by Pierre Lemieux
Those who believe in democracy because they think the majority will always agree with them don’t really believe in democracy.
As William of Ockham could have put it, entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem–“entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity.” The whole question is knowing where necessity ends. Simple principles are useful, but simple ideas can also be simplistic. And the problem is much more challenging in normative statements, that is, when there is a “should.”
I want, however, to defend one simple political-normative idea that both the Left and the Right should discover–or perhaps rediscover. It’s a simple classical-liberal and libertarian idea that makes much theoretical and historical sense: the state’s powers should be limited in such a way that little damage would be done if the worst man or men came to power. Hitler would have done little evil at the helm of, say, the United States Steel Corporation. When dealing with the state, we should adopt a maximin strategy: maximize the minimum, that is, aim for the best of the worst possibilities.
Since a despotic government is productive of the most dreadful calamities to human nature, the very evil that restrains it is beneficial to the subject.
It is even more concise and beautiful “in the original French:
Comme le despotisme cause à la nature humaine des maux effroyables, le mal même qui le limite est un bien.
The fact that a state is democratic does not change that. The majority can be tyrannical. A majority of rationally ignorant voters could elect an autocrat who is benevolent, malevolent, or just dangerously ignorant or deluded. Serious advocates of democracy certainly assume that the democratic state is limited: think about John Rawls or James Buchanan, among others. Those who believe in democracy because they think the majority will always agree with them don’t really believe in democracy.
Perhaps the case for libertarianism or classical liberalism ultimately rests on the prudential need to limit the state. (If one believes that this is impossible or that any state is worse than any anarchy, one must be an anarchist.)
READER COMMENTS
Jon Murphy
Jun 2 2018 at 8:02am
Your post reminds me of a lyric from Frank Turner’s song Sons of Liberty*
“the people then they understood what we have since forgot:
That a government will only work for its own benefit ”
The ideas of classical liberalism appeal to me for exactly the reasons you state here: they are robust to evil. Classically liberal governments do not rely on good men; if we get them, then all the better. But nothing about the system becomes fragile if evil takes hold.
*Warning: in this link is some explicit language
Thaomas
Jun 2 2018 at 9:13am
I’m distrustful of policies to maximize/minimize any one thing. In this case I do not have any idea about exactly how we might even implement the minimization of the ability of the worst ruler to cause harm. Any such system would still imply its enforcement in some way and that entails the quis custodiet problem
I think we are on stronger grounds when we argue for moving on some margin. For example, I think we might argue for some Congressional limit or oversight of the President’s power to use “national security” as a justification for imposing trade restrictions.
Pierre Lemieux
Jun 2 2018 at 2:20pm
@Thaomas: You’re right, the quis custodiet remains. As Montesquieu also said, “To prevent this abuse, it is necessary, from the very nature of things, power should be a check to power.”
On your other point, though, I don’t think you are correct. How can “moving to some margin” have any meaning outside an optimization problem?
Pierre Lemieux
Jun 2 2018 at 2:27pm
@Jon: I love the song.
Tom West
Jun 2 2018 at 11:07pm
I strongly agree that if you cannot abide the idea that people you ideologically despise having the reigns of power, you can’t be said to support democracy.
Having said that, I think few would consider it wise to use “minimize the harm” as the dominant paradigm for almost any other aspect of their life. Thus I don’t think there’s a compelling case to do so with government.
However, wisdom also decrees that you don’t *ignore* the possibility of harm either. As always, it’s all about the trade-offs.
Thomas Sewell
Jun 9 2018 at 8:33pm
This is a good post, but there is a false dichotomy present in it.
It assumes that there is only one axis to tune, from a powerful monopoly State at one end to anarchy on the other end.
However, there are also opportunities for continuing to have government provided as a service, but for reducing the monopoly aspects of it.
Activities which have fallen into the orbit of monopoly government can also be usefully switched into competitive enterprises providing the same type of services, but without the additional risk of tyranny present with a legally established monopoly government supplier.
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