“Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world

of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise.

Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government
except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”

— Sir Winston Churchill, Hansard [transcripts of parliament], November 11, 1947

A famous supposed saying of Churchill’s circulates in many discussions of democracy,

really a pithy modification of the actual recorded quotation above, a remark less pithy
and less famous. His endorsement of democracy, as reserved as any we should expect
from a politician in a democratic government, ably expresses perhaps the best and
surely one of the most common of the practical arguments for democracy. Surely
enough, any basic critical evaluation of democracy might seem to become almost
pointless except as pessimistic curiosity, unless preferable alternatives might replace
democracy. But how could it satisfy any intellectual honesty to accept this mere
dismissal of pointed debate? And for my part how could it satisfy the conscience of my
own philosophical aims — always higher, towards expressing potential?

The Problem of Change

I would first object that the view in question has a tendency to ignore thenecessity of
change to address the basic problem of change. That is, as G.K. Chesterton noted
in Orthodoxy,

“If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change. If you leave a white post alone it will
soon be a black post. If you particularly want it to be white you must be always painting it again; that
is, you must be always having a revolution. Briefly, if you want the old white post you must have a
new white post. But this which is true even of inanimate things is in a quite special and terrible sense
true of all human things. An almost unnatural vigilance is really required of the citizen because of the
horrible rapidity with which human institutions grow old. It is the custom in passing romance and
journalism to talk of men suffering under old tyrannies. But, as a fact, men have almost always
suffered under new tyrannies; under tyrannies that had been public liberties hardly twenty years
before.”

Chesterton knows the conservation of conservatism fails to preserve the tangible virtues

which once inspired it, such as freedom of action, or for that matter the depth of culture
feted by conservatives. I have often observed the sad habit of 'conservatives' tending to
continue their work for some time after the fact, having failed to realize their
justification for “fighting the good fight” is long gone and in effect they now fight for
something else. The certain circumstances allowing past progress in such and such a
form remain in the past, and further accumulation, much less eternity of that old
progress on those same old terms is impossible. In particular, the cultural-historical
human moment which made some relative progress in human freedom possible to
achieve within a political system, should never be confused with the timeless, abstract,
inhuman theoretical system itself.

Concerning democracy and America, a harsh truth is the founding fathers of America
are long dead and their whole circumstantial world, with its ideological opportunity to
seize some freedom and defend it for a while in a democracy [1], is quite dead with them.
Their achievement might need to be redoubled in a different way, in another system
entirely, if it is not to be lost in the same system. Unless sincerely reconsidered, rebuilt,
and replaced if need be, democracy itself is no more immune to the problem of change
than anything else.

The brash teleology advertised by democratic political scientists such as Fukuyama,

who proclaimed in 1989 "the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's
ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final
form of human government," would not be so confused if compared with a longer
historical perspective that considered other models and had to take account of the
continual problem of change. Democracies become tyrannical, left alone, and effectively
if not overtly become other forms of government, as Aristotelian observation had
considered since the end of the age of the ancient Greek polities (city-states), including
among them the first Western democracies such as Athens. As early as 1377, Ibn
Khaldûn convincingly argued that not only does every particular dynasty or state
experience a terminal lifespan, but all political civilization endures a cyclical pattern of
birth, corruption, decay, and collapse. [2] Of course Fukuyama might be correct in an
unintended sense, if indeed the last dominant form of governmental society happens to
be democracy, and a preferable alternative paradigm ascends instead. Regardless, the
denial of change as an inevitability, especially concerning either ideology or inherently
unstable political societies, seems ungrounded and certainly presentist.

The Problem of Acclimation to Faults

 
I would secondly object to Churchill that acceptance of a thoroughly problematic thing
as a necessary thing tends toward a rather unsettling pattern. Very many people
accustom themselves to its problems, and in time ignore the problems, and finally
regard the original premise they knew to be flawed, to be just as worthy as anything else
thought noble. Standards fall and real evidence comes and goes ignored when theorists
have built such a box inside which to think, a given which should not be a given. First
democracy is an undesirable but necessary expedient, then it is no longer deserving of
close attention because a priori there can be no greater innovation, then democracy
itself is a positive good and receives a great deal of congratulatory attention but little
scrutiny, and even less skepticism. In debate about democracy in America for example,
tracing a broad sweep from James Madison, through the last skepticism with de
Tocqueville, through Francis Fukuyama today, that general pattern of acceptance
defines the mainstream appreciation of democracy over the centuries, although it is
also, I think, indicative of a universal problem in societies: today’s accepted ‘evil’
becoming tomorrow’s ‘good’ as a moralist might like to put it, although morality itself
must be considered part of the problem. For if democracy must be accepted it cannot be
bad, it must be good, or so any pragmatic binary moral thought process will inevitably
conclude. We know quite a bit about the English parallel which overlaps the American
paradigm: tough questioning over the philosophical essentials maybe peaked before the
struggles between royalists and roundheads (parliamentarians), and effectively end long
before Bentham, or Mill, who really concerns himself with details of implementation
(representation). (The later Churchill is unusually frank for his time, if anything.)
Doubtless, democratic principles followed similar paths in the discourse of "realistic"
Greeks and then Romans as well.

Such evolutions of attitude coincide with the gradual transition from managing and
controlling democracy to actively seeking out the fullest expression of democracy, and
therefore fully discovering its defects. Thus in the histories of Athens, Rome, England,
and America, and every other example one cares to trace, who can convincingly argue
that we do not see evidence of an increasing problem of mob rule — the conjunct
tyranny, spoiled apathy, or casual whim of the majority as manipulated by information
control and the demagogue’s old tricks?

