Anarchy and Democracy
This is an excerpt from Everyday Anarchy, by Stefan Molyneux. Perhaps I am naive or maybe I'm being sucked into Molyneux's evil cult, but I do find the logic of this piece to be nearly unassailable in its critique of the contradiction of democracy with respect to the state. It does make the assumption that anarchy, i.e., statelessness, is preferable to democracy, but it could probably be used as a defense of monarchy or other more traditional non-democratic forms of government.
If I might attempt to sum up his argument it would be something like this: Democracy assumes the wisdom of the majority, that is, given exposure to various competing political philosophies and policy prescriptions the majority, through the process of voting, will choose those leaders who will most likely to implement a program that serves the greater interests of society as judged by the majority.
If that is the case, that the majority have the best interests of society at heart, then why do we need a government at all? Won't the majority of people just do what's right in the first place?
When that objection is raised the usual response is to say that without out a government people will ignore the needs of the poor and rampant greed and selfishness will rule society. In other words, the majority will do the very things that demonstrate they do not have the best interests of society at heart. This seems to contradict the first assumption. If it is true then how could they be expected to vote for people who will implement policies that go against what they would do left to their own devices?
I hope I presented that in a way that points out the basic contradiction, at least enough to spark a discussion and to abide by the guide line for politicsforum "Please do not post news stories or editorials by themselves. This is a discussion forum, not a newsreel", even though I'm not posting this there because it appears to exist merely as a place to cheerlead the two major parties and cast aspersions on those who do not belong to one's club.
Oh, by the way, I'm really not interested in discussing Molyneux as a person, I'm concerned with his political philosophy. I've read that Richard Wagner was a dick, but he sure did produce some amazing music.
OK, now that that's out of the way...
ANARCHY AND DEMOCRACY
by Stefan Molyneux
It may be considered a mad enough exercise to attempt to rescue the word "anarchy"--however, to smear the word "democracy" seems almost beyond folly. Fewer words have received more reverence in the modern Western world. Democracy is in its essence the idea that we all run society. We choose individuals to represent our wishes, and the majority then gets to impose its wishes upon everyone else, subject ideally to the limitations of certain basic inalienable rights.
The irrational aspect of this is very hard to see, because of the endless amount of propaganda that supports democracy (though only in democracies, which is telling), but it is impossible to ignore once it becomes evident.
Democracy is based on the idea that the majority possesses sufficient wisdom to both know how society should be run, and to stay within the bounds of basic moral rules. The voters are considered to be generally able to judge the economic, foreign policy, educational, charitable, monetary, health care, military et al policies proposed by politicians. These voters then wisely choose between this buffet of various policy proposals, and the majority chooses wisely enough that whatever is then enacted is in fact a wise policy--and their chosen leader then actually enacts what he or she promised in advance, and the leader's buffet of proposals is entirely wise, and no part of it requires moral compromise. Also, the majority is virtuous enough to respect the rights of the minority, even though they dominate them politically. Few of us would support the idea of a democracy where the majority could vote to put the minority to death, say, or steal all their property.
In addition, for even the idea of a democracy to work, the minority must be considered wise and virtuous enough to accept the decisions of the majority.
In short, democracy is predicated on the premises that:
Whenever this question is raised, the shining image of the "noble citizenry" mysteriously vanishes, and all sorts of specters are raised in their place. "Well, without a government, everyone would be at each other's throats, there would be no roads, the poor would be uneducated, the old and sick would die in the streets etc. etc. etc."
This is a blatant and massive contradiction, and it is highly informative that it is nowhere part of anyone's discourse in the modern world.
Democracy is valid because just about everyone is wise and moral, we are told. When we accept this, and question the need for a government, the story suddenly reverses, and we are told that we need a government because just about everyone is amoral and selfish.
Do you see how we have an ambivalent relationship not just with anarchism, but with democracy itself?
In the same way, whenever an anarchist talks about a stateless society, he is immediately expected to produce evidence that every single poor person in the future will be well taken care of by voluntary charity.
Again, this involves a rank contradiction, which involves democracy.
