Democracy: The God That Failed

Specifications of the Monarchical System:The government of a country under monarchy is privately owned by the monarch, who controls it as his estate. He and his agents alone have the right to arbitrate disputes and collect taxes within his domain. He does not necessarily own everything and private property exists. A monarch passes ownership of government on to his heir at death, and traditional monarchies lasted for centuries. See [1].Criterion: Economic Prosperity“Economic” is used in the Misesian sense of people acting according to their preferences [2]. A system of government which enables people to fulfill as many of their desires as possible is ideal. We cannot arbitrarily decide for people what their desires should be, so we can only prefer a system that gives people maximal freedom in pursuing their interests. This means that capitalism is preferable to socialism, and we will see that it is always the most damaging aspects of socialism that result from democracy.Methodology:We should employ ceteris paribus assumptions when comparing monarchy and democracy. We cannot compare economic prosperity in 14th Century France to 21st Century France or France to Saudi Arabia for obvious reasons. Consider only the cause-effect relationships that monarchy and democracy have had in specific places and times to determine their overall worth.Arguments:C1. Public and Private WarWar is the most significant and destructive event that can be caused by a government. It is economically ideal that war be avoided entirely because it results only in the production of goods that do not enhance human well-being and destroys people and their property [3]. Under monarchy, wars are fought between two men, not two nations, which drastically reduces their scale and cements the line between combatants and innocents [4,5]. Monarchs bore all the risk and costs of war, so they engaged in more limited conflicts over territory rather than ideology, and they were limited in their ability to raise money for war by taxation (see Legitimacy) [6]. Military spending has doubled or quadrupled since the far more volatile monarchical era as a result of the democratic system [7].C2. Time PreferenceA monarch rules his kingdom for life and passes it on to his heir, so he is interested in both its short-term success and its long-term value [8]. Accordingly, he will not raise taxes when growth would be limited, mobilize costly wars, or deplete capital unless he foresees a major payoff. He can weigh the future value of his kingdom against the present value of depleting its resources[9,10]. Rulers limited by term limits and the risk of losing the next election must use resources now without regard for the future, resulting in capital depletion and economic destruction [11].C3. Economic CalculationA caretaker of a publicly-owned good only has access to its current use; he cannot sell it, and without a price system he has no rational way to determine if a good is being used optimally. In a free-market, prices for capital enable it to be allocated far more efficiently than if we merely estimated what it should be used for, as under socialism [12]. Furthermore, without prices the care-taker does not know the value of a good and so he cannot compare the value lost by its depletion through use to the value of the goods he can produce with it [13]. This means that a publicly-owed government of any kind does not know how to use its resources properly; only a monarch who can run his nation like a business can make rational economic decisions.C4. Legitimacy and Public RelationsA. LegitimacyA monarch's ownership of his estate is based on the rule of law, and so it is in his interest uphold the laws of old and the rule of law and order [14]. European monarchs did not make laws, they were considered as subject to the rule of law as any other person [15]. Hence, a monarch was severely limited in his ability to encroach on the property of others, living in constant fear that they would encroach on his. A monarch asked his nobility for taxes, he did not force them upon them [16]. Devaluing the currency through coin clipping and assaulting innocent people was viewed with the utmost suspicion, and monarchs never succeeded in switching over to fiat money [17]. The idea of law and order and legitimacy has been so twisted under democracy that it no longer limits government.B. Public RelationsIt is well known that only the monarch and his closest associates have any chance of ruling the government under monarchy. The common man knows that he has no chance of ever controlling the government, and so he is resistant to its every attempt to expand [18]. The government under monarchy was never able to gain the power to legislate morality, restrict free trade, and encroach on the lives of its people the way that democratic governments do ubiquitously [19]. Under democracy, the common man, believing that government is ruled by his agents and could even someday be ruled by him, does not resist its constant growth in power and dominance [20]. The result is the almost totalitarian authority which modern democracies now wield.C5. Monarchy contra SocialismA. MonarchyUnder monarchy, the king is concerned primarily with the well-being of himself and the productive members of society. He will permit only the immigration of individuals who improve society and will rule his kingdom so as to facilitate the success of wealth-generating individuals [21]. The king has no interest whatsoever in redistributing his own wealth and resources for the benefit of unproductive members of society. This will result in a systematic incentive to produce and contribute to society [22].B. SocialismUnlike monarchy, a publicly owned government will cater to the interests of all the members of society to gain their support. This will include a growing number of worthless individuals that do not produce, but live on the wealth of others [23]. While a king wants to expel a bum from his realm, that bum is likely to be the democratic redistributionist's biggest supporter [24]. The result is a systematic incentive toward consumption and nonproduction and the depletion of wealth [25]. Historically, as the right to vote was expanded, socialism overtook classical liberalism as the electorate's position [26].C6. Social Degeneracy As a result of the rise of democracy, people have become less responsible, more hedonistic, and intellectually and morally deficient, and respect for law and order has declined. The regular creation of new law from nothing made law and order, morality and decency, nothing more than the ephemeral opinion of the electorate. Accordingly, crime has increased dramatically and steadily under democracy independent of other factors [27]. Rates of divorce, abortion, illegitimacy, unemployment, dependency, obesity, and other signs of social decay have increased rapidly as a result of egalitarianism and the destruction of traditional social bonds by the welfare state [28].Overview Economic Consequences:As a result of the transition from monarchy to democracy, the following effects have resulted: The tax rate has increased from 5-8% under monarchy to upwards of 50% under democracy [29]. Government employment has increased from 3-5% of the workforce to over 20% [30]. The value of currency has started to fall rather than rise, culminating in the loss of 96% of the value of the US dollar since 1913 [31]. Real interest rates have risen from their historical low of 2.5% to 4-5%, their value in the 15th Century when Western civilization was immeasurably less wealthy [32]. Savings rates, and accordingly the rate of capital accumulation, has not increased since the 17th Century [33]. National debts have increased to levels never before seen in history [34]. This is the economic result of the replacement of monarchy with democracy.Sources:http://tinyurl.com...