Democracy In Crisis

History Is Littered With Fallen Empires

The title of this blog post is intentionally patterned after the famous book “Democracy in America” by Alexis de Tocqueville.

Democracy is arguably the best form of government humans have ever come up with, but democracy is by far no guarantor that such governments will not share the fate of decline by their own doing.

The Great Recession

First, the global housing crisis, then the financial sector crisis, followed by a sovereign debt crisis of overextended welfare states all have exposed the ineptitude of our elected politicians. Politicians who understand how the free market economy works are extremely rare. Most of them are as clueless as the current two-term US President Obama.

First of all, our elected politicians are responsible for all these crisis by having implemented over decades flawed policies like affordable housing for everyone; financial sector overregulation and bailout; recklessly low interest rates over long periods; a major ever expanding monetary union (EMU) at any price and by breaching key contracts; and so on.

Inherent Expansion Of Soft Despotism In Democracies

The term soft despotism is believed to be coined by Alexis de Tocqueville. Almost 200 years after his death we can note that the trajectory of soft despotism lead to the big governments we all are now so familiar with in western democracies. This unhealthy growth of paternalism is to be reversed. The sooner, the better.

Long forgotten are the ideals of the founders of America such as individual liberty and limited government.

In Tocqueville’s own words:

“It [big government] covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.

Our contemporaries are constantly excited by two conflicting passions: they want to be led, and they wish to remain free. As they cannot destroy either the one or the other of these contrary propensities, they strive to satisfy them both at once. They devise a sole, tutelary, and all-powerful form of government, but elected by the people. They combine the principle of centralization and that of popular sovereignty; this gives them a respite: they console themselves for being in tutelage by the reflection that they have chosen their own guardians. Every man allows himself to be put in leading-strings, because he sees that it is not a person or a class of persons, but the people at large who hold the end of his chain.

By this system the people shake off their state of dependence just long enough to select their master and then relapse into it again. A great many persons at the present day are quite contented with this sort of compromise between administrative despotism and the sovereignty of the people; and they think they have done enough for the protection of individual freedom when they have surrendered it to the power of the nation at large.”

“Democracy, Tocqueville argued, was capable of breeding its own form of despotism, albeit of the “soft” variety. He spoke of “an immense protective power” that took all responsibility for everyone’s happiness—just so long as this power remained “sole agent and judge of it.” This power, Tocqueville projected, would “resemble parental authority” but would try to keep people “in perpetual childhood” by relieving people “from all the trouble of thinking and all the cares of living.”” (source).

Restore Limited Government

1.       Amend the constitution to limit the size of all government to less than 33% of GDP.

2.       Amend the constitution to require balanced, comprehensively defined government budgets except in times of major emergencies or war.

3.       Privatize the public sector to the maximum extent possible. No exceptions!

4.       Amend the constitution, for as long as government is responsible for monetary policy, that short-term nominal interest rates cannot be set lower than the inflation rate plus productivity growth.

Strict Term Limits For The Entire Public Sector

What is good for the diplomatic corps, i.e. the rotation of diplomats and staff every so often is good for elected politicians, police officers, judges, and bureaucrats.

Anybody involved in public service ought to be term limited no matter which branch of government, legislative, administrative, law enforcement, or judiciary. If appointed or elected or hired in the public sector you will be in public service for a limited time only. Nobody should plan on a lifelong career in public service.

Light At The End Of The Tunnel

Democracy of all forms of government that have been tried before has a better chance to heal itself.