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Freedomandemocracy: on how democracy is better than civil war and on why the next election must not be cancelled

Samizdata has been a bit quiet for the last few months, by its early standards. Partly, this has been because a lot of us have become busier, doing our various versions of real life. But partly, I suspect, it is because the big story out there during the last few months, the onward march of democracy in the Middle East, first in the form of the Iraq election, and then in the form of the demands for more democracy stirred up by the example of the Iraq election, has been somewhat of an embarrassment to us Samizdatistas. While Instapundit and his many linkees have exulted, only the occasional grudging posting here, to the effect that democracy is a step in roughly the right direction, has broken our silence on this subject.

The Samizdata view of democracy, most eloquently expressed by Perry de Havilland, is that democracy is one thing, and freedom is quite another. Freedom is freedom. And democracy means the mob doing whatever the hell it likes, which may be freedom but which is just as likely to be tyranny.

Few now talk this way. Nowadays, the tendency is to regard freedom and democracy as so closely related to one another as to amount to a new noun and a single thing: freedomandemocracy.

Freedomandemocracy has been the great ideological winner of the twentieth century. At the beginning of the century, conservatives and old-school liberals were still to be heard denouncing freedomandemocracy as mob rule, Perry de Havilland style. Then, other isms arose, full of the certainty that their preferred revolutionary and/or national (mix to taste) elite knew best and that freedomandemocracy was doomed, by its incoherence, moral mediocrity, lack of national team spirit, and general shabbiness, feebleness and decadence. But as the twentieth century rolled onwards, freedomandemocracy proved surprisingly resilient, and it was the isms that proved shabby and decadent, and morally far worse than mediocre. And freedomandemocracy now marches onwards into the new century, ready to chalk up yet more triumphs, leaving the old isms behind …

… to face new isms, in the Middle East. So now, freedomandemocracy, under the canny leadership of President George W. Bush, is busy threatening to knock over more dominoes.

Why does democracy work so well? And why do people insist on lumping it together with freedom?

In this posting, I will try to expand on ideas which I have already touched upon in a previous posting here. I am not, in this posting – together with any on freedomandemoracy that may follow (I promise nothing), aiming at most people, because most people do not need to be sold on democracy, or on why it feels so much like freedom. This posting is aimed at people who, like me, have embraced libertarian political axioms, to the point where we have become so acutely aware of the differences between freedom and democracy that we prefer to speak of freedom versus democracy. We need to know why and how democracy is proving to be such a formidable enemy of our ideas, and in what way it is also a formidable ally. Because my point here is: those most people have a point, in fact lots of points. Freedom and democracy do overlap in lots of ways, which I will now try to start itemising.

The first and greatest argument in favour of the connection between freedom and democracy is that democracy is preferable to civil war, and that civil war is extremely bad for freedom. That war of any kind is bad for freedom is surely uncontroversial, certainly among libertarians, and civil war can be particularly horrible, because it can get so personal. Regular wars often merely involve leaders being persuaded with a little bit of bloodshed to behave differently. Civil wars are all too likely to be someone trying to kill you, and you behaving similarly to that someone, in sheer self defence.

Democracy, when it works, spares us all from regular bouts of such horrors, by offering the contending parties a process which is a lot like civil war, but without the dead bodies.

Democracy is often denounced by its remaining enemies for being so relentlessly military in tone. But that is actually a lot of the reason why it works so well. All the people who would have thrived during a real war have an arena of conflict where many of their martial virtues, or vices if you prefer, can have free play. All that posturing and backstabbing, manouevre and counter-manouevre – all those “killing grounds”, to use a phrase that a political wonk friend of mine is fond of – that democracy and war have in common, metaphorical in the one and literal in the other, these are all part of why democracy works as well as it does. It finds alternative work for warlike hands.

There is no mystery about why the winners of elections favour democratic procedure. Of course they do. The clever bit is that the losers are likely to be reconciled to the result of an election also. This is because them losing an election is a pretty good clue to the fact, which it probably is, that they would have lost a real war also, had there been one.

