Ballots as Substitutes for Bullets
by Roy Halliday
"Many people, given the opportunity afforded by a democratic state, would be
willing to vote for a redistribution of wealth from a minority group to themselves.
But, without the mechanism of the state, many of them would not be bold enough to
risk their lives to steal the same amount. So, even if democracy does provide a
relatively bloodless mechanism for settling disputes between groups, it does so by
reducing the risks involved in joining the dominant group in crime and, thereby,
increases the potential amount of injustice in society."
Campaign-Finance Reform Will End Corruption? It Just Ain't So!
May 2000
by Sheldon Richman
"The idea of having the taxpayers pick up the tab for campaigns is so outrageous
it's hard to believe anyone really favors it. You'd think that even the watered-down
notion of a free society most people accept today would include the freedom to abstain
from contributing to candidates. Thomas Jefferson said compelling a person to support
a cause he disagrees with is "sinful and tyrannical." I can't even imagine a rebuttal.
Being forced to give money to politicians one despises is the kind of thing that
would have driven the Founders to revolution had taxation alone not done the trick."
The Case Against the Democratic State by Gordon Graham
reviewed by James R. Otteson
"Graham’s thesis can be put simply: the arguments typically thought to justify democracy
as the best form of government in fact fail to justify it, and indeed some of the central
conceptual commitments that people assume support democracy turn out to support far
different sorts of government."
Civil Rights versus Natural Rights
by Roy Halliday
"The only basic rights are those general principles of justice that can be applied
consistently to all moral agents, regardless of class, race, ethnic origin, gender,
political borders, the prevailing form of government, the level of civilization
attained by society, or any other morally irrelevant contingency."
The Con Game Called Democracy
June 24, 2004
by Fred Reed
"Voting in particular is an embarrassment, being a public display of weak character and
low intelligence. Let us face the truth: Democracy, like spitting in public or the Roman
games, is the proper activity of the lower intellectual and moral classes. It amounts to
collusion in one's own suckering."
Democracy
by weebies
"Only by having the supreme power vested in each individual and exercised by each
person can democracy and anarchy be fully realized. Instead of the inane statist
maxim of 'one person, one vote,' it should be 'one person, one government.'”
Democracy and Liberty
May 29, 2003
by Tibor R. Machan
"A free country is one in which those born do not get all kinds of
burdens imposed upon them to which they haven't given their full consent. If a
democratic system addresses the ways in which this principle is upheld
effectively enough, there is no conflict between democracy and liberty.
But once democracy usurps individual liberty, it is no longer a part of a
country's free institutions but becomes, as it has in so many societies
around the globe, including in the United States of America, an instrument
of greater or lesser tyranny."
Democracy and Natural Rights
by Roy Halliday
"For a democratic state (or any other kind of state) to be morally justified, it must
respect the natural rights of all moral agents. This severely limits the scope of its
activities. It cannot pass any laws that invade the lives or trespass on the private
property of any nonaggressive people. Can a democratic organization that is limited in
this way still be recognized as a state?"
Democracy and War
by Ted Galen Carpenter
"In Power Kills: Democracy as a Method of Nonviolence, political scientist
R.J. Rummel forcefully argues that democracies by nature are less warlike than
non-democracies because they become adept at managing domestic conflict. Unfortunately,
Rummel greatly overstates his case, ignoring numerous occasions when democracies have
taken arms against each other and giving short shrift to “realist” strategic reasons
for why they usually opt for peace."
Democracy Does Not Ensure Liberty
by Alberto Mingardi
A review of The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad by
Fareed Zakaria.
Democracy, Spontaneous Order and Peace: Implications for the Classical Liberal Critique of Democratic Politics
January 3, 2000
by Augustus diZerega
"The democratic peace hypothesis which states that democracies rarely or never go to war
against one another and that democracies do not commit democide raises issues penetrating
to the core of modern liberalism, classical and otherwise. If democracies are unique
from other forms of government, as claims for their peacefulness towards citizens and
one another suggest, then possibly the classical liberal and libertarian critique of
democratic government needs re-examination. By separating liberal democracy from
undemocratic states, the democratic peace hypothesis separates the classical liberal
and libertarian critique of the state from a straight forward application to liberal
democracy. The work of F. A. Hayek and Michael Polanyi holds the key to understanding
the democratic peace, and thereby leads to rethinking the classical liberal and
libertarian critique of politics. To jump ahead, democracies are spontaneous orders
in Hayek's sense of the term. Consequently democracies are not states in the usual
sense, and often do not act like them."
