In the first episode of a new podcast started by this brilliant economist, he discusses a very controversial topic : is monarchy actually a better system than democracy ?
Before you start talking about ‘King Modi’, please see the following quote from Hoppe, reproduced by Saifedean in his shownotes :
“Traditional monarchies only resemble dictatorships superficially. Instead, dictatorships are a regular outgrowth of mass democracy. Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, and Mao were distinctly democratic rulers as compared to the former Emperors of Russia, Germany, Austria, and China. Indeed, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, and Mao (and almost all of their smaller and lesser known successors) were outspoken in their hatred of everything monarchic and aristocratic. They knew that they owed their rise to democratic mass politics, and they employed democratic politics (elections, referenda, mass rallies, mass media propaganda, etc.) throughout their reign.“
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Podcast Seminar 1 Notes, August 20, 2020
Main points on Monarchy vs Democracy
- Time preference
- Security of property
- War
- Democracy has perverse selection
- Democracy legitimates government
- Kings don’t owe anybody anything
- Rise of civilizations under monarchy
Relevant quote from Hoppe: “Traditional monarchies only resemble dictatorships superficially. Instead, dictatorships are a regular outgrowth of mass democracy. Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, and Mao were distinctly democratic rulers as compared to the former Emperors of Russia, Germany, Austria, and China. Indeed, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, and Mao (and almost all of their smaller and lesser known successors) were outspoken in their hatred of everything monarchic and aristocratic. They knew that they owed their rise to democratic mass politics, and they employed democratic politics (elections, referenda, mass rallies, mass media propaganda, etc.) throughout their reign.”
Further Readings:
Hoppe, Democracy: The God That Failed
Hoppe, