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The Great Democracy Scam The Austrian | November/December 2015 | 1 The A PUBLICATIONustrian OF THE MISES INSTITUTE Vol. 2, No. 5 September – October 2016 James Bovard on The Great Democracy Scam The ustrian A PUBLICATION OF THE MISES INSTITUTE 3 Jeff Deist – From the Publisher From the publisher 4 James Bovard on the Great Democracy Scam of 2016 7 Joseph Salerno on Old-Fashioned Protectionism 9 Mises’s Bibliographer Turns 99 10 Mises University 2016 12 David Gordon on the Hamilton Approach to Economic Growth 16 Q&A with Robert Luddy on Entrepreneurship 18 Louis Rouanet on Free Trade Formerly The Free Market, 1983–2014. Published 2016 (six times per year) by the Mises Institute under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ Publisher: Jeff Deist Editor: Ryan McMaken Managing Editor: Judith F. Thommesen Contributing Editors: David Gordon Joseph T. Salerno Mark Thornton Mises Institute 518 West Magnolia Avenue Auburn, AL 36832-4501 334.321.2100 | Fax: 334.321.2119 [email protected] | mises.org The Mises Institute is a nonprofit organiza- tion. Contributions are tax-deductible to the full extent of the law. Note: the views expressed in The Austrian are not neces- sarily those of the Mises Institute. The Austrian | September/October 2016 | 3 [email protected] • @jeffdeist challenged. Political unions in Scotland, in Catalonia, and even Texas threaten to dissolve. Millions of people see no benefit to themselves from going along with plans From the publisher hatched at the UN or IMF. Here in the US, politicians have lost control of the nar- Jeff Deist rative — with social media leading the way. Hillary and Obama have conspired to avoid her indict- e may someday look back on the summer of 2016 ment, paving the way for her coronation as president. But Was a turning point for America and the West. Cer- she remains as unpopular as her agenda of Wall Street tainly the last few months will be remembered as a time of enrichment, bombs-first foreign policy, and social justice great upheavals: the Brexit vote, horrific terrorist attacks nonsense. across Europe, a coup attempt in Turkey, police shootings and protests in Ameri- can cities, and a thoroughly divisive US “Majorities are no less exposed to error and presidential race. frustration than kings and dictators. That a fact As the election nears, the political is deemed true by the majority does not prove class struggles to maintain the façade of business as usual. But the old political its truth. That a policy is deemed expedient by paradigms are crumbling all around us, the majority does not prove its expediency. The as people across the planet awaken to the individuals who form the majority are not gods, and stark choice between globalism and self- determination. This new reality presents their joint conclusions are not necessarily godlike.” us with an opportunity to make the case for liberty — the case for the individual Ludwig von Mises, Omnipotent Government against the state — like never before. Brexit in particular was a stunning moment. It made us remember that ideas still have power. Trump has taken on PC enforcers and damaged the Elites in Europe and the US — always clamoring about political establishment. He’s said things you aren’t allowed “democracy” — were dumbfounded. Their agenda, once to say. But he doesn’t understand free trade or noninter- inevitable, suddenly seemed vulnerable. Brexit repre- ventionism, and backed off from earlier laudable state- sented a symbolic triumph of good ideas over bad ones. ments about the Fed. Meanwhile the Libertarian Party candidate doesn’t seem to understand or defend liberty Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard understood the at all. importance of self-determination. They knew that central- ization meant totalitarianism. Mises saw firsthand what Americans want something better. They’re turning Hitler meant for Europe, and offered a strong antidote: their backs on DC and Congress. They’re questioning poli- radical political devolution and secession, even down to ticians, media, and big banks like never before. They’re a single individual. Rothbard saw the fall of Soviet com- dismissing the self-appointed intelligentsia and self- munism and called for highly decentralized “nations by appointed academic gatekeepers. This is not the era of consent” — real nations, not phony political unions. Only Walter Cronkite or Newsweek or the New York Times. This is this could save the world from future wars and collectivist the era of a million instant social media responses to every bloodshed. official pronouncement. This is the era of feedback, where everyone has a voice — for better or worse. And for elites, But elites in the US and Europe failed to apply the les- it’s worse! sons learned from twentieth-century collectivism. Instead of embracing laissez-faire, the West doubled down on Why should 100 million Americans, give or take, be social democracy — just a soft version of pure socialism. governed by someone they hate? It’s the most important They granted more power to Brussels and Washington, not question of our time, and a huge opportunity to make the less. case for a society organized around civil society and mar- kets instead of politics. nn But today cracks in the globalist wall grow wider, and Brexit is just the beginning. All around the world, elites and their narrative are under fire. Central bankers are openly Jeff Deist is president of the Mises Institute. 