Hoppe says democracy is inferior at protecting at protecting individual liberty compared to a monarchy, but I haven't seen him address a few issues with autocracy, mainly Lincoln (in his day, at least) being very undemocratic and unpopular.
Another issue is a lot of the British Kings were tyrants.
His logic makes sense to me (in that it's not in a monarch's best interest to wage countless wars), but monarchs, like all other humans, won't always do what's in their best interest.
Was Lincoln a monarch? Was he raised as a king? Was he part of a long family-line of royalty, and would his son get the throne?
Hoppe is talking about the old-style kings (especially the ones who didn't have a monopoly of arbitration and who didn't fight ideological wars), and not Hitler-type democratic politicians turned dictators.
He talks about it quite extensively in this series:
http://mises.org/media.aspx?action=category&ID=66
Criticism of autocracy is everywhere. Hoppe was providing a criticism of democracy which is virtually unknown/ignored. This doesn't mean that he was in turn ignoring the evils of autocracy.
The fact that a Lincoln or a Hitler can get elected under a democracy without even 40% of the vote is a pretty good argument against democracy. Lincoln would have actually been elected even if all of the votes for his opponents had been combined, as he received a majority of the vote in enough states to have a majority in the electoral college.
I understand Hoppe's arguments against democracy and in favor of monarchy, but the reason why democracy was introduced in Britain was to protect the people from tyrant Kings. The Parliament was originally a body that represented the property owners of England to protect their property. This is why voting was originally restricted to property owners and only to the head of the household.
Suffrage was expanded during the 19th century to all white males in both Britain and America. During the 20th century, suffrage was expanded to women. Both of these acts made the government significantly larger by giving the vote to groups that were much more likely to favor statist policies.
I'm convinced that monarchy is preferable to universal suffrage democracy. However, a democracy or a constitutional monarchy with limited suffrage (preferably limited to property owners and 1 vote per household; even if we returned to just universal male suffrage, we would probably have a significantly more libertarian society, as women are empirically more statist then men on average and on most issues) would probably be more likely to protect private property than either a monarchy or a univeral suffrage democracy.
It is no coincidence that the social-democratic parties were the ones that led the push for every expansion of suffrage. Of course, these are moot points, as we will never restore monarchy or repeal the expansions of suffrage. Our only viable options are either to work within the present system or to replace it with anarchism.
As bad as democracy is, the one thing that you should absolutely not do is to refrain from voting. Under this system, politicians have to pander to a number of voting blocks to get elected. By not voting, you marginalize yourself and thus politicians will not pander to you, nor will your views be debated publicly. In democratic politics, a vocal and politically active minority can make a significant impact (for example, look at the success of the environmentalists). I believe that, if anarchism is ever achieved, it will probably be achieved after we have enough anarchists to be able to win an election and even then, we will need a crisis to be able to win.
Lincoln would have actually been elected even if all of the votes for his opponents had been combined, as he received a majority of the vote in enough states to have a majority in the electoral college.
Which, in turn, is a pretty good argument for the position the election he won was not democratic.
The Parliament was originally a body that represented the property owners of England to protect their property.
Of course taking into account Rothbard's land theft argument the parliament actually represented precisely the non-owners and excluded precisely the owners.
Statism is Crime: As bad as democracy is, the one thing that you should absolutely not do is to refrain from voting.... I believe that, if anarchism is ever achieved, it will probably be achieved after we have enough anarchists to be able to win an election and even then, we will need a crisis to be able to win.
As bad as democracy is, the one thing that you should absolutely not do is to refrain from voting.... I believe that, if anarchism is ever achieved, it will probably be achieved after we have enough anarchists to be able to win an election and even then, we will need a crisis to be able to win.
Change will not come by the vote. The vote may have some impact on ballot initiatives, but not for elected office positions. Voting will will not effect the direction of government. Anyone ever elected with enough behind him to make a real change in direction won’t survive the trip.
There will never be a majority for anarchists. Do the math. More than half the population gets more in benefits from the state than pays into the state - either as various forms of transfer payments, direct employment, or indirect employment. They will not volunteer to give up their “rights.” Of the rest, there is certainly a large pool of "believers.”
If you look to hope for anarchy, work to educate. The current system must complete the death it is suffering. When it does, something will replace it. People may look for a bigger beast to worship, or they may decide on a more local version - community, church, whatever. A committed and dedicated minority will make a difference. The outcome can be anything at that time, no reason it can't be a greatly diminished state.
Rather than voting and political activism, I plan to become wealthy enough to start my own competing libertarian/anarchocapitalist society most likely in international waters. As hard as this may be it still is much easier then converting most of the existing voting block into libertarians. Demonstrating a functional society without the state would be a huge blow against the current popular statist government system.
Secession is indeed the only viable strategy. Most people will feel under attack If you try to take away their belowed state from them.
How do those of us who aren't Tony Stark obtain liberty?