Democracy: The God That Failed
by Hans-Hermann Hoppe
"At the request of LRC, Professor Hoppe discusses his extremely important new
book, Democracy: The God That Failed."
Democracy Versus Freedom
August 19, 2005
by Jarret Wollstein
"In fact, democracy is much closer to collectivism than it is to individualism. Like
collectivism, democracy places essential political power with the group, rather than
with the individual – thus making everyone's freedom subject to the passions of the
mob or
Disgusted with Democracy
November 14, 2004
by Tibor Machan
"It’s about this time of every other year that I get really disgusted with democracy.
It has become little more than legalized looting, if you think about it a bit.
Politicians travel about promising that if you just vote for them, they will do you
the favor of robbing others for your benefit."
Does Democracy Promote Peace?
by James Ostrowski
"Does democracy—institutionalized coercion—promote peace? No. The only thing that
promotes peace is peace, which is just another name for individual liberty."
Does Democracy Threaten the Free Market?
by N. Joseph Potts
Yes. And World on Fire by Amy Chua proves it.
Down With Democracy
by Hans-Hermann Hoppe
"More importantly, it must be made clear again that the idea of democracy is
immoral as well as uneconomical. As for the moral status of majority
rule, it must be pointed out that it allows for A and B to band together to rip off
C, C and A in turn joining to rip off B, and then B and C conspiring against A, etc.
This is not justice but a moral outrage, and rather than treating democracy and
democrats with respect, they should be treated with open contempt and ridiculed
as moral frauds."
Liberalism versus Democracy
by Paul Gottfried
Liberty and Democracy as Economic Systems
by Randall G. Holcombe
"When liberty and democracy are recognized as both economic and political systems, it
becomes clear that at some level they conflict. If majority rule can threaten
private-property rights, then there is no basis for holding that liberty and democracy
can peacefully coexist for the rest of history."
Liberty Is More Important than Democracy
by Richard Ebeling
"It is the use and abuse of the political democratic process for various
interventionist and welfare redistributive schemes that is the source of the
accusations of divisiveness and corruption in democratic society that are made by
the enemies of freedom. But it is not democracy that has failed in the past. The
problem has been caused by the extending of political democracy into the areas that
properly should be left to both the arena of individual self-governing and personal
sovereignty, and the voluntary, democratic pluralism of the free market."
Liberty versus Democracy
by Brian Micklethwait
The Maintenance of Minority Rights
October 17, 2006
by Nigel Watt
"The fewer things the government does, the fewer minority rights it will be violating,
and the closer we will be to a government which truly rules by the will of
all the people."
Representative Government
by Roy Halliday
"Laws are enacted when a majority of the legislators vote for a bundle of proposals
most of which they don't understand. The number of bills voted on these days is so
great that, even if he is conscientious, a legislator cannot possibly read them all
or understand them before voting on them. Because legislators don't know the provisions
of many proposed laws, they can't base their votes on the majority views of their
constituents. They can't even vote on their own views. They are forced to rely on other
considerations to determine which way to vote. They consider their own political
interests first. So they make deals with each other and with special-interest groups.
They vote for legislation favored by those who promise to support them in the next
political campaign. Or they take bribes. This is the nature of what is euphemistically
called representative government."
Representative Government: What Is It Good For?
1857
by Herbert Spencer
"To the question—What is representative government good for? our reply is—It is good,
especially good, good above all others, for doing the thing which a government should do.
It is bad, especially bad, bad above all others, for doing the things which a government
should not do."
The Trouble with Democracy
by David Gordon
A review of The Case Against the Democratic State: An Essay in Cultural
Criticism by Gordon Graham.