4 || September/October November/December 2016 2015 | The | The Austrian Austrian The Great Democracy Scam of 2016 by James Bovard o matter who wins the presidential election next month, the media and the political class will whoop up the result as another triumph of American democracy. Regardless that the winning candidate’s path to power was paved with lies and shenanigans, we will be assured that “the system works.” But the only certainty at this point is that America will have Nanother bad president for the next four years. Only 9 percent of Americans cast a ballot during the primaries for one of the two major party candidates. The Democratic National Committee emails disclosed by Wikileaks proved that the Democratic Party did everything it could to stifle popular choice and fix the process to assure that Hillary Clinton received the nomination. On the Republican side, Donald Trump ran against a series of self-detonating candidates. There was nothing at the end of that race for old- fashioned G.O.P. voters who preferred a candidate who at least pretended he would obey the law. The Austrian | September/October 2016 | 5 We’ve Been Voting for “The Lesser the Internal Revenue Service will still have power to Evil” for Many Years hammer who it pleases, and federal agents will continue to have a de facto license to kill. Surveys show that most voters this year will choose Voting is now a way of conferring power and honors a candidate based on who they consider the “lesser evil.” on politicians, rather than a method of reining in rulers. But this has been standard fare in elections for decades. In the early American Republic, candidates would stress A New York Times story on the eve of the 1996 presi- their fidelity to the Constitution. But the Constitu- dential election quoted one voter who summarized the tion has long since vanished from the campaign trail, reality of modern democracy: “It’s a question of who can replaced by competing promises of new handouts and hurt us the least. I don’t think Mr. Clinton is going to fiercer attacks on imagined perils. hurt us, because he’s got too many other things to worry about” (referring to the Whitewater, Paula Jones, and other scandals). The sanction of “lesser evil” elections is paltry com- pared to that of elections won by a candidate who stands for the ideas and principles shared by a majority of voters. The fiction of majority rule provides a license to impose People are merely unlimited controls on the majority and everybody else. Because modern presidents combine vast arbitrary permitted to choose who power, pervasive secrecy, and a docile media, they can will violate the laws and usually do as they please. Rather than a democracy, we increasingly have an elective dictatorship. People are trample the Constitution. merely permitted to choose who will violate the laws and trample the Constitution. The Mythology of Democracy Modern democracy is based on faith that the people can control what they do not understand. Election results The mythology of American democracy is being are often only a one-day snapshot of transient mass delu- beaten like a rented mule this year. It is time to recog- sions. Most voters make little or no effort to understand nize how the government and much of the media have the policies that increasingly dominate their lives. Even sought to make people submit via the same type of delu- policies which decimate the savings of scores of millions sions that long propped up monarchs. In the 1500s, of Americans, such as the Federal Reserve’s zero interest peasants were encouraged to believe that the king was policy, rarely if ever show up on the radar screen. When chosen by God to serve His purposes on Earth. Today, candidates do discuss federal policies, they are confident Americans are encouraged to believe that a presidential most listeners do not know enough to recognize malar- candidate’s election is a sign of divine approval of his vic- key when they hear it. tory. In the 1600s, English yeomen were told that any After election day, pundits and politicians will limit on the king’s power was an affront to God.
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