There is another reason why democracy’s losers have a habit of taking their defeats peacefully, which is that the verdict of democracy is never final. There will always be another election. In deciding whether to try to overthrow the result of an election, the losers have to choose between doing that, and trying to win the next election. Given that your average democratic footsoldier – canvasser, party worker, humble party member and donor – does not relish getting killed in a battle where the glory will all go to much grander people, the massed ranks of the demcratic armies, for all their dashed hopes the day after the election, are inclined at that moment to lick their metaphorical wounds and keep them metaphorical, and focus their attentions on the next election.

This rule about how there will be a next election is fundamental.

Critics of democracy make much of the fact that Adolf Hitler was democratically elected, as indeed he was. But he was only a democratic leader for as long as the next election remained in place. What Hitler actually did was cancel the next election, pretty much as soon as he was elected, and so at best, he scores one out of two in the democratic test, and democracy in Germany ended when that next election was cancelled.

Vladimir Putin recently cancelled a lot of local elections in Russia, I believe. But has he cancelled the next national election, the one that might unseat him? Because that is the one that matters. If he does, then that is goodbye to Russian democracy, until such time as someone else contrives to stage another such election. For as long as Putin does not cancel that next election, he remains a democratic leader. Tyrannical, but democratic.

Pinochet of Chile, usually denounced as totally undemocratic, also, like Hitler, scores one out of two. Unlike Hitler, he was not elected. He deposed the duly elected boss. But what Pinochet left behind was an electoral process for choosing future leaders. Having destroyed democracy, he then re-established it.

If the electoral war settled everything, then the electoral war would, time after time, be followed by the real thing. That elections never settle everything, only things in the meantime, enables losers to live in hope and to stay peaceful, thereby not trampling all over people’s freedom and provoking their electorally victorious opponents into doing the same.

Similarly, the prospect of future electoral defeat can work wonders for the civility of the victors.

So it is that democratic arrangements create agonies of uncertainty for all ideologues – ideologues being defined as everyone who knows better than the electorate. Democracy is obviously disgusting, because it enables the mob to overturn the rule of virtue and of the virtuous. Yet, despite all their protestations of ideological purity, the Virtuous get sucked in, despite themselves, if only because all those damned sheep voters seem to prefer their damned democracy to Virtue. Once sucked in, the Virtuous find themselves involved in a huge and diverting and exciting game, full of intricacies and stratagems and cunning plans, and they are liable to forget all about their Virtue. This makes the sheep bleat more about the spendour of democracy – it de-virtued the Virtuous, hurrah!

As I read distant reports and commentaries about what is now happening in the Middle East, I believe that I observe all these processes in action.

Democracy, says the Islamist, allows people to vote against God, so it is plainly evil. And yet … maybe we should pretend to accept it, for the sake of getting power, if not now then soon.

But then comes the greatest agony. Having installed the rule of God by winning an election, do the Godly then leave in place the means by which God may, at the next election, be voted out of office? That is the tough one.

I recently put the analogous question to a fellow libertarian. If you and your pals (egged on by me) surprise us all and form a “libertarian government”, would you then cancel the next election, Hitler style, and if not why not? I really enjoyed the look on his face.

There is every chance that, purely for reasons of tactical calculation (“I remain a Virtue-ist, with every fibre of my body, blah blah blah”), the Virtuous will leave that next election in place, and that if they then lose it, that they will accept that, and live to fight another day, metaphorically speaking. TheV virtuous do die eventually, of course, but of natural causes.

The Virtuous will still not be believers in democracy. Except that, since they believe in playing by all the rules of democracy, they actually will be a believers in democracy.

Gotcha.

23 comments to Freedomandemocracy: on how democracy is better than civil war and on why the next election must not be cancelled

  • Geez, Brian, way to totally ignore this fellow Samizdatista’s musings on the topic:

    Necessary, not sufficient

    The necessity of voting

  • Stehpinkeln

    “the onward march of democracy in the Middle East, first in the form of the Iraq election, and then in the form of the demands for more democracy stirred up by the example of the Iraq election”

    You are wrong. First came 17 UN SC Resolutions that were ignored. Iraqi attacks on UK and US aircraft flying UN ordered misions, a final 48 hour opportunity to avoid armed conflict and then the key point, The 3rd ID’s thunder run thru Baghdad.
    If you are this wrong in the first Paragraph, why bother reading the rest?

