HISTORY/CULTURE, POLITICS/ECONOMICS
Democracy, Like Socialism, Doesn’t Work
By Rik Storey
For a more in depth and praxeological critique of Democracy, see Hoppe’s “Democracy: The God That Failed“
The left loves democracy, except of course when things fail to go their way. Their juvenile failure to accept recent democratic results does not simply end with all others drowning in their tears: idle talk of impeachment has yet to relent since the, albeit somewhat disappointing, election of Trump in the US; also, the left have campaigned vigorously for a second referendum on Brexit, despite its irrefutable economic benefit and the absence of any promised apocalypse; yet another example is the recent election of an anti-immigration coalition of the right-wing parties in Norway.
The young leftists’ frustration is palpable, running off to join terror group, Antifa. After all, Lenin wrote of the usefulness, even the necessity of democracy in the establishment of a socialist utopia, so long as it was egalitarian. If one has no concern for private property, one probably has far fewer qualms regarding the use of violence. But someone like myself, who cherishes it, must be head over heels for democracy, right? How wrong you are!
The bien pensants, as a whole, are so ingratiating when they not only defend democracy but do so because ‘the people can be trusted to make the right decisions’. Setting the majority of people aside for one moment (bless them), democracy is, even on paper, the worst political system there is. Churchill (also grossly overrated) was wrong when he said that it was the worst, except for all the others – chortle, chortle. No, Aristotle was right – democracy is simply the corrupted form of a republic. With the rule of many, indeed the rule of a majority, there are greater and more plentiful opportunities for corruption.
As celebrated as it is, democracy pits every conceivable group against the other, destroying trust in whole nations, let alone communities. Classes are divided as the political class offer the working class more of what the middle class are producing, all the while introducing yet another competing group of immigrants to replace a now dependent working class in the labour force. At least if a king becomes corrupt, you can assassinate the rascal; aristocrats can potentially hold others in check; but, democracy is the cancer of political corruption.
What makes democracy all the more dangerous, however, is that there is no meritocracy to it. People have decision-making power by virtue of falling out of their mothers and not dying for 18 years. We wouldn’t wish to employ someone on those criteria alone, yet the overwhelming majority religiously swear by these criteria in politics, not just for themselves but for every country! And, well, if it’s good enough for the overwhelming majority…
Bringing the zombified masses to question their beliefs about democracy is nigh impossible; and it is precisely for this reason that large-scale democracy is so destructive – people are simply too simple for democracy. For years I have been trying to convince others of the truth of Hoppe’s Democracy: The God That Failed – that such a system degenerates society by offering everyone, from the working to the political class, a quick grab of power or resources with no concern for the long-term, no thought for heritable interests etc. In that time, I have come to learn a lot about the general psychological condition of Westerners. I now understand why people won’t change their minds about democracy and why granting them political responsibility is extremely irresponsible and promotes further irresponsibility.
Let’s just look at three general psychological traits of the masses: Low IQs, the Dunning-Kruger effect and Haidt’s Elephant.
For whites/Europeans, the average IQ is 100. Albeit, we have a greater representation among the gifted and intelligent than East Asians, whose average is several points higher overall. Sounds good, so what’s the problem? It is a small, absolute minority which possesses IQs above 120, i.e. those who can gather and infer their own information, let alone the smaller group who actually do. With that in mind, we must look at the Dunning-Kruger effect: despite ‘lack[ing] the mental tools needed to make meaningful judgments’, as one study put it, people assume their mental abilities are greater than they are.
More significantly, when they cannot grasp thinking which is above them, they assume the more intelligent are incompetent and trust instead in their own judgment. This renders the masses unable to select the best representation and, worse, vulnerable to deception and exploitation from those smarter than themselves (perhaps one of several reasons democractic offices seem to attract sociopaths).
But, how can the masses be awoken from their slumber? Haidt’s increasingly popular analogy of an elephant and its rider is a fine way of describing the political defensiveness we are all prone to. Our ideological baggage, especially in our subconscious, is the elephant we (hopefully, with some control) ride around on. Overcoming this beast has to be a gentle process of listening to others’ beliefs, acknowledging the good in their intent, shared aims and, thus, giving them the opportunity to be civil and to reciprocate. There is no guarantee they will change their views of course, but you stand a better chance than charging at them, on the offensive; the elephant will reel, the defences will go up and your views will be stubbornly dismissed.
On the large-scale, masses can be manipulated by the self-interested and sincere alike. In Le Bon’s The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, he noted typical traits of the mass mentality: ‘impulsiveness, irritability, incapacity to reason, the absence of judgment and of the critical spirit, the exaggeration of the sentiments’ etc. Hitler famously made good use of this understanding, swaying the black and white emotional thinking of the masses and completely curtailing Haidt’s Elephant. Such a strategy is open to all and so I candidly employ it with you now.
We share the same wants and needs: security and freedom for ourselves and our loved ones, and the wherewithal to make enough money for leisure and other personal goals. Now, we both need a society that’s stable enough to make this a long-term reality.
Democracy is failing citizens across the West, society is polarising, and the achievement of your goals in the future is becoming increasingly uncertain. No, ‘the people’ cannot be trusted to make the right decisions. If we want a high trust society and a prosperous future, we must first humble ourselves and trust in the natural hierarchy of tradition – the old order of aristocracy. What trust can we have in a subversive political class who claim to represent us but instead emotionally manipulate, serving their own ends and those of wealthy interest groups? Down with democracy, up with the noblesse oblige!
Author of The Uniqueness of Western Law: A Reactionary Manifesto, I am a father of three, a teacher and a stalwart defender of traditional Western civilisation. View all posts by Rik Storey
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