Saturday, March 10, 2012

A Utilitarian Argument for Monarchy



Source
His other essays are here.

More good points on monarchy, democracy, etc.

Collectivist democracy was popular in almost every society throughout antiquity, with a few notable exceptions. Indeed, it is probable that democracy is the oldest form of government known. It is not hard to imagine the majority in a primitive tribe of cavemen or nomads controlling the rest of the tribe through brute force and the ‘will of the majority.’ Democracy today is the form of government viewed as returning man to some sort of Golden Age, where all men are free and equal. In reality, democracy is not the ‘rule of the people’ or self-government, but rather the rule of the majority. And in light of the past two hundred years, the majority can be more vicious than any singular tyrant.


Democracy is the ultimate form of socialism in the political sphere. We all become the government, we all become public property – we all become collectivized. The same criticisms that apply to socialized property apply to socialized citizens within a democracy. Collectivized property is over utilized and wasted away simply because no single person or group owns the property; it is merely the property of the ‘people’ and the ‘public.’ Likewise are citizens treated in a modern democratic state. Citizens are taxed, regulated, controlled, drafted, fined, imprisoned; citizens are nothing but naked resources to the officers of government. And because of the democratic system, there is never a singular individual that can take the blame for injustices done. After all, ‘we’ are the people, ‘we’ are the government –the only one to blame for injustice is ‘us.’ So say the Prophets of Democracy.

Source

Another argument against democracy.
Yet our system obliges us to elevate to office precisely those persons who have the ego-besotted effrontery to ask us to do so; it is rather like being compelled to cede the steering wheel to the drunkard in the back seat loudly proclaiming that he knows how to get us there in half the time. More to the point, since our perpetual electoral cycle is now largely a matter of product recognition, advertising, and marketing strategies, we must be content often to vote for persons willing to lie to us with some regularity or, if not that, at least to speak to us evasively and insincerely. In a better, purer world—the world that cannot be—ambition would be an absolute disqualification for political authority.

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