  • veryretired

    I’m sorry—I find this essay incoherent.

  • Dale Amon

    Perry and I have had much the same discussion at that little local sandwich shop on a number of afternoons…

  • I also touched on the subject in “This great Isonomy of ours”.

    Stehpinkeln, your comment reads as if you are under the impression that the author of this post needs to be persuaded that the Iraq war was justified, and that citing UN resolutions would help in persuading him. He can speak for himself, of course, but based on having read a lot of his writing, I am pretty sure you are wrong on both counts!

  • The short summary of Brian’s post is this:

    Democracy is the worst form of government for preserving individual liberty — except for all the others.

  • Democractic Dissenter

    I find the idea of a ‘libertarian government’ to be rather contradictory myself, but continuing as a tax-funded government without elections would not be on the table for reasons of ‘power corrupts, absolute power…’

    On the other hand, if I was leading this hypothetical government I would consider abolishing the whole apparatus, e.g. I would see no problem in a libertarian federal government in America dissolving the Union of the states and vastly enhancing the ‘right of exit’ and competition between governments for citizens. (Ideally, I would like to transfer everything to private organizations, but smaller states that are open to migration are nice too.) How would this fit into your account?

  • Jacob

    Democracy means (as usually understood) not only having regular elections, but also adhering to some kind of rule of law in between.

    That is glaringly obvious from the Hitler example. His biggest crime wasn’t canceling the next election – it was murdering people, a practice he started right after gaining power, by murdering the co-chairman of his own Nazi party, a political rival. So he failed the democratic test on more than one count…

  • Jacob

    Democracy also means, necessarily, freedom of political associacion and activity, and – again necessarily – freedom of speech. Without these – having elections is meaningless.

    The democracy test for Russia and Putin isn’t only if he cancels or not the next election. It’s also to what extent does he control the media and suppress free speach, and to what extent does he harass, jail or murder his political rivals.

  • “Freedom is freedom.”

    Is this not the timber of a Samizdata Tautology of the Day?

  • Freefire

    Obviously democracy is wonderfully free in comparison to the average dictatorship or civil war (hence the association) – but that’s only if such primitively savage conditions are your only point of comparison. Most people simply can’t get beyond the “dictatorship versus democracy” idea.

    As for playing within the rules of democracy, since libertarianism is the only form of civil order which doesn’t necessarily require rulership of any kind (the only law being a system of justice to decide disputes on the basis of well establsihed principles of justice) and the cement that would hold it together would be no type of dictatorship or democracy but a sufficient understanding and respect for basic freedoms and principles of justice, then if canceling an election could only be done Hitler style we would by definition not have reached that understanding – we would only find ourselves in a fully libertarian society when no-one wanted to call a damn election in the first place

    And the idea that libertarianism is just one view of “virtue” is to fundamentally misunderstand it. There are of course moral views which are associated with libertarianism – but this is simply because they arise from the same source i.e. respect for the individual. Libertarianism itself is merely the view that a civil society should provide the greatest possible freedom for all – not to force any particular view of virtue on others. In fact the belief in freedom doesn’t usually arise (and never arose historically) out of any general idea that freedom is best for individuals as such. It usually arises alongside the idea of “toleration” (e.g. in 17th century England freedom to practice the Protestant religion). Of course you may think “toleration” is a view of virtue. But it is not – it is just one possibly virtuous trait – amongst many possible others e.g. generosity, hard work, worship of the Almighty Timelord of Planet X. But the substantial difference between toleration/freedom and anything inconsistent with it that could possibly set the terms by which individuals deal with one another is that, within the bounds of what is obviously necessary for civil order, you can follow whatever kind of virtue you like … or even … follow none at all.