A Thought Experiment in Governmental Alternatives

 
But both the above objections become minor points worthy only of sober reflection to
the democratic (lower case) pundit, merely things to keep in mind, unless preferable
alternatives do exist, have existed, or more relevantly can exist in practice, even if they
never have before. So, before asking any further tough questions of democracy I will
consider governmental alternatives. In the end I do choose and argue for another option
entirely, an option more optimistic about individual human potential and more
optimistic about societal desirability (at least in the long run) than any possibility
Churchill with his cynical talk of “sin and woe” would have accepted. [3] Yet supposing,
for the moment, only options in government as Churchill did, let us take up the implicit
challenge and ask ourselves the mostly unexamined question: are there governmental
alternatives preferable to democracy? and either way, let us try to learn something about
democracy.

What alternative might critics of democracy suggest? Despite the self-amusement of

many with idle criticism of this or that facet of democracy, today there remain so few
concerted critics of democracy itself we certainly must strain our ears for any
alternatives we actually hear anyone propose and advocate. We might more profitably
look for alternatives among the dirty names democrats (as in 'advocates of democracy')
call mostly-hypothetical detractors, or perhaps the dirty names democrats call one
another to illustrate how undemocratic, and therefore how reprehensible their targets
are.

Autocracy

Democracy's scarce critics can expect to be labeled advocates of various horrendous

forms of autocracy, dictatorship, despotism, totalitarianism, etc. — sometimes even with
justification. For our purposes here these systems following the rulership of one, or
occasionally the junta of a few men, can be summed up under the
name autocracy. [4] Advocates of democracy know they are bound to win arguments
against the unilateral government of autocracy and so they willfully engage in it. One
finds seemingly endless numbers of tracts contrasting the virtues of democracy with the
vices of communism for example, portraying democracy and autocracy as the only
choices. But one can find far fewer arguments exhorting democracy over something else
entirely. Certainly, there are many modern examples of autocratic systems which have
reared their heads up in front of democracy or as results of democracy, such as
communist states most obviously, or other sorts of secular dictatorships; on that basis
we might surmise that the fear of a robust autocratic challenge to democracy is not
misplaced. [5]

From all this one might think that autocracy was in some real competition with
democracy, either for popularity as the world’s dominant form of government, or as the
best, most desirable choice among governments. But the goals of an autocratic regime
are usually direct enough in the first place, or apparent enough at least, and despite the
origination of some autocracies in democratic institutions and elections, their aims are
entirely different from the avowed goals of democracy. Autocracy is by definition far
more blatantly authoritarian; it exists to establish a stranglehold of control for the sake
of both stability and long-term exploitation (or occasionally control for the sake of
short-term exploitation, as most often occurs when a regime is sponsored by a foreign
power rather than internally generated; see footnote 5 which includes some modern
examples). Where enough people desire this stability or accept it for one reason or
another, autocracy may arise as the result of dispositions. Or more likely, it may be
imposed on people as a result of foreign invasion or interference. [6] But it never offers
substantive competition with democracy overall.

Democracy is established where people desire freedom, for it is the political system
which promises freedom and choice. Autocracy does not even promise freedom, at least
not seriously, and certainly does not deliver it. There is no reason why, then, we should
consider autocracy any potential challenge to democracy’s title as the best choice among
governments. Most of all this is because we may by now take it as a
Promethean given that individual freedom to think and act has a great deal to do with
what ‘best’ means, among societies.

We can observe that autocracies of any form generally adopt at least some of the
trappings and procedures associated with democratic republics in a bid for second-hand
legitimacy, even if their elections are fully predetermined, their legislatures one-party,
or their presidents dictators. This shows how extraordinarily far democracy has come as
the world’s predominant form of government: almost without exception, even the
officers of democracy’s more entrenched apparent alternatives pretend service and
representation of “the people” too.

And as far as popularity, in fact autocratic governments could only challenge

democracy’s worldwide preeminence if very many more people openly preferred
unilateral control at the discretion of the ruler to individual freedom of some degree and
kind. Democracy seems best especially because it represents freedom, thus only if
democracy appeared more tyrannical than dictatorships would autocracy likely seem
preferable in the eyes of the very many who desire freedom. Probably it is no
coincidence that democracy has usually been deposed by people convinced that political
choice is less important than something immediate such as survival, sustenance, or
security, and they have been convinced democracy cannot provide it, as occurred in
Russia early in the 20th century, or have seen democracy fail to provide freedom, as has
occurred in countries on the receiving end of foreign policies inflicted against their
freedom by democracies. Essentially, people must be disappointed by democracy by
example or participation. Otherwise democracy represents freedom in modern times, so
generally its advocates can bring down the few real critics of democracy on the
implication that they are advocates of autocracy, by one name or another, and therefore
critics of freedom.

Yet there remains another means for dismissal of critics too, which should be of more
interest to the honest analyst of democracy.

