In Brief

Democracy is the most humane and just form of government that the ideology of collectivism can offer to people. However, over many centuries of democratic existence, this system has been noted for many irremediable flaws: sluggishness, the impossibility of reliably reconciling group interests, extravagance, a tendency to slide into authoritarianism or unrestrained populism, and much more. The problem lies in collectivism itself; it is precisely because of it that democracy is structured as it is and possesses the flaws it has.

The emergence of the ideology of liberalism led to the creation of such a strange and unstable hybrid as liberal democracy. It succeeded in correcting some of the excesses of democracy, but playing with minority rights gave rise to its own problems. The basic construction of any form of government remains flawed: the imposition of a single order upon everyone.

People simply do not need to be forced into the Procrustean bed of the state in order to successfully coordinate their actions. Any legal relations can be established by them independently, without imposition by third parties, and exactly for as long as required.

And now, more about all this in detail

As is well known, it is impossible to live in a society while being free from it. The division of labor provides too many benefits to give up. Therefore, during the development of civilization, people have accumulated a vast amount of reasoning on how people in a society might better arrange themselves to reap the maximum benefits from cooperation while incurring minimal costs. One of the central places in all these discussions is occupied by the phenomenon known as democracy. This method of social organization has many theoretical defenders and is one of the few that some societies have voluntarily and consciously attempted to impose on others for their own good. Even ancient Athens, during the Peloponnesian War in the 5th century BC, when capturing another enemy city, would invariably establish democratic rule there, as they considered this system to be the best; thus, the idea of exporting democracy is by no means new. You can read more about this in Thucydides. In his famous retelling of Pericles’ funeral oration, you can also read the most colorful panegyric to democracy ever written.

Democracy as a way of governance is a completely natural development of the idea of legal equality. Any community of legally equal individuals logically comes to seeking compromises through more or less democratic means. This includes, firstly, the right of each person to express their opinion and campaign for it, and secondly, the obligation to submit to the opinion supported by the majority and to defend that opinion as if it were their own. For what reason would a minority, whose opinion was not accepted democratically, implement the majority’s decision instead of, for example, stabbing the majority in the back at a moment of weakness? For the hope of receiving compensation for their cooperation, as well as the expectation that next time, with their opinion, they will be part of the majority, and their decision will be just as implemented by the entire community. If that hope appears illusory, then democracy turns into the tyranny of the majority, and the minority either endures it or, once their patience is exhausted, opposes its decisions—ranging from leaving the community to sabotage to direct war.

Since we are talking about the tyranny of the majority, let’s talk about it a little. It seems like an excellent system! The minority is exiled, physically exterminated, deprived of rights—in short, it stops bothering the majority, the majority turns into unity, unity means harmony of interests, a high level of trust within the group, which means decisions are implemented quickly and effectively, what more could you want? Just let the good people kill all the bad people, and we’ll live happily ever after. Or, okay, you don’t even have to kill, it’s enough to build a wall, introduce visas, censuses, conduct purges, well, you get the idea.

The problem is that successful practices become entrenched and habitual. Having successfully gotten rid of internal enemies, society does not achieve harmony, but instead begins to search for new ones with unquenchable enthusiasm. Why try to compromise over any trifle if someone who does not share the opinion of the majority is an enemy? How can one compromise with an enemy? And indeed, revolutions begin to devour their own children, winners in civil wars begin to compile ever more proscription lists, churches fight against ever new heresies—and there is no peace for people for whom the whole world is a struggle. Again, the expulsion of internal enemies multiplies the number of external enemies, which means the ranks must be closed even more tightly and more resources must be spent on defense, or better yet, to strike preemptively, of course… It seems that an excess of intolerance does not benefit society.

A concept such as liberalism can serve as a defense against this collectivist madness. Liberalism stems from the simple idea that private interests are more important than common ones. Therefore, liberal democracies no longer imply arbitrariness in the formulation of majority decisions, but limit such decisions by certain inalienable human rights. The main drawback of the idea of the existence of inalienable human rights, however, lies in the ease with which these rights are taken away; therefore, what looks like a liberal democracy on paper may, in practice, turn out to be either an electoral autocracy (that is, the same dictatorship of the majority) or some other political hybrid. But suppose people are firmly determined to defend the rights of minorities. What follows from this? Successful practices are replicated, and soon it turns out that being part of an oppressed minority confers privileges. There you go. We tried so hard to prevent the dictatorship of the majority that we are one step away from a dictatorship of minorities, who figure out among themselves which of them is the most oppressed and, accordingly, the most deserving of positive discrimination. The majority finds itself forced to vote obediently in the interests of the minority, fearing that otherwise it will be blamed for all sins. It seems that an excess of tolerance in society also yields some creepy results.

By the way, about the dictatorship of the minority. A constant problem for democracies is the doubt that decisions are truly made taking into account the will of the majority of citizens. For instance, in the 19th century in the US, about three-quarters of eligible citizens voted during elections, whereas in the 20th century, it was only about half. It does not matter whether this is due to the lowering of voting requirements or the decline in the overall level of trust in democratically elected authorities. What matters is that those in power turn out to be people representing a minority of voters, yet claiming to speak on behalf of the majority, and this works against the legitimacy of the decisions made.