The welfare state, old-age pensions, and "free" education for the poor are all considered in a democracy to be valid reflections of the virtuous will of the people--these government programs were offered up by politicians, and voluntarily accepted by the majority who voted for them, and also voluntarily accepted by the minority who have agreed to obey the will of the majority!
In other words, the majority of society is perfectly willing to give up an enormous chunk of its income in order to help the sick, the old and the poor--and we know this because those programs were voted for and created by democratic governments!
Ah, says the anarchist, then we already know that the majority of people will be perfectly willing to help the sick, the old and the poor in a stateless society--democracy provides empirical and incontrovertible evidence of this simple fact!
Again, when this basic argument is put forward, the myth of the noble citizenry evaporates once more!
"Oh no, without the government forcing people to be charitable, no one would lift a finger to help the poor, people are so selfish, they don't care etc. etc. etc."
This paradox cannot be unraveled this side of insanity. If a democratic government must force a selfish and unwilling populace to help the poor, then government programs do not reflect the will of the people, and democracy is a lie, and we must get rid of it--or at least stop pretending to vote.
If democracy is not a lie, then existing government programs accurately represent the will of the majority, and thus the poor, the sick and the old will have nothing to fear from a stateless society--and will, for many reasons, be far better taken care of by private charity than government programs.
Now it is certainly easy to just shrug off the contradictions above and it say that somewhere, somehow, there just must be a good answer to these objections.
Although this can be a pleasant thing to do in the short run, it is not something I have ever had much luck doing in the long term. These contradictions come back and nag at me--and I am actually very glad that they have done so, since I think that the progress of human thought utterly depends upon us taking nothing for granted.
The first virtue is always honesty, and we should be honest enough to admit when we do not have reasonable answers to these reasonable objections. This does not mean that we must immediately come up with new "answers," but rather just sit with the questions for a while, ponder them, look for weaknesses or contradictions in our objections--and only when we are satisfied that the objections are valid should we begin looking for rational and empirical answers to even some of the oldest and most commonly-accepted "solutions."
This process of ceasing to believe in non-answers is fundamental to science, to philosophy--and is the first step towards anarchism, or the acceptance that violence is never a valid solution to non-violent problems.
If I might attempt to sum up his argument it would be something like this: Democracy assumes the wisdom of the majority, that is, given exposure to various competing political philosophies and policy prescriptions the majority, through the process of voting, will choose those leaders who will most likely to implement a program that serves the greater interests of society as judged by the majority.
If that is the case, that the majority have the best interests of society at heart, then why do we need a government at all? Won't the majority of people just do what's right in the first place?
When that objection is raised the usual response is to say that without out a government people will ignore the needs of the poor and rampant greed and selfishness will rule society. In other words, the majority will do the very things that demonstrate they do not have the best interests of society at heart. This seems to contradict the first assumption. If it is true then how could they be expected to vote for people who will implement policies that go against what they would do left to their own devices?
I hope I presented that in a way that points out the basic contradiction, at least enough to spark a discussion and to abide by the guide line for politicsforum "Please do not post news stories or editorials by themselves. This is a discussion forum, not a newsreel", even though I'm not posting this there because it appears to exist merely as a place to cheerlead the two major parties and cast aspersions on those who do not belong to one's club.
Oh, by the way, I'm really not interested in discussing Molyneux as a person, I'm concerned with his political philosophy. I've read that Richard Wagner was a dick, but he sure did produce some amazing music.
OK, now that that's out of the way...
ANARCHY AND DEMOCRACY
by Stefan Molyneux
It may be considered a mad enough exercise to attempt to rescue the word "anarchy"--however, to smear the word "democracy" seems almost beyond folly. Fewer words have received more reverence in the modern Western world. Democracy is in its essence the idea that we all run society. We choose individuals to represent our wishes, and the majority then gets to impose its wishes upon everyone else, subject ideally to the limitations of certain basic inalienable rights.
The irrational aspect of this is very hard to see, because of the endless amount of propaganda that supports democracy (though only in democracies, which is telling), but it is impossible to ignore once it becomes evident.
