A substantial point of disagreement between Mises and many American libertarians was the question of democracy. Mises would come to taste the particular American flavor of hostility to democracy in a 1947 exchange of letters with Rose Wilder Lane. Apparently they had met for lunch, and Lane had the impression that Mises believed they shared the same outlook on fundamentals. At the meeting she did not feel it was the right moment to start a discussion on the subject, but later wrote him to set the record straight: “as an American I am of course fundamentally opposed to democracy and to anyone advocating or defending democracy, which in theory and practice is the basis of socialism.” FULL ARTICLE
Source link: http://archive.mises.org/6806/liberty-versus-democracy/
Liberty versus Democracy
Previous post: Time for Another Revolution
Next post: Whiny Journalists
{ 31 comments }
I’ve been lacking Ms. Lane in my library. Her omission is a mistake I shall soon rectify. Thanks for the excerpt!
None of us is as stupid as all of us.
I don’t like that cliche.
“All of us”, meaning society, is much smarter than any one individual when individuals choose cooperation and divison of labor.
Markets, composed of all of us, work. Corporatism, composed of only some, does not.
Good timing. We currently have a war monger president intent on spreading the fruits of democracy to other people.
I always disagreed with democracy AND ESPECIALLY REPRESENTATIVE democracy as the act of voting is not a purchase but the choosing of the lesser of two evils.
Dear Jorg Guido Hulsmann,
As I was drawn into this tidbit of history I saw the book cover of your book to be released soon and which is being used as a promotion of your week-long seminar!
Thrilling times are ahead, to say the least. How will the world change after receiving knowledge about Mises: The Last Knight of Liberalism?
The ship will be righted and the errors of fallacious history and economics cast ashore as useless debris! No small feat! Thank you for your remarkable work!
That was refreshing. Thankyou. “The people” has always been nothing but a floating abstraction to justify whatever the status quo of the power structure is or whatever the individual wants it to mean.
Of course, it is the most hypocritical thing in the world to say that no one understands the meaning of words anymore whilst abandoning the term “Liberal” to the dogs. Those who adore liberty around the world nudge their heads in disbelief while America’s liberals call themselves libertarians while evil itself has taken control of the traditional word.
I do not understand, how are we to go about enlightening the populace when you do not even attempt to regain the lost ground and let our opponents occupy the most important areas.
In sum: We must return to the useage of the word Liberal to describe ourselves. This thing, libertarian, is in my opinion a waste and will get us nowhere. Especially when your “Libertarian Political Graph” (like the one displayed on this page: http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html) calls liberalism a leftist movement. It’s pure nonsense and rather selfish if you ask me.
Thanks for this article. I too, need to add Rose Wilder Lane to my library. I had never heard of her. The excerpt has whetted my appetite.
I’ve been thinking along similar lines recently. Most Americans associate democracy and freedom as one in the same. Especially our leaders, and especially when we’re supposedly bringing it to other countries by way of their destruction.
But I realized recently that democracy has nothing at all to do with freedom. I know it seems like sacrilege as an American to criticize democracy. But when I think of the idiot politicians who pander to every ignorant group of people with a crusade to make the world a better place as they see it (by force, of course), I realize this representative democracy that we have only serves to incrementally destroy freedom, bit by bit. So while the idea of everyone having a vote sounds great, and is still a revolutionary concept to many parts of the world, it’s not freedom. It’s merely the tyranny of the majority.
Democracy would be OK if our elected officials didn’t have the power to actually DO anything.
Funny, I am currently reading The Discovery of Freedom. My favorite quote thus far occurs just a little past this excerpt. Regarding the attack on private property, it reads:
How true!
Jim, I’m currently reading it too. Splitting my time between it and Ron Paul’s A Foreign Policy of Freedom.
I think she sums up European democracy best when she says they believe freedom is controlling the government that controls them. They’ve replaced their kings with armies of bureaucrats, and haven’t changed a bit.
The kings were not as bad, in my opinion.
Quite frankly why shouldn’t the majority not have the final say? Either that or some minority gets to boss around the majority. As long as there’s a Constitution which outlines basic deemed inalienable rights, so what? To say Monarchies are better than Democracies doesn’t make any obvious sense unless Anarchos think they’re going to be on the top of the pecking order ‘when society as we know it crumbles’.
Erik von Kuehnelt Leddihn and Hoppe make strong points for monarchy, and I certainly believe them.
“they believe freedom is controlling the government that controls them.”
Too true, too sad.
“As long as there’s a Constitution which outlines basic deemed inalienable rights”
If those rights are truly inalienable then the majority DOES NOT have the final say.
“I’ve been thinking along similar lines recently. Most Americans associate democracy and freedom as one in the same. Especially our leaders, and especially when we’re supposedly bringing it to other countries by way of their destruction. ”
Worse yet, they believe democracy goes hand in hand with capitalism (something Schumpeter demonstrated to be false). I am with Hoppe on this particular matter – democracy is and always will be antithethical to freedom. Democracy on the political level will always lead to democracy on the economic level.
