A historical or current example where democracy successfully, by way of voting, shrunk the size of its government extensively to a more minarchist position.
Will you have some unicorns with that? :p
I can get plenty of examples where people actually believed that voting gave them control over limiting their government.
Lets just say it is the best thing government has ever done to legitmize itself and convince the public that THEY are the one's running the government.
Robbery: The nation's fastest growing career!
Duties: Giving the people their bread and circuses, extracting payment by force, validating legitimacy, etc.
Job Outlook: Ever increasing and shows no signs of stopping!
Libertarian_for_Life:I can get plenty of examples where people actually believed that voting gave them control over limiting their government.
Well i want to use this as a challenge to mincharists. Beleiving they shrunk the government does not mean they did. I want want some type of impirical evidence which proves the government's size actually decreased. This should be a fairly easy thing to measure with the common economic tools we presently have.
Are you all sure there is no example, not even a freakish one where by accident a government shrunk in size due to voting? I'm talking in aggregate of coarse, not in small isolated examples.
The closest I could think of would be Switzerland. All tax raises and so on must also pass a referendum, and they are usually defeated. It's by no means minarchy, but the government is constantly subject to approval by the citizens.
Periodically the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots.
Thomas Jefferson
Well the Polish noble assembly suceeded in completely stripping the king of his powers. But it did not exactly result in less government. The powers were just transfered onto the nobles, and the lot of the serfs was actually made worse than it had been. That is all I can think of.
But that's not shrinking the government. It's not letting the government raise taxes. Have they shrunk it?
Marko: Well the Polish noble assembly suceeded in completely stripping the king of his powers. But it did not exactly result in less government. The powers were just transfered onto the nobles, and the lot of the serfs was actually made worse than it had been. That is all I can think of.
Is this a democratic example?
Wanderer: The closest I could think of would be Switzerland. All tax raises and so on must also pass a referendum, and they are usually defeated. It's by no means minarchy, but the government is constantly subject to approval by the citizens.
Interesting. Does this actually reverse the growth of the state or only slow it down?
I'm a little hazy and maybe there's nothing in it, but perhaps check out Estonia?
Where there is no property there is no justice; a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid
Fools! not to see that what they madly desire would be a calamity to them as no hands but their own could bring
filc: Is this a democratic example?
filc: A historical or current example where democracy successfully, by way of voting, shrunk the size of its government extensively to a more minarchist position.
I'm not sure if this is precisely what you're looking for, but it may be relevant? It seems to suggest 'gross' decline in post-war government size, though at the same time it seems to concede that pre to post-war, the 'net' size of government did indeed increase. Anyway, a fairly interesting read.
The 1946 Voter Revolt Against Government Regulation
Short of revolution, I can't think of many instances where a government has shrunk.
Any decolonization that may have occured due to democratic vote
Dondoolee: Any decolonization that may have occured due to democratic vote
This is awfully confusing. If they voted to decolonize. I'm assuming the vote held some power. What entity upheld the power of that vote? It sounds like a state replacing a state. Can you be more specific? It doesn't sound like a shrinking of the state.