The Displaced Alternative

All across the world today, hopes for freedom hallow democracy. The last system to
compete with democracy for this place was aristocratic or royal rule, in other words
official hierarchic rule by political elite. [7]

When democracy was a new experiment, the rule of royalty and nobles was accepted
around the world and in its most desirable forms, still signified freedom to many more
subjects than the citizens to whom democracy meant freedom. That concept of rule has
since been defeated soundly in “public opinion” because for their various personal
reasons, most people prefer the enticing idea of "self-rule," whether this means in
practical terms that they enjoy the idea of controlling their own affairs, or crave control
over others’ affairs. But the debate, while effectively concluded, is yet rehashed as
propaganda. As far as openly elitist government is still discussed, democratic rule is
frequently presented as the one decent alternative to indecent elitist rule, aristocracy
and monarchy having been recast wholly as oppressive autocracy and primitive
feudalism. Through the idle musings of pundit democrats, democracy now stays in the
fight with aristocracy, shadowboxing, as if rule by birth rather than election could still
get up and fight again. Perhaps it is relevant at this point to remind ourselves that such a
non-opponent can occasionally be useful as scapegoat or straw man. [8] The many
proponents of democracy have been eager to mark democracy's few critics advocates of
aristocracy, monarchy, or the dreaded “elitism,” and therefore either antiquated or
authoritarian. This maneuver offers a means of easy dismissal, for aristocracy belongs to
the past.

Just as democracy has had a cultural aspect besides its political aspect [9], in part
intrinsic to the political, and in part incidental to it, so has aristocracy. Since aristocracy
is all but gone as a political system (and I for one have no intention of arguing for its
return) the most salient point of discussing aristocracy now is to illuminate the cultural
value or lack thereof associated with democracy. In particular, what might aristocracy
have had to offer culturally — in terms of philosophical basis and corresponding shared
valuation of ideas — that democracy does not offer? [10] And secondarily, politically
speaking, the practicalities of the way aristocracy and — after the eventual evolution of
aristocracy into monarchy, the increasing dominance of sovereigns over fellow
noblemen [11] — the way monarchy functioned might both allow us to better reflect on
democracy’s political functions today.

So let us look closer at political elitism and aristocracy.

Elitism

The key thing to recognize about "elitism" is what it means practically: how it functions
and how it does not, how it makes sense and how it does not. Elitism is not at all simple
or self-evident to modern people, to judge from the confusion surrounding it. To
understand it, a retrospection is instrumental.

In history, when certain people seize opportunity in an opportune occasion such as a

power vacuum, and establish themselves as political elites, classes or more often castes
which by right of supposed overall superiority hold permanent political power over
others, those people have first generally possessed some very real and practical
superiority of a particular variety. [12] The importance of that specific superiority in a
place and time becomes confused with overall superiority, a sort of philosophical
overreach from a limited precedent. In most instances, the specific superiority has
involved either warrior prowess, strategy, tactics or some other martial skill, or else
charisma, leadership, or some other organizational skill, or some combination of martial
or organizational skills [13] — obvious enough advantages for power-seekers, as
historically these abilities provide opportunities for both seizing power through
domination, and for being granted power for the sake of protection. Both these patterns,
domination and concession, certainly figured into the selection of proto-aristocrats in
the early Middle Ages of Europe's history. Economic prowess must also have been
another such 'ennobling factor' of elites. Some able farmers, hunters, herders, or other
sort of profitable landowners (or nomadic land-stewards) might understandably accrue
a proto-retinue from among loyal workers, and develop social standing from a
prospering reputation; we know the local lords of medieval Scandinavia would begin as
successful, important landowners long before some of their descendants made
themselves famous going a-viking. Finally persuasion or eloquence or other linguistic
talents, artistic brilliance, or any unusual creative talents might conceivably play a part
as an ennobling factor. Even a single ennobling factor might in the fullness of time raise
up whole classes as rulers above others.

In other instances, especially the elevation of a small group or one person to levels above
others, the source may instead have been a wider array of appreciated or necessary
talents (the difficulty of forcing subjugation, or peacefully proving superiority, being that
much greater for smaller numbers). In particular, few founders of whole dynasties could
have capitalized on narrowly martial skills to establish themselves above all competitors
within their native land. [14] Even though military talent may represent an array of
different abilities, and certainly requires more than one isolatable capacity such as
muscular strength or spatial reckoning, the typical span of those abilities would still not
suffice for every need of social power consolidation; they would rarely be diverse
enough. A more impressive, well-rounded sort of person would tend to be needed for
that. We can therefore see that the more impressive the accomplishment of uniting
greater numbers and wider areas in a social group, the more the potential for a
psychological leap from seeing elite capabilities, to acknowledging overall superiority of
person — the leap forming political elitism — would also tend to increase. Finally one
might understand how an ancient man who could gather and direct a tribe or settlement
in a locality, much less all the people in a sizable land to form a country in his name,
might really seem larger than life and higher than human. Eventually people in such a
society might without thinking call its government “aristocracy,” meaning rule of the
best.

From Overestimated Elitism to the Errors of Aristocracy

 
In aristocracy’s derivation we can trace the evolution of compounded theoretical error
originating in a sensible appraisal.

Apparently, the development of political elitism is largely the story of one or a few real
aptitudes taken too far. Warrior prowess for example does not necessarily suggest
anything about charismatic leadership, temperance, wisdom, creative thinking, a
balance between practicality and vision, persuasion, diplomacy, financial management,
respect for others, or any of the host of other things that the members of political elites
could easily be required to possess by virtue of their place. In such a system of political
elitism, one or a small number of skills or talents is substituted for the wider set of what
is demanded or needed, a practice often inefficient, unwieldy, or dangerous, and
sometimes really disastrous, for others and often for the elites as well. Very rare is the
instance in which such a proto-aristocrat satisfies virtually all of what is demanded and
needed of his character in his position. Yet this problem comes just within the life of the
first generation among such a class, and it is a comparatively minor problem, since at
least these proto-aristocrats do possess what is probably, at the time, an important
ability or set of them.