  • Euan Gray

    libertarianism is the only form of civil order which doesn’t necessarily require rulership of any kind (the only law being a system of justice to decide disputes on the basis of well establsihed principles of justice)

    And in the absence of “rulership,” who, exactly, enforces the laws that you do have and what is done about those who don’t feel like obeying the law? How are any sanctions on those people enforced?

    EG

  • Freefire

    EG:

    Of course you’re right that civil order doesn’t merely require law – but also execution of law! Private security forces would enforce the law. If there was what I mention is the cement of a libertarian society i.e. sufficient understanding and respect for basic freedoms and principles of justice (sufficient being that it generally trumps the existing notion of the proper rule of law being democratic law – or any other notions) then this would translate into a general demand for (1) upholding the existing common law and (2) for that law to continue to be in line with freedom and justice.

    People would subscribe to private security companies and in order to stay in business those companies would have to enforce the existing law. They would also compete with each other for business – which would mean they would have an incentive to show the world how great they are at upholding the existing law by solving crimes and even providing assistance to some extent where the victim has no security subscription (which their regular subscribers would be happy with since it shows they are good at their job and since all crimes involve a criminal who may next pray on you).

    Courts would also have an interest in staying in business and would therefore only diverge even slightly from existing law if they perceived it to be in line with the general demand for upholding justice (since of course common law precedent must sometimes be diverged from – else the common law cannot develop – but it is not done so without very serious consideration by educated justices and very lengthy explication of their reasons for doing so according to the most fundamental principles of justice)

    And under these conditions any rogue security force or rogue court would not last long – corruption can occur in any situation – but what prevents it from taking over is enough people who are against it and a solid standard against which it can be measured – the existing common law would be the standard.

  • Euan Gray

    If there was what I mention is the cement of a libertarian society i.e. sufficient understanding and respect for basic freedoms and principles of justice

    In the absence of compulsion by an ultimate authority, this would require near-universal understanding of the concepts. The theory is neat, but of course people aren’t actually like that.

    People would subscribe to private security companies

    Why? Who would make them do it if they didn’t want to? Who arbitrates between the conflicting views of different private security companies? Who funds the arbitrators? How do you prevent corruption among the arbitrators? Who compels anyone to accept a final judgement? What can be done with people who simply don’t agree, don’t accept the judgement or refuse to pay the penalties? On what authority can they do this?

    in order to stay in business those companies would have to enforce the existing law

    Where does this “existing law” come from? What authority does it have? How is the law changed? By what authority is it changed? Who compels acceptance of a changed law? Who controls the methods used in law enforcement, which is to say who decides whether excessive force or unreasonable methods are applied? How is their judgement on this enforced?

    corruption can occur in any situation – but what prevents it from taking over is enough people who are against it and a solid standard against which it can be measured – the existing common law would be the standard.

    You’d better hope “enough” people really do agree with this. Likely they won’t – corruption, corner-cutting and selfishness are pretty much inherent in humanity, so in the absence of compulsion and penalty just how long would this situation persist?

    Furthermore, your assumption here is that law already generated is the basis for your new society. You need to address the validity of that law, why it would not be overturned, how it can be changed or amended, what happens when enough people inevitably do become corrupt enough to bring the whole thing down, and so on.

    Libertarianism has something to say about economics in most but not all circumstances. As a complete philosophy for society in general it is a disaster waiting to happen. It amounts to little more than a regression to petty fiefdoms, and will inevitably and pretty quickly result in the re-emergence of a state or something so similar as to be effectively the same thing – simply because that is more efficient. It would produce a society so weak and divided that it would be easy prey for anyone who wanted to take it over, and given the acquisitive and venal nature of humanity there WILL be people who want to take it over. It simply won’t work.

    EG

  • “It would produce a society so weak and divided that it would be easy prey for anyone who wanted to take it over, and given the acquisitive and venal nature of humanity there WILL be people who want to take it over.”

    Oh.

    Not like with all this “democracy”.

    I get it.

  • Euan Gray

    Not like with all this “democracy”.

