Here’s an article I wrote: Monarchy vs. Democracy and The Decline of Civilization
The article is mainly based on Hoppe’s monarchy-democracy analysis, and his argument that democracy promotes rising time preferences and the destruction of society.
With all due respect, your article is crap. Crap like that is the main reason that the libertarian movement is ignored by the masses.
Firstly, I would like to point out that your article contradicts itself. You state that:
“The existence of government weakens the process of capital accumulation. Under democratic rule, this weakening effect is considerably enhanced. Unless it is stopped, democracy will eventually raise time preferences to the point of capital consumption, and a self-reinforcing process of decivilization will be set in motion”
You also say:
“Despite incredible advances in knowledge and technology over the past few decades, living standards have actually declined”
How can “incredible advances in knowledge and technology” be reconciled with “the point of capital consumption”?
Your second (and far more visible) blunder is your glaringly inaccurate comparison between monarchy and democracy. Such as:
“Now, year in and year out the American government expropriates more than 40 percent of the incomes of private producers, making even the economic burden imposed on slaves and serfs seem moderate in comparison.” No, it doesn’t, when you consider that modern capitalism makes the private producer far more productive than slaves and serfs of the dark ages. Seriously, are we better off than them or not???
“Monarchy: Limited wars for settling territorial disputes. Battles fought by hired mercenaries with minimal bloodshed. Civilian life was unaffected by wars.” Civilian life unaffected by wars??
“Monarchy: Kings were considered judges, not legislators. Law was considered fixed and immutable (and the king’s own property rights rested on its validity). Legislation was unheard of.” Obviously, you know nothing about history. Every heard of the Hammorabi code? Every king in history has been (or tried to be) a legislator; that’s kind of the point.
I think he means compared to the “total war” that democracy of recent centuries has brought us.
ama gi, I take it you are a mini-statist—that would go a long way in explaining your displeasure with my article. In my defense, I should first point out that my arguments are directly taken from Hoppe’s book (Democracy—The God That Failed). I wanted to keep the article fairly short, so I didn’t go into great length on any point. Hoppe’s book is a much more thorough and convincing exposition of these arguments.
Capital consumption and technological advance can co-exist. Inventors still create new products even if the state is intervening like crazy. My whole point is that we haven’t seen any significant improvement in living standards from the computer and information revolutions. The state is “soaking” up all the wealth.
Next, in the Hoppe quote where he compares the burden of serfs to modern workers, he is not saying that they were better off than us. He’s just pointing out that the modern democratic state takes a much larger percentage than monarchies could ever dream of.
Seriously, civilians were completely undisturbed by monarchical wars. People would often go and watch the battles. Hoppe elaborates quite a bit on this interesting fact in the book.
On legislation, again see Hoppe’s book where he extensively defends this point.
From Toban’s article:
War- Monarchy: Limited wars for settling territorial disputes. Battles fought by hired mercenaries with minimal bloodshed. Civilian life was unaffected by wars.
- Democracy: Total wars fought for ideological goals (”Liberty”, “Democracy”, “fighting terrorism”, etc.) and thus open-ended and grotesquely brutal. Civilian life is heavily disrupted by wars, not only because of domestic burdens (taxation, regulation and conscription), but because civilians are no longer considered “off limits” to combatants."
Were not the Crusades an example of “total wars fought for ideological goals”? And the Crusades were fought by monarchies rather than democracies, were they not?
Again, I think Toban needs to learn some history before he spouts off with dogma like this.
There were wars before the french revolution which were as brutal as ‘modern’ wars.
Notice that the first world war was started by a catholic monarchy…known as the ‘austro hungarian’ empire.
I’m not saying democracy is any good - just pointing out that ‘democratic’ totalitarianism and ‘monarchical’ totalitarianism are just two instances of totalitarianism.
In any science of human action, you will almost always find exceptions to a rule. As for war, you could also name the Thirty Years’ War. Not all monarchic wars were small in scale and without collateral damage.
However, Toban and Hoppe are talking about general tendencies, not exceptions. It may have a dogmatic vibe here and there, but they are still on to something.