This is probably not true of their descendents. When political elitism is preserved in the
second generation, it becomes a hereditary aristocracy, the most common type.
Aristocrats owe their position to a very unscientific view of inheritance, also one
unsupported by careful observation. The children of a great swordsman may be taught
the sword by virtue of their place, but training or education in itself will not combine
with their upbringing to necessarily make them the equal of their father. The children of
a master tactician might well be incapable of visualizing elevation and distance, leading
his brave soldiers to their slaughter by sheer inability. Nor will the offspring of a honey-
tongued ambassador necessarily be any better than tongue-tied. Nor will a kind,
benevolent and trustworthy king's young princeling necessarily acquire these traits and
spare the tax collector's hot irons, simply because his father would have (and provided a
paternal example of that behavior, as well). While genetics might mean that such
complex traits (possibly the product of many genes), are more likely to manifest in the
offspring of parents who exhibit them phenotypically, this is not enough to make
heredity an effective system, and largely ignores both variations in individual
personality disposition leading to different proficiencies, and the high potential for a
conducive environment to encourage excellence among any group. All too soon in its
dynasty, a hereditary aristocratic government relies on the mythos of a superior nobility
rather more than the nobility is really anything special, as Ibn Khaldûn observed in his
day, and many other honest critics would come to agree; thus finally the Hapsburgs
would perpetuate their rule even as they fielded an inbred moron for coronation. In
order to function, an aristocracy comes to depend on greater wealth, better education,
and other unequal opportunities to mask the real personal mediocrity of most within the
noble class, and rests on whatever real potential exists within the nobility for
advancement on merit.

Nonetheless, aristocracy both assumed and affirmed the basic principle and possibility
of greatness. Just as democracy has both political and cultural aspects, there was a
cultural import of aristocracy as well as a political organization by that name, and part
of its cultural emphasis could accept excellence without counterreactions such as
presumed immodesty, guilt, or shame, or the inversion of value sensibility to the point
of endorsing mediocrity over excellence. Regardless of the distorting process of heredity,
people who accept aristocracy tend to accept merit, even if they overestimate particular
merits for encompassing, overwhelming greatness. In short, aristocracy at least
acknowledges elitism in principle.

There is much that is necessary, and nothing problematic about elitism as long as the
perception of an elite is based on something substantive and particular, on an
accomplishment, ability, or other significant merit rather than on arbitrary
qualification, as became the case with the hereditary procession of aristocratic title in
Europe under High Middle Ages feudalism and afterward. That is, an elite must be
justified specifically on the basis of a particular kind of superiority in order to be well-
described as "elite" instead of arrogantly and inaccurately. For example Michael Jordan,
and for that matter every professional basketball player is a member of an elite — in
basketball, and athleticism. Einstein and Feynman were likewise members of an elite —
in physics, theoretical mathematics, and science. (These subdivisions could likewise be
subdivided many times, at least as far down as looking at muscular strength or
calculative abilities.) Real elitism amounts to realistically describing natural hierarchies
according to particular standards, nothing more. Without this willingness for honesty
and accuracy, the false implication may follow that people are equal and the same, and
further, that excellence goes against this supposed natural order of equality. [15] But of
course this is a dangerous and retarding precedent, because the real natural order
involves difference and a corresponding diversity of strengths and weaknesses, forming
a natural elite for any and every standard we could measure.

Democracy and Masked Elitism

 
Democracy and aristocracy are ostensibly at loggerheads because democracy demotes
elitism and promotes egalitarianism. In this respect alone, democracy does not compare
well. According to a revised, reconsidered understanding of both, we can see that in fact
a realistic elitism is necessary and natural in a way that the fictional equality of
egalitarianism could never be. Aristocracy was closer to an accurate philosophical
appraisal in that it recognized fundamental inequality, however inaccurately.

And in practice, democracy and aristocracy are not in the state of opposition their
historical competition and theoretical differences might at first suggest. We might note
that democracies as currently realized are often critiqued as too elitist in their structure,
and seriously problematic only because their purer democracy is subverted by elites.
Commonly, the arrogance of a powerful, wealthy, privileged, and supposedly select few
in the democratic world of today is branded by the label “elite.” Yet this does a
considerable injustice of simplification to elitism according to its more general meaning,
and today’s ‘elites’ have little of the refined senses or sense of nobility traditionally
possessed by elites in those cultures consciously and conscientiously founded on elitism.

Let us consider what sorts of political elites would seem possible in a modern
'egalitarian' democracy. We would laugh at the idea, today, that fencing champions and
their descendents should rule over nations now and in the far future. This is because the
past seems quaint; swords are not that important in modern day. But what if we
imagined that accurate marksmen, brilliant tacticians, and indomitable soldiers might
be formed into such a ruling class? This, the modern equivalent of the old aristocratic
systems in the great many places where warrior elites served as aristocracy, is
immediately less absurd. We can most easily imagine its advent through a coup or
invasion, and quite possibly this is exactly how the aristocracies of the past usually
began. Now, what about other, even more plausible candidates for a modern political
elite? Let us ask ourselves: who could manipulate the circumstances of a democracy to
take and hold power? The most forceful, dominant personalities? The most persuasive
or charismatic? The most unscrupulous? Those willing to manipulate, lie, browbeat, or
inflict cruelty if they feel a need? Our list becomes: "the most forceful, dominant,
persuasive, charismatic, unscrupulous, manipulative, lying, and cruel" — does this
sound familiar? Is it not the stereotype of politicians and bureaucrats, a stereotype
which exists because it is so often true?

