Erik Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn.
Erik Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn.
Yes, although his Catholicism somewhat taints his analysis.
If you want critics/critiques of democracy, that’s more or less all of political philosophy up until around roughly the Civil War of the West – also known as the two World Wars. It is only in modern times that democracy skeptical thought has become non-mainstream.
A shameless plug would be my Churchill on Democracy Revisited. It may be a bit too soft on Churchill, and I’ve discovered after publication that the “five minute” quote probably is a false attribution.
[Update: The piece also unfortunately has some character distortions.]
Before you all get to wound up in criticizing Democracy, it may be worth considering what you understand by the term and what logical basis for the creation of Democracy there might be.
Then look around and you shall see no Democracy anywhere!
Democracy is good, we should try it some time
Liberals are great folks, now I seldom get to meet any!
All anti-egalitarians you will find to argue against mass democracy, although not necessarily against election. A king is traditionally elected by his peers, although he would not consider the mass of men to be his peers, only the most noble amongst them. The Pope is still elected in such fashion.
Stranger,
Kings were seldom if ever elected; kings, queens, princes, etc., and kingdoms were formerly based on familial relationships of marriage and offspring and inheritances granted.
For a starter summary of monarchies vs. democracies (and indeed the US is truly a democracy, in the true - criminal - mob-sense of the word), this is a decent treatment by Hoppe:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/hoppe/hoppe23.1.html
Especially this section: II. Application: The Transition from Monarchy to Democracy (1789–1918)
I have read through all of DTGTF, it mentions the election of kings. Typically the king was elected based on his wealth and force, and since this was usually always passed down in the same family, the same king kept being elected.
To my knowledge no one elected Queen Elizabeth.
Kings were indeed often elected before they became purely hereditary institutions. Although they were elected for life and only by those able to physically resist the King.
Some examples of the election of King:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_election
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_of_Christian_III
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_election
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elective_monarchy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_kingship
If you consider how kingdoms came into being, through military might, it could hardly be otherwise initially.
Let’s say you manage to form a coalition of men at arms to subject a certain extension of land to your rule.
Do you think maybe that those that join you in this venture would require some of the spoils? Hence becoming nobility ruling in their own right over parts of the subjected land.
What do you think will happen once you die and leave behind a wife and child (with no military knowledge or might). Any chance your previous liuetenants might want to grab power in their own right?