LOL. Hoppe’s views on monarchy are not science but propaganda.
Here’s another ‘exception’ for your conservative biased non-rule.
Do you mind telling me what sort of government did tsarist russia have ? And…why is it that the industrial revolution didn’t start there, but in more ‘democratic’ western europe ?
was the USSR stalin’s own little fief for a while? and germany hitlers (post-the democracy)?
I find it interesting that Hoppe is embellished quite a bit by those who oppose him. While he certainly injects a considerable amount of opinion, I hardly see how half of his views on monarchy are controversial, especially since radical libertarians have been opposing democracy well before Hoppe’s D:TGTF.
Then again, I’ve heard mostly lectures from him, so I can’t speak for his books just yet.
Any sensible person who reads Hoppe, or anyone else for that matter, would realize when to ignore speculation, such as that war was somehow less severe with monarchies versus democracies. It certainly was different, just as how war was different at the time of WWII versus today with the prospect of full nuclear war, but not “better”.
Of course, these are not absolute political laws, but only tendencies. All Hoppe is saying is that the incentive structure is much healthier for a private owner. Surely the wars of the 20th century are without parallel in terms of destructiveness.
Hoppe quotes Michael Howard (War in European Civilization, pp. 75-76):
Once the state ceased to be regarded as ‘property’ of dynastic princes, and became instead the instrument of powerful forces dedicated to such abstract concepts as Liberty, or Nationality, or Revolution, which enabled large numbers of the population to see in that state the embodiment of some absolute Good for which no price was too high, no sacrifice too great to pay; then the “temperate and indecisive contests” of the rococo age appeared as absurd anarchronisms.
But a monarchy is just a ‘privately owned’ CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE. In your mind the mafia could be described as ‘privately owned’ ?
Now, get this : ownership entails homesteading and voluntary exchange. So the label ‘private’ when talking about government is nonsense.
Monarchical governments are just gangs of thieves and murderers, like any government. End of story.
Another little historical note. You know what brought about the french revolution ? It was the incredible STUPIDITY and GREED of the french monarchy. Great example of the ‘efficiency’ or ‘private’ government.
But never let facts get in the way of some good propaganda.
And after the revolution came The Great Terror. W00t!
Praxeology is the science of human action. If the human acting as king happens to be a psycopathic, war-mongering misanthrope with an extremely high time preference, the restraining effects of monarchic governance may not moderate him either.
Fortunately, that is not the point. The point is that ceteris paribus, rulers will be more inclined to exploit their subjects in a democratic system than in a monarchic one due to the unique qualities of these systems.
If you are convinced otherwise, make your case. I hope you do not dislike this theory just because it seems “conservative” to you.
Is that meant as an objection to what I said ?
Also, I should point out that the french monarchy ruled its serfs aided by the catholic church (theocracy) and the oligarchy. So again the idea that the french government was something owned by a single guy doesn’t match reality.
And who sided with the serfs in overthrowing the ancien regime? The parish priests apart of the first estate did side with the third estate in bringing about a constitional monarchy.
The French monarchy was anything but a theocracy. If anything, it was the aristocracy that controlled the clergy, not the other way around.
An irrelevant and unproven point. It’s possible for a monarchy to be dictatorial and for a democracy to respect property rights. It all depends on how much abuse the serfs are willing to take.
I already did. I guess you were not around when other people would repeat Hoppe’s ‘theory’ just like you do. Anyway, check the archives.
I dislike the non-theory because it’s indeed mostly conservative propaganda and idle speculation.
Well one difference was if you didn’t want to fight in the Crusades you didn’t have to. And iirc, the Crusader armies had to raise their own funds, or pay for the campaign out of their plunder.
As has been pointed out, the most malign monarch could only dream of the taxing and regulatory power available to democratically elected rulers.
Well, maybe some did, whereas the top commanders of the church were friendly to the king and the rest of the establishment ?
Also the church does have a commie wing no ? Maybe some of the parish priests were not real fans of private property after all ?
It was partly a theocracy.
Uh oh. Or maybe the oligarchy and the clergy were mostly the same group of people.