‘Democracy is and always will be antithethical to freedom’?! Does that mean Aristotle was right? Some people were meant for greatness and deserve to rule? Others, well, weren’t and until they themselves can figure out how to rule they’ll be taking orders? And woe to any society that let the dopey vote alongside the smart ones? Especially as dopey people alway seem to outnumber the smart ones. Oh well, guess you can’t fight that old hag Mother Nature.
How about no one boss anyone around? Simply not an option for you, eh?
Sam,
Democracy is the opposite of freedom because it attempts to (though it succeeds poorly) legitimise the unacceptable and sell coercion to the masses in the name of representing their interests. The only system compatible with liberty is, of course, anarchism. This being said, Aristotle had a point (beside the fact that his theory was mainly about a division of powers and thus, before the letter, about checks & balances and the separation of functions); monarchies tend to be less intrusive than your average welfare-warfare-majoritarian-democracy.
PS: “The power itself is illegitimate. The best government has no more title to it than the worst. It is as noxious, or more noxious, when exerted in accordance with public opinion, than when in opposition to it. If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. – What ever crushes individuality is despotism, no matter what name it is called.†(J.S. Mill, On Liberty)
Enjoy, M-
Twas interesting having a look at the description for book The Discovery of Freedom. Yet the author seems to ask an invalid question, ‘why did people barely subsist for some six thousand years [creationism?]then miraculously around 100 years things improved markedly’. Over the six millennia, many a civilisation has come and gone giving improvement in living standards and subsequent losses. Not to mention a lot of people here like to say society was doing quite fine until the 20th century. And it seems that the standard has improved suddenly because the wealth of genuine hardworking has been forcefully redistributed to the underserving masses not to mention the great many wars and revolutions elsewhere.
But all in all, if Libertopia was about primarily securing individual right to produce and trade
Ooops. Please disregard last sentence I was going to delete it, and, well, (#@*$&@$@#$. X( sorry
Ms. Lane’s little book is an absolute gem. This is my all-time favorite non-fiction book. I have given my copy away three or four times. Her beginning chapter/essay should be required reading for any high school English, history, government or economics class. It’s an absolute pleasure to read her.
Great to see Hulmann investigating Mises’ dealings with American libertarians. Mises has a few remarks against the anarchists in Bureaucracy and other writings. But Mises never really deals with the issue head on. I always wondered what he would say if he’d had the chance to talk in depth with people like Lane and Albert Jay Nock (hell Rothbard who was closer to him).
It looks like Hulsmann’s book unearths some gems…I can’t wait! I’m going to have to read faster. I’m in the middle of a bunch of Austrian economics books. Now Hulsmann’s book, a bunch of stuff by Lane, which makles me want to read Hoppe’s Democracy book…then another book by Rothbard coming this summer…etc. Great stuff!
“Does that mean Aristotle was right?”
More right than most egalitarian theorists ever have been.
“And it seems that the standard has improved suddenly because the wealth of genuine hardworking has been forcefully redistributed to the underserving masses not to mention the great many wars and revolutions elsewhere.”
Proof? That said, many wealthy do not own justly acquired property. They are undeserving of it.
Most people believe the limitation of government, thus the preservation of liberty, by freely electing the right person. In an excerpt from our recently released book The Price of Sin, I wrote in the forward the following:
A poll commissioned by CNN in October, 2006 reveals that a majority of Americans believe in the notion of limited government. A majority of those polled also believe that government has become too intrusive; intervening in areas best left to the individual. Though not asked, I would venture most would conclude that the path to limited government would be through the electoral process, in other words by electing the right person. We are ignorant to the fact that it is not the elected official which limits government, but the structure of the social contract through the application of a philosophy of individual liberty. The true measure of freedom is not found in the political process; it is found in the principles which naturally regulate the manner in which we interact with one and another. True freedom is found in the laws of nature.
The flaw of democracy is that it is a political process, and like any other political process its evolutionary path is toward tyranny and oppression; a perspective that many of the Founders had warned us about. Unfortunately with the ratification of the Constitution,
“They trusted that those generations to come would implicitly understand the necessity to limit the size, scope, and reach of the federation. They believed that their own citizens could not possibly discard their vision; it was their gamble with our liberty. They may have pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor in the declaration of and battle for their enlightened vision of liberty, but they gambled it away to an institution that is showing to be the antithesis of their original struggle. As brilliant as our founders were in constructing the Declaration, they were irrational in subsequently placing such faith in an institution that had the potential to grow out of control, manipulating the men and women who were charged to operate it.â€
One additional note, democracy is not only the path for some to loot our wealth; it is also the path to intellectual thievery as illustrated by the Pi Law that was introduced in the 1898 Indiana legislature (passed in the lower chamber) and today’s climate change hysterics.