Victor Hugo on the Limits of Democracy
by Roderick T. Long
"Hugo rightly and eloquently denies the authority of majority vote over moral
questions. But he errs in thinking that such matters as “peace and war, the
effective force of the army, public credit, public relief, the budget, the
penalty of death, the irremovability of judges, the indissolubility of marriage,
divorce, the civil and political status of women, gratuitous instruction, the
constitution of the commune, the rights of labour, the salary of the clergy,
free trade, railroads, the currency, fiscal questions, colonization” are not
“moral questions,” but are merely “political questions,” and as such do fall
under democratic jurisdiction."
What's Wrong with Democracy?
by L. Hatzilambrou
"The people must recognize that democracy is not a remedy for all ills. It is indeed
a powerful medicine. But this medical analogy suggests the fundamental axiom of
toxicology, which states that it’s the dose that makes the poison. A small dose of
democracy can preserve the health of society, but in larger quantities it can be fatal."
Who Should Vote?
January 2002
by Walter E. Williams
"From a moral point of view, we might ask just how fair is it to allow those who pay
little or no taxes to use the political process to decide how much taxes others should
pay? There should be a connection between one’s stake in the financial wherewithal of
our nation and one’s right to participate in the decision-making process, at least in
financial matters. We should consider adoption of a procedure similar to decision-making
in the corporate arena: you get to vote if you have financial stake in the country. The
size of your vote depends on how much of a stake you have. Therefore, at least in federal
elections, we might have a provision whereby a person would have one vote per each one
thousand dollars (or fraction thereof) that he paid in income taxes."
Why Democracy Failed - Part 1
October 24, 2004
Part 2
October 26, 2004
Part 3
October 30, 2004
by Neil Lock
"What I'm going to tell you today is that low election turn-outs aren't just a blip.
They're a sign of failure of the system. For democracy has failed. I'm going to tell
you why. And I'm going to speculate on what might come next."
The Anti-Electorate Manifesto
by Wally Conger
"Exercise your right to say "No" to the warfare-welfare system.
Refuse to vote. Then tell your friends why."
Be Patriotic: Don’t Vote
February 5, 2004
by Thomas J. DiLorenzo
"Imagine what a patriotic thrill you would receive if, in the next presidential election,
a mere 10 percent of the electorate, instead of the usual 50 percent or so, voted. The
unconstitutional regime in Washington would be de-legitimized. The upside is that it
might just be possible that some politicians in Washington would get the message and
start behaving more like a George Washington or Thomas Jefferson than a Tony Soprano or
Vito Corleone (with apologies to all the distinguished Italian-Americans out there). The
downside is that they will keep on behaving as they do now – with complete contempt for
the Constitution and the population it is supposed to benefit. So be patriotic: Don’t
vote."
Five Reasons Not to Vote
by Jim Davies
None of the above
by Doug Casey
"It's sickening to hear thoughtful non-voters, who can sense in their gut something
is terminally wrong with the process, make lame excuses because they feel guilty for
not participating. I would, therefore, like to give you five reasons why you
shouldn't vote. "
Non-Voting as an Act of Secession
by Hans Sherrer
"Those men and women who consciously choose not to participate in politics expose
the lie behind the myth of "government by consent." They have not consented to
anything. In other words, their decision not to vote is a form of personal
secession - the form of secession that is most readily available to them."
Not Voting and Proud: Don't throw away your life; throw away your vote
by Brian Doherty
"Today, I'm joining a near majority of eligible voters in expressing our deepest
values and thoughts regarding the choices presented us in our democracy: by not voting."
Regardless of Choice, Vote!
November 1998
by Leonard E. Read
He argues against the title and suggests that not voting is a better strategy.
Rock the Non-Vote
August 18, 2004
by Gene Callahan
"My own vision of how we can express our unhappiness with being free to choose our
preferred beverage, so long as we pick Coke or Pepsi, is a bit different: I'd like to
see a presidential election where only 5% or 10% of all eligible voters go to the polls.
A turnout that low would be far more damaging to the position of the elite who run this
country than would a few million votes cast for some minor-party candidate."
Rock the Non-Vote, Part Two
September 2, 2004
by Gene Callahan
""Rock the Non-Vote" prompted a roughly equal number of positive and negative responses.