But even if the overwhelming majority turns out to vote, say, under the threat of a fine for non-attendance as in Australia, the Arrow’s paradox comes into play whenever there are more than two alternatives, stating the impossibility of correctly determining the majority choice. The only way to escape the effect of the paradox is to reduce the choice to two alternatives—that is, to abandon the choice between several candidates for representatives and limit it to referendums with simple “yes” or “no” options, which works relatively well in Switzerland.

One also cannot fail to mention the meritocratic argument against democracy, which in its vulgar form can be formulated as “the voice of Professor Preobrazhensky is equal to the voice of Sharikov.” The “one person, one vote” system in societies with a large number of Sharikovs quickly and reliably turns Rhodesia into Zimbabwe. In the long run, this is disadvantageous for the Sharikovs as well, but they are not good at thinking in the long term. Thus, while voting restrictions are also not good because they violate the principle of legal equality, universal suffrage is no better.

By the way, speaking of long-term planning. It would be strange not to mention Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s arguments against democracy in this regard. In his book “Democracy: The God That Failed,” he examines the gradual evolution of societies from natural aristocracy (where decision-making is delegated to those who constantly demonstrate their ability to solve problems) through monarchy (where the right to make decisions is usurped by a sovereign, but the sovereign’s systematic incompetence leads to their overthrow) to democracy (where the right to make decisions is usurped by a faceless bureaucratic layer, and the entire people are formally put in the place of the sovereign). A monarch has a planning horizon comparable to their lifetime and even longer, as they intend to pass their estate on to their descendants. A democratically elected leader, however, thinks no further than the next election term and is most concerned with reelection, which is easily seen by the growth of social spending in the budgets of democratic countries during election years. It is precisely the shortening of the planning horizon and the blurring of responsibility for decision-making under democracy that leads democratic countries to increase their social obligations immoderately and carry huge state debt during peacetime. Monarchs, after all, usually went into debt at least because of wars.

Supporters of dictatorships also like to complain about democracy’s slowness, which is especially relevant during wartime. In fact, the very institution of the dictator, known to us since the time of Rome, is a patch designed to fix exactly this bug. But using the example of Rome, we also see how a purely temporary solution (a dictator was elected for only one year) tends to become permanent: dictatorial powers are constantly extended, and republican foundations decay.

Instead of democracy

We have considered a multitude of arguments about how society should not be organized, but let us try to answer the request formulated at the beginning of the article: how should people organize themselves into a society to reap the maximum benefits from cooperation with minimum costs.

Maximum benefit means the ability to form groups of any size, relative to the scale of the task. Minimum cost means the freedom not to join those who are implementing a task for which a person does not intend to spend time, effort, and resources. Minimum cost also means the most modest possible expenses for finding a community engaged in solving the necessary tasks, and the ease of joining it. In other words, the recipe for cozy yet productive interaction consists of not imposing solutions that are personally needed by you on everyone, and implementing your solutions only among like-minded people. Entrepreneurial initiative and peaceful competition of alternatives take the place of democracy.

Thus, instead of communities united by territory, we get communities united by tasks and needs. Humanity turns out to be not a territory divided by states, but a conglomerate of commercial companies and public organizations. Commercial companies, by forming consortiums, can develop certain industry standards, jointly discuss emerging problems, and, if necessary, create internal arbitration bodies. Public organizations can unite into leagues, associations, confederations, and so on. Within these umbrella organizations, some common rules, interaction protocols, and other good traditions will also be developed. But at the same time, each specific commercial company will retain its own staff, its own management style, its own structure, its own technologies, and its own market. And each public organization will preserve its own unique atmosphere, its own specific tasks and developments for solving them, and its own methods of self-organization.

Thus, in such an organization of society, every specific individual, by setting a goal for themselves, has a rich choice of means. First, they can achieve their goal entirely through their own efforts (for example, making a salad from vegetables they grew themselves). Second, they can acquire a solution on the free market from a commercial company (for example, going to a restaurant). Third, they can turn to a public organization addressing this task and either use its help (ask for free soup) or join it and solve the task together (engage in distributing free soup). In each of these options, the voluntariness of relationships is maintained and legal equality between people is preserved, while at the same time all the benefits of the division of labor are achieved, which makes any even remotely significant increase in human welfare possible.

Such a state of society could be called something fashionable, like a “system of extraterritorial contractual jurisdictions,” except these are not even jurisdictions, but simply spontaneous orders naturally arising in a developed, free human community. In a poorly developed, unfree society, all these spontaneous orders also arise, but their development is suppressed, and therefore occurs more slowly, though it is impossible to stop it completely.

All that remains is to formulate the last thing: what must be done so that this method of organizing society becomes dominant. In fact, the question itself contains most of the answer. One needs to practice voluntary interactions more and avoid coercive ones; invest more in the activities of public organizations and try to feed the state and other bandits less; buy from those who produce the best product, rather than from those whom one is prescribed to buy from. And, of course, inspire others toward similar activities, both through words and by personal example. And this is a task no less great and messianic than the promotion of the idea of democracy.