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[–] bilog78 ago 

I tried to give that book a read, but honestly it is so … imprecise and “interpretative” right from the premises that I cannot in good faith take it seriously. Can you summarize?

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[–] superspathi ago  (edited ago)

He critiques democracy and finds it inferior to monarchy. A big part of this comes from his application of Austrian economic ideas about time preference on the actions of different governments. Monarchs have an incentive to preserve and grow their nation's capital, where elected governments are incentivized by time preference to raid the treasury to bribe voters.

He also points out that democracy leads to a general degradation of the entire society:

In every society, people who covet another man's property exist, but in most cases people learn not to act on this desire or even feel ashamed for entertaining it. In an anarcho-capitalist society in particular, anyone acting on such a desire is considered a criminal and is suppressed by physical violence. Under monarchical rule, by contrast, only one person- the king-can act on his desire for another man's property, and it is this that makes him a potential threat. However, because only he can expropriate while everyone else is forbidden to do likewise, a king's every action will be regarded with utmost suspicion. Moreover, the selection of a king is by accident of his noble birth. His only characteristic qualification is his upbringing as a future king and preserver of the dynasty and its possessions. This does not assure that he will not be evil, of course. However, at the same time it does not preclude that a king might actually be a harmless dilettante or even a decent person. In distinct contrast, by freeing up entry into government, the Constitution permitted anyone to openly express his desire for other men's property; indeed, owing to the constitutional guarantee of "freedom of speech," everyone is protected in so doing. Moreover, everyone is permitted to act on this desire, provided that he gains entry into government; hence, under the Constitution everyone becomes a potential threat.

To be sure, there are people who are unaffected by the desire to enrich themselves at the expense of others and to lord it over them; that is, there are people who wish only to work, produce, and enjoy the fruits of their labor. However, if politics-the acquisition of goods by political means (taxation and legislation)-is permitted, even these harmless people will be profoundly affected. In order to defend themselves against attacks on their liberty and property by those who have fewer moral scruples, even these honest, hardworking people must become "political animals" and spend more and more time and energy developing their political skills. Given that the characteristics and talents required for political success- of good looks, sociability, oratorical power, charisma, etc.-are distributed unequally among men, then those with these particular characteristics and skills will have a sound advantage in the competition for scarce resources (economic success) as compared to those without them.

Worse still, given that in every society more "have-nots" of everything worth having exist than "haves," the politically talented who have little or no inhibition against taking property and lording it over others will have a clear advantage over those with such scruples. That is, open political competition favors aggressive (hence dangerous) rather than defensive (hence harmless) political talents and will thus lead to the cultivation and perfection of the peculiar skills of demagoguery, deception, lying, opportunism, corruption, and bribery. Therefore, entrance into and success within government will become increasingly impossible for anyone hampered by moral scruples against lying and stealing. Unlike kings then, congressmen, presidents, and Supreme Court judges do not and cannot acquire their positions accidentally. Rather, they reach their position because of their proficiency as morally uninhibited demagogues.

Moreover, even outside the orbit of government, within civil society, individuals will increasingly rise to the top of economic and financial success not on account of their productive or entrepreneurial talents or even their superior defensive political talents, but rather because of their superior skills as unscrupulous political entrepreneurs and lobbyists. Thus, the Constitution virtually assures· that exclusively dangerous men will rise to the pinnacle of government power and that moral behavior and ethical standards will tend to decline and deteriorate all-around.

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This book is also notable for spawning the 'physical removal' meme, that gave philosophical cover to ancaps to act kind of fashy:

"In a covenant concluded among proprietor and community tenants for the purpose of protecting their private property, no such thing as a right to free (unlimited) speech exists, not even to unlimited speech on one's own tenant-property. One may say innumerable things and promote almost any idea under the sun, but naturally no one is permitted to advocate ideas contrary to the very purpose of the covenant of preserving and protecting private property, such as democracy and communism. There can be no tolerance toward democrats and communists in a libertarian social order. They will have to be physically separated and expelled from society. Like-wise, in a covenant founded for the purpose of protecting family and kin, there·can be no tolerance toward those habitually promoting life-styles incompatible with this goal. They-the advocates of alternative, non-family and kin-centered lifestyles such as, for instance, individual hedonism, parasitism, nature-environment worship, homosexuality, or communism-will have to be physically removed from society, too, if one is to maintain a libertarian order."

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[–] bilog78 ago 

Thank you very much for offering your time to summarize, it was a huge help in avoiding wasting mine. As I said, I was extremely skeptical when I started reading (which is why the reason I stopped). I was skeptical about his premises about “self-evident truths” (which I have only seen used as an argument by people that need to project a bias they can't justify otherwise) as well as from his selection of examples, and it does seem indeed that my suspicions were well-founded.

There's several ways in which the arguments could be challenged, I'll just briefly present a few of them.

First of all, talking about monarchy and democracy in a general sense while actually implying specific forms of both isn't intellectually honest. Both forms of governments have very large degrees of variation with extremes that have very little in common outside of formal similarities: compare for example the absolute monarchy of Louis XIV to the modern constitutional monarchies still existing on the European continent; or the democracy in Switzerland with the one in, say, Venezuela (or even the USA, actually, which among the Western countries is arguably one of the worst).

This alone is sufficient to challenge almost every other point. For example, is he saying that the monarch is interested in the preservation and growth of the nation's capital because that's actually the monarch's own capital? That depends on the form of monarchy, and so does how that reflects on the rest of the nation (and the people within). Similarly, not all monarchs are such by blood, there is such a thing as elective monarchies, even absolute ones (the papacy being an excellent example of this). Also, while his criticism of the flaws of democracy isn't unfounded, it's also extremely myopic if he doesn't take into account the check and balance system coming from having separate executive, judicial and legislative power —probably because the USA he takes as example are an example of where they are the weakest. An excellent example of this is his obsession with bribery —again, not unfounded, but the USA is pretty unique in having essentially istitutionalized bribery with the lobbying mechanism.

His other points are just as weak. Degradation of society being something related to democracy is also a laughable claim. Protestantism started specifically because of how corrupt and degenerate the papacy (which is a monarchy) had become. Degradation of society is just part of the natural cycle of society's evolution. Likewise, the idea of corrupt functionaries being an issue in democracy but not in monarchies is also extremely ignorant (both pre-revolution France and pre-revolution Russia are extremely good example of this).

All in all, I remain unimpressed and unconvinced. Worse many if not all of his anti-democratic arguments have been discussed by others in better form, with the specific aim of improving the democratic process itself, with more solid debating bases than just cherry-picked examples.