This article is speaking as if the American system of government is any better. I hear constantly from snobby, American libertarians how much better American Government is than Democracy, when in fact all governments are the same, none are better than the other.
“It is precisely democracy which is destroying the American political structure, American law, and the American economy, as Madison said it would, and as Macauley prophesied that it would do in fact in the 20th century.”
No, the cause of the destruction of the American political structure is that political structures are designed to be destroyed, they are designed to fail, this is the only function they serve, for a cancer to the people is a buffet for a government. It works like any fundamental parasite. The failure of the government is the benefit of the people, and the benefit of the government is the failure of the people.
Republic or not. Democracy or not. Monarchy or not. It fails, period.
“A pure democracy can admit no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will be felt by a majority, and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party.”
And what is to cure the mischief of a bunch of aristocrats at the top voting and sucking off the lifeblood of the producing class? What is to stop a parasite from being a parasite? Are we to suggest that it is merely by petting the parasite and introducing our own that “evils” are to be reversed and defended against? No.
For there is only one cure for a parasite and it is by the means of which it lives, blood. Only to kill the parasite, we must set its own blood to flow.
Death to every man who wishes to control and coerce the producing class of individual entrepreneurs.
I’m with Hoppe when I say that the enlightenment was the biggest intellectual failure in an era of thought.
Instead of ending privilege for the few, it merely changed the idea that privileges were just open to the best deceivers, the best thiefs, and the best mass murderers. Then the system closed up again and in the case of America it is the Eastern Aristocracy and Texas oil that became the neo-monarchies and then by marriage the only neo-monarchy.
In Italy it is a case of much older foreign dominance that continues to control the mass population of the producers and the poor where Northerners still dominate a country of fairly politically passive people.
The Italian people are the greatest people in the world, but they’ve been enslaved by a government that appeals to their tastes, but neither loves them nor respects them in private.
“I’m with Hoppe when I say that the enlightenment was the biggest intellectual failure in an era of thought”
This makes think of the various socialist/communist revolutions that popped up every now and then throughout history. Yet one condition for such revolutions must exist – namely there must be enough wealth surplus creation for some to think that it should be redistributed. Other times there would not have been the population nor the excess wealth to justify any thoughts of redistribution. It probably would have been a case of the ‘haves’ are capable of putting basic food on the table and not much more and similarly the average villager would know that if another villager is a ‘have’ it’s because they knew that villager worked darn hard for what they have.
I wonder in the ‘developing’ countries where the very rich live alongside the very poor, the rich have understood it’s not enough to create wealth but to have the weaponry to defend it against every bleeding heart who strolls along.
“Other times there would not have been the population nor the excess wealth to justify any thoughts of redistribution. ”
If the wealth is acquired by just appropriation, redistribution is never, ever justified.
TLWP Sam,
Trying to review a book you’ve never read? Pathetic.
Six thousand years ago does not reference creationism, its when history began.
While it’s true that “Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, John Adams, Madison, and Monroe feared democracy,” the rest of the story is that these men, who created the US government for the most part, didn’t believe they were creating a democracy. They created a republic, which carries some of the characteristics of a monarch and some of democracy. They considered some issues too important to leave to voters or politicians and they fixed those in the Constitution and ammendments. The US began drifting toward a democracy when elected officials and judges, under pressure from voters, refused to limit government to the boundaries specified by the Constitution.
Many founding fathers predicted the failure of the new government because they understood people too well. Some believed that the Republic would last only as long as the citizens remained self-disciplined and the chief source of such self-discipline was Christianity. That’s why the first Congress ordered that the Bible be taught in all public schools and paid for Bibles for Indian tribes. One founder remarked that if the nation ceased to be Christian, the people would tear through the Constitution as if it were a spider’s web.
I don’t think you can fault the founders for their attempt to limit government. As the author of the article wrote, “He [Mises] merely stressed the fact that all political systems ultimately hinge on mass opinion.” When mass opinion turned socialist, nothing existed that could stop people from shredding the Constitution.
Anarchists should keep Mises’s view in mind that all political systems ultimately hinge on mass opinion. Creating an anarchist system will require the acceptance of it by the masses, and even if you manage to establish an anarchic system, keeping it will depend on the masses as well. You have no greater chance of success than did the founding fathers.
Why do you use the common story of Republic vs Democracy RogerM? A Republic is a system that tries to break away from hereditary rule and can use Democracy to elect leaders. Therefore a Democratic Republic is not an oxymoron, and, quite frankly, ideally would go hand in hand.
Similarly, do you likewise seem to fear or depise Democracy? Because the average person prefers Socialism over Capitalism? After all, if the masses were Libertarians then Democracy would be a formidable weapon against Socialism. To say the U.S. system is tending towards Fascism only proves that the Iron Law of Oligarchy holds true.
Comments on this entry are closed.