Since the basic thrust of the supportive e-mails was that I was right, there is little
more to say about them. It is the notes from my critics that prompt either clarification
of or expansion on my original arguments, and they are what I will address here."
A Vote For Not Voting
October 16, 2004
by Ira Katz
"I am ready to donate my time and money to Non-Registration Drives. Instead of getting
out the vote, we can get in the non-vote. Believe it or not, the movement has already
started. This tentatively hopeful bumper sticker is now available that even I might
display: 'If we all stop voting, will they all go away?'"
Why I Do Not Vote
November 14, 2000
by Butler Shaffer
"To participate in politics is to consciously devote one’s energies to mass-mindedness; to
the statist proposition that collective thinking and collective behavior preempt the will
of the individual."
Why I Don't Vote
September 22, 2004
by Mark Reynolds
"So this is how I make my protest....I REFUSE TO PLAY THE GAME AND VOTE for someone who
is going to totally ignore the rules that have been laid down for the game."
Why I Won't Vote on May 5th - and Nor Should You
April 30, 2005
by Neil Lock
"The way to get rid of wars, terrorism, racism, bullying, political lies,
re-distribution of wealth, real environmental damage and the other evils of our age is
to get rid of politics. Politics has passed its last-use-by date. It is time we took it
off the shelf, and dropped it in the bin. And an important step towards that is for many
good people to unite in a resounding NO! to the politicians and their politically rich
hangers-on.
By refusing to vote on May 5th, you can do your bit to help."
Damnation of Bill Bradford
by Sam Konkin III
"An election campaign is not an educational endeavour, it is the opposite. Candidates
cash in on the prior education done by activists, and then distort and dilute it to
pick up a few marginal votes. No one who voted Libertarian ever was educated into
Libertarianism via a political campaign."
Don’t Vote!
October 4, 2002
by Robert Klassen
"Voting in political government is akin to driving the getaway car in a robbery, the
voter is an accessory to a crime. In the case of political government, the crime is
coercion against individuals carried out by the armed force which stands behind every
political law, every political lawmaker, and every political institution. Unlike the
world of free-markets, in political government when some individuals win, other
individuals lose."
The Ethics of Voting — Part I,
Part II,
Part III
by George H. Smith
"The purpose of this essay is to explore the moral implications of libertarians
(especially anarchists) holding political office, running for political office, or
assisting those who do — primarily through the vote. The ethics of voting cannot be
divorced from the key question of what one is voting for. And this, as I shall argue,
cannot be divorced from the institutional framework in which the voting occurs."
Introduction to Dissenting Electorate
by Carl Watner
"The primary purpose of this book is to prove that there is more to non-voting than
one's gut reaction not to participate. There are very important moral and political
reasons for not voting."
Introduction to Neither Bullets Nor Ballots
by Wendy McElroy
"It is time to have the differences between Voluntaryism and political libertarianism
clearly expressed and for non-political alternatives to be pursued."
I Support Coercion and I Vote
by Jon Sanders
"The meaning of “I support the arts and I vote” is not only obvious, it’s gushing with
smarmy priggishness. It also happens to be entirely self-defeating. The meaning is, of
course, “I don’t support the arts, but I vote for politicians who have convinced me
they’ll force you to give money to the arts.” What vainglorious hooey! Not only are they
tightwads who conscript others into paying for their desires, they’re proud of it. And
if that’s not enough, they expect us to appreciate them for it."
Is Voting an Act of Violence?
by Carl Watner
"In legal parlance, we would have to say that the voters, office holders, and other
participants in government have "aided and abetted" (incited, encouraged, countenanced)
the police, soldiers, and jailers who actually commit the physical aggression required
in order to bring about submission of the refuseniks. Various war crime tribunal
decisions since World War II have established that both elected officials and
dictatorial heads of state are legally responsible for the commission of crimes that
are committed under their orders, but not by their own hands. In other words, those
giving the instructions to soldiers to kill innocent civilians are responsible, even
though they do not personally hold the weapons or pull the triggers. Although this
principle of liability has never been extended backwards from political leaders to
those who participate in elections, it should be clear from this analysis that the
chain of responsibility extends from those who exercise the actual violence, to those
who give the orders that the violence be used, to those who participate in elections
which result in those political leaders being elected."