In practice, a certain sort of elite does form in a democracy as well, and not a realistic
(specific) elite but the overestimated kind which evolves from actual advantages, as
occurred in aristocracies. The "egalitarianism," "brotherhood" and "equality"
proclaimed under democracy mask natural hierarchies, but people seem to desire
hierarchies and make false ones — adopting fame, money, or political success as rough
measurements of overall importance. The desire to induct people into mental
hierarchies even when and where the cultural valuation of egalitarianism demands
otherwise, further suggests that elites are natural occurrences that humans are
inherently prepared to recognize. But in this case they have gone horribly awry so that
some of the most despicable traits are rewarding, and perhaps even necessary in order
to get ahead — an unnatural selection of government and social popularity. Of course,
aside from this 'corrupted' masked elitism, other, potentially realistic and laudable elites
may arise in a democracy and almost surely will (in accordance with the fact that natural
tendencies continue to express themselves covertly instead of overtly once denounced or
ignored) despite a deliberate foundation on egalitarian philosophy and social
equality. [16]

Nothing in the above discussion implies an advocation of meritocracy, as far as the

word means political rule according to some measure of merit. This can be no better
than a first-generation aristocracy, with all of the problems of confusing any specific
measure of merit with overall superiority of person, including a potential lack of other
important qualities — and the inherent problems with political power itself, including
corruption and abuse. Instead, it implies that no kind of recognizable superiority should
be either denied or overestimated, especially not to the point of condoning the overall
political power invested in rulers in every governmental society, including democracies.
[17]

Monarchy and Selfish Realism

Socially speaking, that is in terms of the import of basic philosophical tenets to social
organization, we can accurately understand monarchy as a form of political elitism like
aristocracy. Monarchy is also the predictable historical result of aristocracy; in fact it is a
singular form of aristocracy, merely one in which the competition of various nobles of
similar power among subdivided territories culminates in victories and consolidations,
until finally, however many fits and starts historians can trace, and whatever human
tragedies mar the transition — ultimately, a single dominant seat of power is established
by one noble line.

Traditionally, nobles were charged with responsibility for maintaining the welfare of
their subjects and their lands, insofar as they were expected to profit from them through
taxation, and ownership of land essentially ‘public’ by today’s standards. Or else, if they
failed in their stewardship, they would gain no such benefit and would suffer loss along
with the poverty of their land and people, or most egregiously (for the noble personage)
suffer a declining reputation to accompany a decline of the public interest. Such
incentives for wise management would persist not only over the lifetime reign of the
noble, but generally extend beyond his life into the reigns of his posthumous lineage, to
whom he would hope to bequeath a wealthy and proud endowment.

The same is true of monarchs, which aspect of monarchy economist Hans-Hermann

Hoppe has contrasted with the shortsighted incentives of democratic politicians, who
have merely their term in office in which to profit. In a monarchy, characteristically the
king hunted the king’s deer in the king’s forest, and all the roads were the king’s roads.
He collected taxes according to traditional and limited means, which almost without
comparison amounted to a lesser proportion than the taxes collected in today’s
democracies. He accrued honors with the victories of his soldiers, and more lands from
the territory they gained. In short he and his progeny prospered in economic and
honorific terms by the sweat and blood of his subjects — but only so long as they
prospered overall, and roughly speaking, he prospered over time according to the same
proportion as his subjects on average, over time (although obviously, he would gain a
greater amount by any individual comparison). Thus monarchy (and aristocracy) could
provide a persistent incentive for the king (or other noble) to rule in a way that
maximized economic prosperity, military prowess and social order. Any failure of this
incentive to consistently produce relatively prosperous subjects and successful political
dominance can be traced to shortsighted miscalculations on the part of foolish or
disgraceful rulers, or to the politically competitive world stage on which kings enacted
their drama, in which only certain rulers (and thus subjects) can triumph at the expense
of others. Nevertheless it must be granted that some considerable incentive did exist for
ensuring the welfare of not only the state, but the subjects (whether commoner or noble,
poor, middle-class or rich) under such elitist forms of government — and not just the
bare minimum so that subjects would not become angry enough to revolt. The secret of
(relative) success for these systems was harnessing the power of self-interest, both the
subjects' and the ruler’s. However, modification of any monarchy by incorporating
elective, legislative bodies with any considerable power into the government would seal
the inevitable ruin of such a system, in that responsibility for success or failure would no
longer belong exclusively to the monarch, but to "the public," and thus it would directly
belong to no one.

Hans-Hermann Hoppe on the invasiveness of government in democratic republics

compared to monarchies [18]: “There is no doubt that the amount oftaxes imposed on
civil society increased during the monarchical age. However, throughout the entire
period, the share of government revenue remained remarkably stable and low.” It rarely
exceeded “more than 5 to 8 percent of national income” according to Hoppe’s citation,
“until the second half of the nineteenth century.” From its feudal origins a sovereign’s
budget had been limited to the sovereign’s estate until a certain point, which “’is
somewhat as if a government of our own times were expected to cover its ordinary
expenditures from the proceeds of state-owned industries.’” Furthermore, “up until the
mid-nineteenth century of all Western European countries only the United Kingdom,
for instance, had an income tax (from 1843 on).” Other European countries and America
followed suit gradually, but "even at the time of the outbreak of World War I, total
government expenditure as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) typically had
not risen above 10 percent and only rarely, as in the case of Germany, exceeded 15
percent. In striking contrast, with the onset of the democratic republican age, total
government expenditures as a percentage of GDP typically increased to 20 to 30 percent
in the course of the 1920s and 1930s, and by the mid-1970s had generally reached 50
percent." Hoppe traces similar patterns according to other economic measurements, to
the effect that, monarchical centralization having presaged radical democratic
centralization, centralization was very gradual in monarchies, and would be completely
overshadowed by the new invasiveness of the public regimes.