Democracy is based on the idea that the majority possesses sufficient wisdom to both know how society should be run, and to stay within the bounds of basic moral rules. The voters are considered to be generally able to judge the economic, foreign policy, educational, charitable, monetary, health care, military et al policies proposed by politicians. These voters then wisely choose between this buffet of various policy proposals, and the majority chooses wisely enough that whatever is then enacted is in fact a wise policy--and their chosen leader then actually enacts what he or she promised in advance, and the leader's buffet of proposals is entirely wise, and no part of it requires moral compromise. Also, the majority is virtuous enough to respect the rights of the minority, even though they dominate them politically. Few of us would support the idea of a democracy where the majority could vote to put the minority to death, say, or steal all their property.
In addition, for even the idea of a democracy to work, the minority must be considered wise and virtuous enough to accept the decisions of the majority.
In short, democracy is predicated on the premises that:
- The majority of voters are wise and virtuous enough to judge an incredibly wide variety of complex proposals by politicians.
- The majority of voters are wise and virtuous enough to refrain from the desire to impose their will arbitrarily upon the minority, but instead will respect certain universal moral ideals.
- The minority of voters who are overruled by the majority are wise and virtuous enough to accept being overruled, and will patiently await the next election in order to try to have their say once more, and will abide by the universal moral ideals of the society.
Whenever this question is raised, the shining image of the "noble citizenry" mysteriously vanishes, and all sorts of specters are raised in their place. "Well, without a government, everyone would be at each other's throats, there would be no roads, the poor would be uneducated, the old and sick would die in the streets etc. etc. etc."
This is a blatant and massive contradiction, and it is highly informative that it is nowhere part of anyone's discourse in the modern world.
Democracy is valid because just about everyone is wise and moral, we are told. When we accept this, and question the need for a government, the story suddenly reverses, and we are told that we need a government because just about everyone is amoral and selfish.
Do you see how we have an ambivalent relationship not just with anarchism, but with democracy itself?
In the same way, whenever an anarchist talks about a stateless society, he is immediately expected to produce evidence that every single poor person in the future will be well taken care of by voluntary charity.
Again, this involves a rank contradiction, which involves democracy.
The welfare state, old-age pensions, and "free" education for the poor are all considered in a democracy to be valid reflections of the virtuous will of the people--these government programs were offered up by politicians, and voluntarily accepted by the majority who voted for them, and also voluntarily accepted by the minority who have agreed to obey the will of the majority!
In other words, the majority of society is perfectly willing to give up an enormous chunk of its income in order to help the sick, the old and the poor--and we know this because those programs were voted for and created by democratic governments!
Ah, says the anarchist, then we already know that the majority of people will be perfectly willing to help the sick, the old and the poor in a stateless society--democracy provides empirical and incontrovertible evidence of this simple fact!
Again, when this basic argument is put forward, the myth of the noble citizenry evaporates once more!
"Oh no, without the government forcing people to be charitable, no one would lift a finger to help the poor, people are so selfish, they don't care etc. etc. etc."
This paradox cannot be unraveled this side of insanity. If a democratic government must force a selfish and unwilling populace to help the poor, then government programs do not reflect the will of the people, and democracy is a lie, and we must get rid of it--or at least stop pretending to vote.
If democracy is not a lie, then existing government programs accurately represent the will of the majority, and thus the poor, the sick and the old will have nothing to fear from a stateless society--and will, for many reasons, be far better taken care of by private charity than government programs.
Now it is certainly easy to just shrug off the contradictions above and it say that somewhere, somehow, there just must be a good answer to these objections.
Although this can be a pleasant thing to do in the short run, it is not something I have ever had much luck doing in the long term. These contradictions come back and nag at me--and I am actually very glad that they have done so, since I think that the progress of human thought utterly depends upon us taking nothing for granted.
The first virtue is always honesty, and we should be honest enough to admit when we do not have reasonable answers to these reasonable objections. This does not mean that we must immediately come up with new "answers," but rather just sit with the questions for a while, ponder them, look for weaknesses or contradictions in our objections--and only when we are satisfied that the objections are valid should we begin looking for rational and empirical answers to even some of the oldest and most commonly-accepted "solutions."
This process of ceasing to believe in non-answers is fundamental to science, to philosophy--and is the first step towards anarchism, or the acceptance that violence is never a valid solution to non-violent problems.