Living Slavery And All That
by Alan P. Koontz
"Using the slave analogy, the vote of each slave isn't just a choice of which
foreman will rule that slave, but is a choice of who will rule all of the slaves. Thus
each slave that votes is acting in the capacity of the master respecting his slaves. To
vote for a foreman is to take part in the process of other people's enslavement. It
should be clear, at least to Rothbard, that by voting, the slave in respect to his
peers is going as far beyond his or her natural rights as the master (or the foreman)
does respecting his or her slaves."
Pizzacracy: Majoritarianism Versus Unanimous Consent
by L. Neil Smith
"Nothing subject to majoritarianism ever gets better. "If voting could change
things," goes an old anarchist saying, "it would be illegal." Set aside the fact that
a voting majority always means a minority of the people. Set aside the fact that
elections amount to no more than choosing between the scum that floats to the top of
the barrel and the dregs that settle to the bottom. Even at majoritarianism's
self-advertised best, there are always losers."
Think Outside the Booth
by George F. Smith
"Elections are a way of rubber-stamping the racket. Your vote adds ink to their inkpad."
A Voluntary Political Government
by Charles Lane
"Like all our enemies, State oppression will die of itself if we meddle not with it. If
there be a voter in the land who knows not how to take moral care of himself and family, I
am sure the State will not help him in that respect; so that he gains nothing by contact
with it."
Voting – Again
September 2, 2004
by Robert Klassen
"If we don’t vote, they’ll just do what they want to us. Uh, right. And if we do vote,
they do what they want to us anyway, with our sanction. There is a difference."
Voting For The Lesser of Two Police States
March 25, 2004
by Anthony Gregory
"It’s impossible to know which of the two major candidates will bring about the lesser
police state.
To retain your dignity, the least you can do in November is refuse to give either of
these control freaks your express permission to rule you, your country, and the rest
of the world."
Why I Refuse to Register (To Vote or Pay Taxes)
by Anonymous
"When you play a game, you agree to abide by the rules and accept the outcome. Well,
I simply refuse to play, and in clear conscience can say that I am not bound by the
outcome."
Why I Would Not Vote
by Wendy McElroy
"No one has the right to place one human being in a position of political power over
another. A consistent libertarian can never authorize one human being to tax and control
peaceful activities. And the state is no more than the institutionalized embodiment of
this authorization."
Your Vote Counts!
September 17, 2004
by Robert Klassen
"Your vote counts in the marketplace, where your dollar elects goods and services. Your
vote also counts in political government, where your ballot elects force and fraud."
Is voting a crime?
by Roy Halliday
"Does the electorate actually have coercive power over the state? Or does the state
have coercive power over the public?"
Voting Is No Sin
by R. W. Bradford
"In our society, there are many means of convincing our fellows to change their
opinions. We can try to educate them. We can try to stimulate others to educate them. We
can set good examples by trying to live exemplary lives. We can organize debating
societies. We can write books about feminism, or publish magazines. We can do research,
or explore the frontiers of social thinking. And, if we choose, we can run for office,
using our campaign to spread the proposition that liberty is good."
The Charade of Participatory Democracy
by Ridgway K. Foley, Jr.
"Simply put, today’s town meeting never serves to correct or constrain the planner.
By means of careful orchestration, the state architects always produce seeming community
support for their preordained choices. Their supporters, often cloaked, always muster
forth with pat lines; their detractors strangely never receive notice of the meeting
or, if by mistake notice does arrive, they find it postponed, or their comments ignored,
or their participation strictly limited. The hearing room is always stifling in summer
and freezing in winter. The meetings are long-delayed or boring, so that citizens who
must arise in the morning to attend to work or school cannot stay until their regulated
turn arrives. Plan contents change magically and without notice. Transcripts and exhibits
vanish. All but the most hardy become discouraged, as the assault of the meetings
continues until all adversaries disappear from weariness or frustration."
Don't Vote: It makes more sense to play the lottery.
by Steven E. Landsburg
"Your vote didn't matter in 2000, it never mattered before 2000, and it's
very unlikely to start mattering now."