    But a democratic unitary state has a single government with ultimate authority which can, when the need arises, put the foot down and make things happen pretty quickly and on a large scale. A hypothetical libertarian society (or more likely a collection of squabbling fiefdoms) can’t do this. There is a difference, and in the context of national defence it is an absolutely crucial one.

    EG

  • “But a democratic unitary state has a single government with ultimate authority which can, when the need arises, put the foot down and make things happen pretty quickly and on a large scale.”

    Yeah. I noticed that in the case of about ninety years of black people in America being born, existing, and going off to Glory with the benevolent blessings of “democracy”. I’ve noticed it in seventy years of everybody being forced to hand over whatever percentage of their productivity is arbitrarily demanded by bureaubots for the good of the peons at the ends of their benevolently-sanctioned existence. That’s working out just swell, already. I dunno. Maybe, as Chou En-Lai is alleged to have said about the French Revolution, “it’s too soon to tell.”

    That “democracy” gag is a real whip-cracker, alright.

  • Freefire

    “In the absence of compulsion by an ultimate authority, this would require near-universal understanding of the concepts. The theory is neat, but of course people aren’t actually like that.”

    Most people do have some understanding of principles of justice – they just think they need rulers to keep order, so they let democracy take over. Also, humans can advance in their understanding of justice and civil society – it wasn’t that long ago we still had trial by ordeal

    “”People would subscribe to private security companies””
    “Why? Who would make them do it if they didn’t want to? Who arbitrates between the conflicting views of different private security companies? Who funds the arbitrators? How do you prevent corruption among the arbitrators? Who compels anyone to accept a final judgment? What can be done with people who simply don’t agree, don’t accept the judgment or refuse to pay the penalties? On what authority can they do this?”

    Wouldn’t you want to pay for some protection? If you don’t want to you don’t have to – but then if you get mugged or raped no-one will have to come to your assistance or investigate the crime. Private companies in the same industry usually find they have reasons to cooperate on some matters. If there are conflicts involving alleged breaches of the law then courts or arbitrators (paid by the party seeking redress) will judge the matter. Private security forces would not only deal with enforcemnt prior to initial hearing (e.g. initial arrest and detention) but also with enforcement of judgments and sentences (e.g. fines, imprisonment). People who simply don’t agree or refuse to pay the penalties will have same options as today (e.g. appeal to a higher court, get arrested again) The authority is judicial authority (recognised educated justices) and authority for their rulings is existing established customary law – in England the common law.

    “Where does this “existing law” come from? What authority does it have? How is the law changed? By what authority is it changed? Who compels acceptance of a changed law? Who controls the methods used in law enforcement, which is to say who decides whether excessive force or unreasonable methods are applied? How is their judgment on this enforced?”

    Existing established local customary law. It has authority of being based on principles of justice – as opposed to popular vote. It is changed piecemeal by precedent of specific cases brought before the law (and as I explained in last comment). Private security companies compel acceptance of changed law. The methods used in law enforcement are controlled by existing law (e.g. there are limits to common law powers of arrest and detention – limits that state police today are exempt from as politicians choose) and existing law also includes principles of “natural justice” (i.e. justice in procedures for executing law). As to excessive force or unreasonable methods, these would be unlawful so you could sue the company (just as today e.g. you can sue the police for unlawful arrest or assault – if you want to try your luck!!). If a judgment is brought against a security company for say unlawful arrest or assault, somehow I don’t think they’d get much more business if they failed to comply with the judgment.

    “your assumption here is that law already generated is the basis for your new society. You need to address the validity of that law, why it would not be overturned”

    It may well be overturned in specific cases – this is how the common law develops.

    “… how it can be changed or amended”

    You’re repeating yourself!

    “Libertarianism has something to say about economics in most but not all circumstances. As a complete philosophy for society in general it is a disaster waiting to happen”

    Now let me repeat myself, since economics isn’t the complete philosophy for a libertarian society and since history shows that humans are capable of progress: the cement of a libertarian society is sufficient understanding and respect for basic freedoms and principles of justice.

