The Only Type of Democracy that Actually Works

Ryan McMaken takes a look at Ludwig von Mises's definition of "democracy" and how democracy only works when mixed with an unlimited right to secession.

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[EliW]

i was reading rothbards the progressive era, and one key thing i learned from it is that through the expansion of the civil service, especially under teddy roosevelt, government officials would be increasingly frozen in place and the number of unelected government officials was continuously expanded. in some sense the first roosevelt administration sowed the seeds of the bureaucratic state and the second roosevelt greatly expanded upon it

the main problem may be that the regime benefits from claiming to be democratic while being governed by mostly unelected bureaucrats in practice

[RodCornholio]

What an insult to the ideas of Rothbard. No Democracy "works", unless you consider voting with your money i.e. buying a product or service, investing, gambling, etc. where you want. Democracy is a process, not a way to ensure ethical behavior.

[matthorrocks]

No one is really elected anymore. It's just a show. Like professional wrestling.

[homewall]

Why is it "fair" that when voting, each person gets one vote, but when it comes to taxes, nobody would claim it's fair to tax everyone the same amount? And when democracy has more than 2 things to vote on, we get a plurality winning, not even a majority.

[homewall]

If you don't vote for others who vote on issues, it's not democracy. The "demos" is the people, and we do have such voting in states that support initiatives. And we have such democracy in other voting scenarios, like in jobs, families, neighborhoods, etc. It is important to keep a distinction between voting for the issue at hand, versus voting for others who then vote on many issues without any input from you. They clearly are not the same thing.

[Cotswolds]

The answer is parliamentary democracy, the one we rebelled against.