The Era of 'Democracy' Must End
Time for the Next Big rEvolution in Human Governance
Cover page | Preface | Introduction 1 | Introduction 2 | Introduction 3 |
(Part I) Why: 1.0
PART I:
Humans, We Have a Problem
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
—The Declaration of Independence, 1776
Chapter 1: WHY
1.0 Prologue
Centuries ago, humankind began to leave behind the longstanding myth that some of us are born to rule and others to be ruled. By the end of World War I, the majority of princes had been replaced by parliaments, kings by congresses, and queens by quorums. Thenceforward, we were told, “the people” would reign supreme.
The era of monarchy was over, and a new age of democracy had begun. We had finally realized, as a species, that hereditary authority has been a fiction all along. No one is born with an automatic right to be in charge.
This necessary evolution, however, did not produce the expected deliverance: we had simply traded monarchs for majorities, aristocrats for administrators, and one privileged elite for another. We are still abused and oppressed. Our fate is still in the hands of people who claim a “right” to rule over us.
Our job now is to figure out what went wrong…and fix it.
To keep it simple, we will refer to the era of hereditary rule as HumanGovernance 1.0.
During this era, much of your fate was in the hands of an oligarchy: a monarch and his cabal of advisors, and the hierarchy of hereditary nobles arrayed beneath. You could still make some personal decisions, but your station in life was fixed and your range of decisions quite limited.
HumanGovernance 2.0 (democracy, for shorthand) certainly offered many improvements: a better understanding of, and respect for, individual rights; a greater possibility of economic and social mobility; and more control over your own life. Yet here in this “modern” era, your fate is still in the hands of others.
In its most idealized form—yes, even in a carefully constructed constitutional republic'—democracy involves one group of people gaining enough power to force their agenda, and even their way of life, on another group of people. You may have free will, but other people are still imposing things upon you to which you clearly did not consent. The names have changed, but the problem remains.
And democracy, in practice, is far worse than the idealized form described in its brochure…
A representative democracy may start out as elected officials making all the decisions, but it doesn’t stays that way for long. In short order, politicians hand real power over to bureaucrats. The bureaucracy grows larger. Agencies expand in scope and power. Powerful private interests then capture these bureaucracies and agencies—using them to write the rules by which they will be governed, hobble their competitors, and distribute their “costs” onto taxpayers.
Eventually, the rest of the country gets in on the game and the whole operation becomes, as Bastiat so aptly described, “That great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else.”
HumanGovernance 1.0 at least had the virtue of being simple. HumanGovernance 2.0 became exactly what Alexis de Tocqueville predicted it would: A complicated administrative despotism. A multi-tentacled exsanguination machine. A gordian knot of people and interests attempting to exert power and siphon resources.
And, in the final indignity, the whole system is there for the taking—allowing a new oligarchy of “elites,” out of sight and out of reach, to pull the right strings and impose their shadowy agenda on all of us.
No amount of “eternal vigilance” will solve these problems. This was all inevitable from the start. Democracy is a snowball on a one-way trip down the mountain…growing in size as it crushes the individual human person. The boot may be shiny and have rainbow laces, but it is a boot nonetheless, and it too is stamping on a human face forever.
Believing that any of this can be fixed with more voting is like trying to dry off by jumping in a lake. Like trying to become a virgin by having sex. Like…well, you get the idea.
Similarly, the belief that any of this can be fixed by a return to some mythical “original” condition of the American constitutional republic is its own kind of fantasy. A patriotic fantasy. An understandable fantasy. But a fantasy nonetheless.
No such condition ever existed. No such return is possible. And frankly, we look ridiculous and impotent as we frantically try to cram that toothpaste back into its tube…year after year, decade after decade. To borrow again from Regina and Mean Girls, “Stop trying to make ‘fetch’ happen. It’s not going to happen.” The answer does not lie in the past.
Our problem, first and foremost, lies in the fact that we continue to believe some things that are just plain wrong:
That we are so rotten as a species that we are incapable of governing ourselves.
That we only have two choices: government or chaos.
That the insecurity of the ‘state of nature’ is definitely worse than the violence of government.
That we must have a ‘social contract’ imposed upon us by force and without our consent.
That limited government can be created and then kept limited.
That any kind of democracy can fix any of this, and that the solution to democracy’s problems is to democracy harder.
Under HumanGovernance 1.0, you were born into a system you did not create. A system that tells you your place. A system that puts your fate in the hands of others. Kings. Queens. Councils. Nobles.
A tiny number of people decide for you, and everyone else, and you are forced to obey.
Under HumanGovernance 2.0, you were born into a system you did not create. A system that claims that you consented to it, even though you clearly did not. A system that puts your fate in the hands of others. Presidents and parliaments. Bureaucrats and operatives. Voting majorities, special interests, and shadowy billionaires.
A million people decide for you, and you are forced to obey.
It’s time for 3.0. It is time for YOU to decide for you.
Tired of the doom scroll? Want solutions? Help me make that happen with your support today!
25 points for "A multi-tentacled exsanguination machine."
Your punditry and penmanship is eloquent and succinct, the message built on a solid foundation with a clear structure of your vision for our future. Your composition evokes a virtuous and inspirational message. Your works are always quite readable and flowing, and this post is a work of art. You have "the gift" and your book may bring about what you dream of; the forward momentum that may stir the souls of humankind to assert their sovereign agency. That, my friend, is the definition of 'patriotism'.
I stand up and applaud!
Ah wonderfully well said. Your analogies relate the current condition of man like butter on bread. The question I keep asking statists is, "Do you really want what you want?" The sexual revolution gave us license but no liberty to have genuine relationship with the opposite sex. It resulted in more insecurity and rigidity than ever. But people won't admit to these types of failures.
We don't always want what we want. Because those "revolutions" only devastate us in the end. It's our mental/emotional framework, not the society that needs to expire. Where we keep thinking making things better depends on remodeling the room, yet the whole building is falling apart.
The assumption that adults require other adults to manage them and the whole world is a childish fantasy that cannot be maintained when we choose to become mature, rational, and responsible adults. We have to build a new house. One where we trust our inner compass to direct our actions in accordance with actual cause and effect. Where we submit to natural law, not some other adults dictum.