Thoughts on Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s Democracy: The God That Failed
This essay takes the thumbnail sketch written by Hoppe, found here at Lew Rockwell’s website, as it’s authoritative summation of Hoppe’s ideas.
Hoppe asserts that while both monarchy and democracy are deficient political monopolies, monarchy is superior to democracy. He lays out 5 points:
1.0 As the “owner” of a State (defined as “an agency that exercises a compulsory territorial monopoly of ultimate decison-making (jurisdiction) and of taxation
the monarch”) the monarch will take better care of it than the democratically elected official who is merely a caretaker.
2.0 The democratically elected official will be necessarily short sighted because his term is limited.
2.1 This myopia also plays out in the greater society where “infantilization” or the live for today ideal becomes dominant.
3.0 Because of the necessity of election, it is the morally “uninhibited” individual who wins out, virtually eliminating the decent person from rising to the top. The monarch need not engage in such demagoguery and political machinations.
4.0 Democracy is a tool for expropriation. In a monarchy the expropriations have all long since been settled into a standing order.
5.0 For the Monarch, war is a tool for further expropriation. In a democracy war is a tool for ideological conversion.
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These are all convincing points which I must agree with. Perhaps with a few exception: Concerning the fifth point, ideology as the goal of democratic war. Ideology is the tool that the demagogue uses to impassion the people to war. The real motivations are always something else. Any existential threats, are in reality, threats against the standing order of the monarchy, or the leader du jour of democracy. Seldom, if not never, are the mass of people threatened by a regime change.
As a side, I recall reading the history of Mesopatamia where one dynasty after another comes through and establishes their rule. Yet for the people (people not directly attached with the previous dynasty, nor ideologically or nationalistically dogmatic) it did not matter. Life went on pretty much as normal. In fact it was the invading groups who eventually were altered by the customs of the indigenous people. Bring sharia. I’ll buy knee pads to pray 5 times a day and I’ll beat my wife. After a while our invaders will be exploring Western liberal ideals.
Concerning the first point on ownership: The people, not the leaders, of a democracy have a greater sense of ownership than do the people of a kingdom. In a sense the people “buy into” the democratic State. Proof of this assertion can be found in Hoppe’s fourth point on democratic expropriation: Democracies lend a sense of entitlement.
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I generally give assent to Hoppe’s assertions and further assert that all 5 of these points are also applicable to capitalism generally and the corporate structure specifically.
1.0 The CEO and management structure of corporation are not the owners, only the caretakers. It is true that most CEO’s are invested in their companies yet at any moment they could be fully divested, stocks sold in the matter of minutes, and off to be caretaker of some other corporation. The corporation can do a massive crash and burn while the CEO floats away on his golden parachute in the same manner the democratic politician can walk away from the carnage of his duty at the helm.
The corporation, like a democracy, posits itself as being owned by the people (stockholders) yet is really a schema in order to centralize wealth/power into the hands of a few.
The banker and investment broker are also caretakers of other people’s money (yet keep the usury for themselves).
2.0 The CEO’s term is even more limited than the politician‘s. The CEO’s survival is often a quarter by quarter affair, and sometimes even monthly. Seldom, if ever, is there any foresight beyond the requisite 5-year-plan.
The capitalist investor is also myopic. All financial calculations have an amortization period, that is to say, a time limit beyond which profits become meaningless. No capitalist plants an oak tree.
2.1 There are many writers/thinkers/philosophers who have analyzed the “infantilization” of industrialized consumer society. Capitalism has led us to a society where conservation, or the long term preservation of property, is anathema to economic health.
3.0 The lack of moral inhibitions in those who rise to the top is no different in business than in politics. To argue otherwise would, I think, question the basic premises of Mises’ praxeology.
4.0 Seen abstractly capitalism is the embodiment of expropriation. The distinction comes down to the voluntary nature of the free-market vs. the violent nature of the democratic State. It is blind to think that monarchies existed without expropriation nor without violent expropriation.
5.0 For the Monarch, war is end-oriented, lands acquired and resources seized. Conquest yields new possessions. For capitalist nations, If there is an end-orientation to war, it is to make the world safe for commerce. An existential threat to a nation’s trade network becomes idealized as an existential threat to the nation. For industrialized capitalist nations, the US specifically, war is means-oriented. Wars can be won or lost, enemies destroyed and rebuilt, and every step of this process has served the interests of manufacturers and suppliers.