Every Vote is Wasted
October 6, 2000
by J. H. Huebert
"To say that "not voting is just like voting for the winner" is silly. Either way, the
person who will win, will do so regardless of what you, as an individual, do. So, sure,
not voting is like voting for the winner. It’s also like voting for the loser. It’s also
like writing in your own name and voting for yourself. Every option has an equal impact
on the outcome – none at all."
No Choice
March 6, 2004
by Brian Dunaway
"This voting season, will you legitimize the criminal gang running the country?
As Dr. Phil would say, 'How’s that workin’ for ya?'"
Pure Democracy
by Roy Halliday
"The principal characteristic of democracy is that it is a method for arriving at
decisions. And the most obvious fact about the democratic method for arriving at
decisions is that it is unscientific. The trend toward democratic government is a
symptom of a growing disbelief in a scientific approach to legal questions."
Rational Ignorance vs. Rational Irrationality
by Bryan Caplan
Voting Booths vs. the Marketplace
by T. Norman Van Cott
". . . people have more incentive to learn about refrigerators they're going to
buy as compared to senatorial candidates who restrict their refrigerator choices.
Ditto for the countless other goods and services bought and sold in the marketplace
every day."
Voting Versus the Market
by Bruno Leoni
"No procedural rule seems able to allow voters to act in the same flexible, independent,
consistent, and efficient way as operators employing individual choice in the market."
When Voting Makes No Sense
by Tibor R. Machan
"So if you stay home on election day, don’t feel guilty. The guilty ones are those who
have turned our governments into busybody institutions that have acquired tasks and
powers no one can keep an eye or mind on, let alone evaluate. Unlimited government is
incompatible with representative democracy."
Why does voting in a democracy seem futile?
by Freedom in the UK
"So next time you wonder why taxes keep going up here are two reasons (yes there
are even more!). 1) A majority vote heavier taxes onto a higher earning minority in
the hope of gaining more than they lose. 2) Special interests and government
departments can extract billions of your tax money with each programme's costs
being so thinly spread its hard for you to keep track."
How Important Is Your Vote?
by Lawrence W. Reed
"Sure, it would be nice if more people voted—but only if they know what they're doing
and if they're not doing it to grab something that doesn't belong to them. There's
nothing about voting by telephone or other such schemes that makes people smarter or
more honest, and there's nothing about stuffing the ballot box with more paper that
assures either freedom or representative government."
Mises and Bastiat on How Democracy Goes Wrong, Part I,
Part II
by Bryan Caplan
"The Bastiat-Mises view of democracy is often accused of being "pessimistic." This
is not only irrelevant; it is false. If special interests are in the driver's seat
of democracy, then economic education is in vain. Even if every voter understood
economics perfectly, inefficient policy would endure. The Bastiat-Mises view, in
contrast, makes economic education the key to a better world. Indeed, the topic
inspires both men to wax poetic."
On Throwing Away Your Vote
by Gary North
"I love to do my share, no matter how small, to make some career politician unhappy.
Voting for a third-party candidate makes no politician happy, and it makes at least
one politician unhappy: a major party's loser, who did not get my vote. No politician
is better off, and at least one politician is worse off. This is my application
of Pareto's famous law of optimality. (On this law, see Rothbard, "Toward a
Reconstruction of Utility and Welfare Economics.")
Furthermore, while I was inflicting my share of pain on a politician, I also got
to vote against a bond issue."
Tax Revolt and the Ballot
by Jacob Halbrooks
"If you expect that most people will submit to taxes, then it would be very dangerous
for you not to pay because then you would be easy to target. However, it is also clear
that it would be in everyone’s best interest not to pay taxes. How then can enough
people ever be persuaded that it is in their best interests not to pay? The answer,
ironically enough, might be through the ballot."
Who Should Vote?
by Walter E. Williams
"There should be a connection between one’s stake in the financial wherewithal of our
nation and one’s right to participate in the decision-making process, at least in
financial matters. We should consider adoption of a procedure similar to decision-making
in the corporate arena: you get to vote if you have financial stake in the country.
The size of your vote depends on how much of a stake you have. Therefore, at least
in federal elections, we might have a provision whereby a person would have one vote
per each one thousand dollars (or fraction thereof) that he paid in income taxes."
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