    But of course not absolutely all human beings would be capable of such an understanding … let alone of imagining it…

  • Euan Gray

    Private security forces would not only deal with enforcemnt prior to initial hearing (e.g. initial arrest and detention) but also with enforcement of judgments and sentences (e.g. fines, imprisonment).

    On what authority?

    What do you do with someone who says he has no contract with the court or with the enforcing company, and refuses to cooperate? How can you compel him? It’s all very well to say he can appeal, get arrested again, and so on, but where is the legal authority to do this, how do you ensure law and judgement is not arbitrary, etc?

    This is the essential problem – you NEED some form of ultimate compulsion which applies to everyone at all times. It is perhaps instructive to note that no libertarian society has existed, and that where the state disappears it is almost immediately replaced by alternatives which perform exactly the same functions.

    Consider Somalia – the state fails and collapses, and is replaced by petty warlords. Law is still enforced, albeit at gunpoint, bribery and corruption is rampant. Given the choice between this type of anarchy and having a state, the people chose a state. Why do you think this might be?

    If there are conflicts involving alleged breaches of the law then courts or arbitrators (paid by the party seeking redress) will judge the matter

    So how do you stop corruption? What regulates the courts and forces their obedience to the law? Do you not see a conflict of interest where the plaintiff directly pays the court for redress?

    EG

  • Freefire

    Given the choice between this type of anarchy and having a state, the people chose a state. Why do you think this might be?

    You said it: “given the choice between this type of anarchy and having a state” – this limited choice is yours and most people’s perception – and as long as that is the case, then of course you and they will choose a state!

    Do you not see a conflict of interest where the plaintiff directly pays the court for redress?

    Today plaintiffs in civil actions pay the court for redress (unless they’re on legal aid) and there is no corruption problem. Of course the stakes are much higher in criminal law, but here it is the defendant for whom the stakes are greatest not the plaintiff and he’s probably not well off enough to consider bribery – and in any case even today there is nothing in principle to stop anyone trying to bribe a judge. The issue would be with ensuring courts generally are not corrupt – they’d soon be out of business if they were because anyone paying for a judgment wouldn’t want it tainted with any suggestion of corruption.

  • Euan Gray

    Today plaintiffs in civil actions pay the court for redress

    No, they do NOT. They pay the fees of their counsel and often, if they lose, the fees of the defendant’s counsel. They do NOT in any way directly pay the court for redress, precisely for the reason that this would introduce a conflict of interest and therefore vastly increase the probability of corrupt behaviour emerging.

    even today there is nothing in principle to stop anyone trying to bribe a judge

    Apart, presumably, from the heavy jail sentences such an action attracts.

    anyone paying for a judgment wouldn’t want it tainted with any suggestion of corruption.

    What utter naive rubbish!

    If the courts are corrupt, then people will pay to get the judgement they want. They will not care that it is a corrupt judgement, simply that they have the law (nominally) on their side. I have lived and worked in places where you have this type of court system – in Nigeria, you get the justice you pay for. It DOES NOT work, and people with money don’t care that the courts are corrupt because they can buy the rulings they want rather than being compelled to follow a strict and impartial enforcement of the law.

    Now, how about answering the question of how you compel cooperation from the man who simly refuses to accept the dicta of the private courts in the absence of a state?

    EG

  • Freefire

    They do NOT in any way directly pay the court for redress

    In the case of English courts this is simply incorrect

    If the courts are corrupt, then … I have lived and worked in places where you have this type of court system – in Nigeria, you get the justice you pay for. It DOES NOT work

    Obviously “if the courts are corrupt”, then, by definition, it does not work.

    Now, how about answering the question of how you compel cooperation from the man who simly refuses to accept the dicta of the private courts in the absence of a state?

    I have already answered this question.

  • Euan Gray

    In the case of English courts this is simply incorrect

    In what way, exactly, do plaintiffs directly pay English courts to give redress?

    Obviously “if the courts are corrupt”, then, by definition, it does not work.

    So how do you prevent the courts becoming corrupt?

    I have already answered this question.

    No, you haven’t. What ultimate force do you have, how is it used and how is it controlled to prevent abuse?

    EG