As Aristotle wrote in his uneven but seminal Politics, both aristocracy and democracy
have increasingly exploitive corrupt forms, which coincide with abuse of power and
curtailed freedom. [III. vii, § 5] Corruption may lead to revolution, in which democracies
become autocracies of some sort, Aristotle correctly noted, most often oligarchies. [V. v,
§ 1-11] Actually he calls "democracy," as such, a perversion according to the definition
that a "polity" exists when the masses govern according to the common good, and its
corrupted form "democracy" pursues just the interests of the poorer. [19] An aristocracy,
involving the rule of the best of men and the best of social aims, corrupts to an
"oligarchy" which serves the richer. (This selective understanding of oligarchy, rule of
few, we would recognize as plutocracy.) Similarly in his taxonomy a monarchy decays
from a noble "kingship" to a "tyranny" that serves the interests of the ruler only. The
most noticeable thing about these terms is undoubtedly that the term "polity" never
caught on, quite possibly because — just as it probably seemed to the ancient Greeks of
Aristotle's time — it still reads like an unreal, ideal civics lesson more than it suggests
any real, or even historically plausible state. To avoid corruption and ruination, the
openly elitist forms, "aristocracy" and "kingship," depend on a disposition to generosity
and noble attitudes as part of the self-interest of the nobles or king — unrealistically
perhaps, but at least these forms do not require a fundamental adoption of phantom
common interests by real people, as does Aristotle's "polity." With this in mind we
should consider, in addition to other issues of comparison, the threat of deliberate
deception and cloaked aims by rulers, as well as simply common delusion and tendency
toward a foggy understanding of how one's society actually works. Since corrupted
democracies tend to become oligarchies (if not — even worse — dictatorships) ‘behind
the curtain’ of the performance of the expected democratic political play if not in
obvious revolution, we might actually consider an aristocracy, as an open oligarchy of
sorts modified by custom and honor and the spirit of elitism, to be inherently more
“open and accountable” than democracy.

The tendency for democracies to become centralized, authoritarian oligarchies or

dictatorships — as well as the previously noted willingness, when opportunity tempts,
for pursuing imperial foreign policies which promote undemocratic government abroad
and at home (despite lip service to the contrary) — both suggest a close relationship of
some kind between democracy and autocracy. We might surmise that in fact, democracy
does not so much abhor autocracy as prepare the way for it and beckon it, perhaps
intrinsically, from a historical standpoint — making real democracy more a theoretical
government than an actual one, or at most more like an inherently transitory
government than an enduring species of government, much as an unstable chemical
compound wants to decay, and rapidly. Aristotle observed that the revolutionary
collapse of democracy into either "tyranny" (dictatorship) or more typically "oligarchy"
(recognizable today as "plutocracy") follows the incitement of the poor against the rich
by demagogues, including of course those demagogues who are wealthy themselves. [V.
v, § 1-11] Thousands of years later, the predictive validity of this pattern has been bourn
out repetitively among every sort of people, in either violent or silent alteration of the
status quo, according to how gradual the demagogues perceive the zeitgeist to be.
Consider that to avoid an effective corruption to abusive plutocracy, somewhat-satiated
aristocrats or kings must simply retain important qualities in addition to already having
riches and pursuing further riches, and already having power and pursuing further
power. But democrats, the power-sharing many including the poorest ones, must avoid
the pursuit of riches through power almost entirely, and for that matter the pursuit of
much power. The inevitable occasion of wealth-seeking or power-seeking oligarchs
using the tricks of demagoguery to manipulate these masses should be no surprise at all,
even granting to Aristotle his idealistic possibility of "the common good" as an
identifiable thing among disparate human beings. Aristocracy, then, provides at its
inevitable worst an honest autocracy; democracy seems to provide at most a dishonest
or temporary respite from autocracy, and then a most dangerous form of control: the
domination of autocracy clothed in the auspiciousness of freedom.

 
 Conclusion

Our comparison has suggested that concerning freedom, democracy promises freedom,
yet it not only compares unfavorably to monarchy, but also has its own peculiar,
remarkable deficiencies in that realm. Similarly we saw that democratic culture
promulgates an unnatural idealism as compared to the more honest aristocratic elitist
culture, but really follows something far less ideal. We also observed that democracy
compares poorly as a source of promise, and that democracy must fail as a bulwark
against undesirable change, and more so than the alternatives it displaced.

We must be prepared to see the benefits and drawbacks of any and every system, even if
in many circles today this is something like forbidden knowledge. Only then can we
proceed, not regressively toward duplication of either the present or the past, but toward
a progress that understands the past and present, and thereby fulfills the promise of a
future that demands change.

Once thought the best alternative to increasingly arrogant aristocracies and monarchies,
democracy has since acquired an air of legitimacy unparalleled as a justification for
political power. In retrospect, we must recognize it is no longer the best known
alternative, with government or without.

We have seen hints that democracy has unique problems, especially concerning the
difference between avowed ideal image, and unadvertised, realistic practicality. The
above investigation implied a particular concern over the supposedly intrinsic
relationship between democracy and freedom so taken for granted, and might well lead
us to wonder about the intrinsic qualities of democracy in general — which if our socio-
cultural and political comparisons with aristocracy and monarchy are any indication,
will presumably differ from "the party line." Confronting this puzzle will be the subject
of the next, and further Critiques.

