for example).
I don’t think Hoppe’s work was what changed opinion though, I’d say it was Rothbard’s Man, Economy and State and to a greater extent Power and Market (along with his The Ethics of Liberty and For a New Liberty) that had the biggest impact. I think most modern Austrian scholars, even those over a GMU, would credit Rothbard with introducing anarchy as an alternative possibility.
Mises also believed in the right to secede, so he was hardly as gung-ho about the present state of democracy (whereby one state in the union is forever enslaved to the central government).
Ironically, the primitivist Anarchist Derek Jensen got me thinking a few months ago. He said something along the lines of “we tend to have false ‘we’” in nation-states and stuff like that. The pronoun “we” and democracy and stuff of that nature can only come from recognizing who we actually have mutual interests with. So when we say “we” we can’t mean “the troops” or “our troops” or “us” as in the government. It has to be people we actually have some association with.
And the Marxists are also right when it comes to the idea of “atomization”. The current state creates a false atomization of people. Leading to general disinterest in democracy from decent social people and overemphasis on democracy from people who want other people’s stuff in order to accomplish goals (people who aren’t social enough to get those things done themselves). As well as a centralization to create false groups. Probably what you’d have in an anarchy, is an increased sense of democracy and involvedness due to the extra risks and the lack of false groups. The way smaller towns are formed. In a way, it would increase the social nature of people due to their not being protected against anti-social behavior. And far from simply relying on the market and themselves, most would in fact need to have mutual alliances like friendships, family, friendly societies, cooperative business, etc. in order to garner some sort of security. Which could certainly be opted out of, but I think even today you have both social and individualist nature to people. So one can’t rule out social and individual living.
What Mises tends to mean in democracy, is that people vote with their dollar. And the bottom-up nature of consumer choice means they organize what gets produced and how their society functions. The division of labor also creates some comradery among ordinarily diverse groups – the more people the better.
The Austrians never really had faith in democracy. I think that it has been common knowledge since Plato that a democracy and a rule by a mob are the same thing if the mob is a majority of people. I am safe in saying that most Austrians believe the old saying: A government that governs best governs least. Quite a few, myself within the past two years, believe that the limit of this is: The optimal government is one that does not govern at all, in other words government does not exist.
So the type of government: Democracy, Monarchy, Oligarchy, Totalitarian, … is not important but what is important is that the government not interfere in the rights of people to have Life, Liberty and Property. In fact our modern age has several examples of non-democratic governments where citizens have lots of economic freedom and in some cases a lot of other freedomes as well: Hong Kong prior to 1997, Singapore, etc. There are also situations where people have yielded freedom through the democratic process:France, Germany, The UK, USA, Sweden, etc.
I do believe that Austrians have recently lost their faith in constitutionally limited democracy. For example: The US Constitution is written in simple easy to understand absolute language, but court decisions, especially those since the Progressive Era have gone completely against the simple wording of the Constitution. For example: The Congress does not have the power to regulate commerce that does not cross state borders, yet the EPA, FCC, DOJ, IRS, SEC, etc are intimately involved in even the smallest businesses.
First of all I’d like to thank you all for your replies and insight. [Y]
Then I’d like to ask if from a strict economical point of view the present democratic system is “the best bang for buck” most people can get: reduction of personal responsibility and accountability, promise of “social justice” (whatever that means, it’s a very popular phrase in Europe), other people founding your needs and whims (from socialized medicine to football stadiums) etc. What do you reckon?
I don’t really understand your question. People will give even more to charity without 25-50% of their earnings taken by the state. I believe there is a lot of evidence of this. Health care will be more affordable withut barriers to entry, costly regulations, etc. Stadiums, roads, or whatever can be privately funded/owned.
This goes hand in hand with a reduction in independence and freedom.
Whether democracy is the best bang for the buck, it’s not possible to arrive at an objective economic conclusion of such.
For some people, democracy may be great. For others terrible. If you presume that having less personal responsibility and accountability is a good thing, then it is good at that. If you think that is bad, then it is lousy.
E.R. my question was about democracy being the best “bang for the buck” for most people because of its redistributive nature (IE politician wanting to be reelected needs to appease as many voters as possible at taxpayers’ expenses) and because it takes away so much responsibility in exchange for “a little” freedom.
I am just back from a town hall meeting and as usual it was very instructive…
Actually, he is right, although it is because the Constitution is a non-binding contract, and Congress is just a puppet show of people playing dressup. Unless you meant “power” literally, in which case you are correct. I suspect Bogart meant “power” to mean “authorization”.
Hoppe ended any reservations that I previously had. Nobody previously AFAIK went so far to discredit it. His own comments suggest that it may have previously been regarded as the lesser of evils among forms of state.