Footnotes:

1. Without analyzing evidence further, I shall not assume prematurely, as so many do, that the
association between freedom and democracy in that context was anything but coincidental. [back]
2. Tunisian Abd-ar-Rahman Abû Zayd ibn Muhammed ibn Muhammed ibn Khaldûn, 1332–1406,
presented this argument in his Muqaddimah or Introduction to his Historyas part of an advanced,
comprehensive attempt to understand patterns in history. A highly recommended abridged edit by
N.J. Dawood of the three volume English translation by Franz Rosenthal is available from Princeton
University Press. Interestingly the life span Ibn Khaldûn would predict for the health of states in his
time, a maximum of four generations or about 120 years, appears to accurately describe a cycle of
psychological and political corruption in modern democracies (including the US, as measured from
the founding generation to that 19th century revolutionary age of the Civil War in which the republic
of states effectively became a union, or nation-state) — almost as well as the cycles of the royal
dynasties familiar to Ibn Khaldûn. [back]

3. I refer of course to a Promethean society. See Anticonstitution for a Promethean Society. [back]

4. Despite the modern notion of the autocratic monarch and the occasional historical example of
overlap, simple autocracy should be distinguished from monarchy as generally practiced in history,
in that monarchy evolved from and was balanced by historical precedent, formed of religious and
other social customs, including aristocratic fealty and relationships, philosophical elitism, and rule
by genealogy, the last derived from the inheritance principles of aristocracy, which itself evolved
from a philosophical, primarily martial elitism. [back]

5. Yet these authoritarian regimes have often been established or supported, we should note, by the
foreign policies of the world’s preeminent democracy. For example, in the past century for various
reasons ranging from alliances of temporary convenience, to wars on drug production, to anti-
communism, to fascistic economic partnerships and corrupt leverage through Washington, overt and
covert US foreign policy relationships have apparently been established helping to create or giving
succor to the repressive governments of:

Jorge Rafael Videla’s Argentina, Hugo Banzer’s Bolivia, Humberto Branco’s Brazil, the Sultanate of
Brunei Darussalam, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, Augusto Pinochet’s Chile, Fulgencio Batista’s Cuba, Rafael
Leonidas Trujillo’s Dominican Republic, Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez’s El Salvador, Alfredo
Cristiani’s El Salvador, Haile Selassie’s Ethiopia, Sitiveni Rabuka’s Fiji, George Papadopoulos’
Greece, multiple military dictatorships in Guatemala, Lansana Conte's Guinea, Francois and Jean
Claude Duvalier’s Haiti, Suharto’s Indonesia, Mohammed Reza Pahlevi’s Iran, Saddam Hussein’s
Iraq, Samuel Doe’s Liberia, Hassan II’s Morocco, Anastasio Somoza Sr.’s and Anastasio Somoza Jr.’s
Nicaragua, Sani Abacha’s Nigeria, Mohammed Zia Ul-Haq’s Pakistan, Manuel Noriega’s Panama,
Alfredo Stroessner‘s Paraguay, Ferdinand Marcos’ Philippines, Antonio de Oliveira Salazar’s
Portugal, Joseph Stalin’s Russia, Saudi Arabia, Siad Barre’s Somalia, P.W. Botha’s South Africa, Park
Chung Hee’s South Korea, Francisco Bahamonde Franco’s Spain, Chiang Kai-Shek's Taiwan (and
previously China), military-ruled Turkey, Idi Amin’s Uganda, Ngo Dinh Diem’s South Vietnam,
Joseph-Désiré Mobutu’s Zaire, and Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe.

Given such a list, which is still not exhaustive, I do not think any appeal is possible over debatable
specifics to the extent that the evidence no longer suggests a trend. Yet it cannot reasonably attribute
a uniqueness of anti-democracy to the case of the US (much less only to anti-communist US factions,
as their political opponents would have it) except for the US having the circumstantial capacities of a
superpower. Other democratic and internationally powerful states such as Britain and France have
certainly tended to create their own parallel lists according to the opportunity afforded by power-
projection capabilities at a given time, especially when one includes unrepresented colonial
possessions. Only lack of imperial opportunity ever seems to prevent democracies from
undemocratic foreign policies. Like monarchies before them, democracies lack mechanisms for
preventing imperial attitudes and are subject to similar imperial temptations as monarchies, so the
historical record shows significant correlation. Indeed most of the apparent autocratic competitors to
democratic government by present day should be considered by-products of democracy, not
extrinsic, as a universal list for all historical democratic sponsorship of undemocratic regimes would
show even more.[back]

6. Of the regimes listed in footnote 5, the majority either would not have existed without coup
support from the CIA or military, or could not have continued to exist without US support. Most of
those were replacing or superceding democratic governments. (For some additional background on
US military and CIA interventions since 1945 see William Blum's Killing Hope.) Once again then, we
see the rarity of independently evolving (chosen) autocracies, and that many in the modern era
actually came from the activities of factions in democratic governments, in competition with internal
factions or other states. [back]

7. If aristocracy, or monarchy are herein discussed with some generalization, a necessity prescribes
adopting such an approach of confronting wholes; in order to consider another all-too-whole thing,
the universal proscription of "democracy" — whatever that means — for the whole world. As will be
justified later, aristocracy and monarchy will be discussed together from now on, especially
culturally, as "aristocracy," although I will make more effort to avoid undue conflation of the two
as political systems. [back]

8. Readers of course have the option to conclude that I am burning a straw man of my own with
my Critiques of Democracy, though such a rhetorical trick is certainly easier to employ concerning
something forgotten and unfashionable. [back]

9. See Critiques of Democracy Part One: Democracy, The Equivocal Standard. [back]

10. As cultural phenomena, for these purposes I include monarchy as part of aristocracy. Remaining
aware that monarchy is not culturally identical to aristocracy, and remembering that once they were
seen as two competitive systems, it is my contention that said competition occurred more in the
incidental political sphere (e.g. the multi-century decastellation of France as competition between
kings and nobles, or the Magna Carta) than in the cultural realm of ideas and their expression (e.g.
persistent class differentiation, estate, religiosity, noble artistry); so far as the spheres can be
separated, monarchy was a historical result of aristocracy (a development of disputed inevitability,
but probably more a likely and understandable, but chance, outcome) more as a gradual extension
than a revolutionary change such as marked democracy. Where the political and cultural overlap
inseparably there was generally remarkable continuity between aristocracy and monarchy, for
example in the importance of genealogy to determine both political power and social worth. It can be
hard to say when and where aristocracy ends and monarchy begins, in that the seesaw was gradual in
Europe, sometimes virtually invisible (e.g. Germany, Italy) and sometimes reversed in times and
places (e.g. the fragmentation of Charlemagne’s Holy Roman Empire), with far more overlap than
punctuation. This is in contrast to the age of democracy’s demarcation, in politics, by revolution and
the rise of nationalism and rapidly accelerated centralization, especially punctuated by the French
revolutionary period in Europe and by the post-WWI Treaty of Versailles for surviving European
monarchies, and by the Meiji Revolution in Japan, and similar benchmarks elsewhere — and a
demarcation in culture by radically different social ideals and customs (except as far as Britain and
imitators pursued a hybrid compromise, parliamentary monarchy). And so finally, it is my
contention that meaningful comparison in cultural terms can now be made between democracy on
one hand, and the comparatively related aristocracy and monarchy on the other hand. [back]

11. Monarchy in political-historical terms could be called late-stage aristocracy, in which the field of
competitors have given way to one victor. The others will either be effectively eliminated from
political competition or will remain powerful but owe fealty, as in the system of feudalism. They will
be opportune contenders in the event of a power vacuum created by any sort of crisis of the
monarchy, especially if they should plan it, but other possibilities include a lack of heirs. This is the
scenario which explains the occasional collapse of the monarchy (or equivalent) in some few places
and times into a state of fully competitive aristocracy, such as the feudal civil wars of 16th century
Japan. [back]

12. Although physical and historical evidence regarding specific cases may necessarily be lacking for
the pre-historical times when many culturally-indigenous elites were founded, we may adopt this
reasonable theoretical assumption for those cases as well as those with more evidence, as it seems
the only explanation save random occurrence. [back]

13. Additionally, an opportunity for dominance and elite formation may arise from the cultural
accumulation of technological or other advantages which were never devised by the new elite
themselves and thus suggest no causal excellence. This certainly does happen again and again in all
ages and enable domination of other cultures. Examples include the fertile crescent invasions and
subsequent dynasties (such as the Hyksos’ invasion of Old Kingdom Egypt) on the basis of the
chariot, the British domination of India on the basis of the naval warship as major weapons system,
and more spectacularly the Spanish conquest and enslavement of much of the Americas, and the
Spanish or Portuguese subjugation or exploitation of much of the rest of the world, on the basis of
gunpowder cannon, galleons and muskets. But however common, this scenario does not explain the
rise of the far more common indigenous elites. [back]

14. Of course foreign invaders and subsequent dynasties again must be excepted (seefootnote

13). [back]

15. The historical links and the self-evident similarities between the philosophical sentiments
expressed by, in turn, the egalitarian slogan "all men are created equal," and second the violent
socioeconomic revenge of the French Revolution following its slogan of "liberty, equality,
brotherhood," and finally the economic equalization of socialism (by force, and in its most
communist forms by class genocide), should not escape our notice here. Again we have reason to
suspect that democracy and communism were circumstantial opponents historically, not ideological
opposites. [back]

16. The limited allowance for economic achievement and inequality in the same age as American
democratic idealism represents just such a phenomenon of fortunate inconsistency, one responsible
for much of America's relative prosperity and desirability — and unfortunately, one providing
the economic power harnessed by American politicians to suggest the apparent superiority of the
American hybrid "capitalist" system and build the military superiority of the American nation-state
as a "great power" on the world scene. [back]

17. Providing for these considerations and in general aiming toward a natural and open elitism is the
very essence of the rule of ideas emphasized in a Promethean society as an overt institution. This
involves neither the investment of political power in government, nor the overestimation of the value
of the Promethean contribution as leader-teachers among all the other innumerable natural elites we
can appreciate in a human population. For we can distinguish Prometheans according to a particular
standard suited to a role, much as we can distinguish the talents and sensibilities of a chef, or an
artist, or an investor, or an athlete, or a scientist, or a philosopher from other people — although
Prometheans comprise a somewhat different kind of cross-section of a population, one marked by an
open-minded, inclusive generalism of talents or skills in the form of an interdisciplinary philosophy
and practice which is not limited to the capacity for persuasion through ideas — most importantly, a
group which is distinguished by a standard judged not only functionally, but motivationally: a life-
interest in oneself and others). [back]

18. Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Democracy–The God That Failed: The Economics and Politics of
Monarchy, Democracy and Natural Order (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2002), p. 54-
55 [back]

19. Notice the interesting fact that by this classification, communism is functionally democracy, not
antithetical to democracy, and any socialism classifies as a democracy (or "polity," a utopian socialist
might argue). I have already noted an ideological similarity between democracy and socialism or
communism above, and have introduced the idea inDemocracy, The Equivocal Standard that
communism is akin to democracy in a philosophical-cultural sense, for examples: equality and
egalitarianism in terms of applied philosophy, and socialized art in terms of cultural products. [back]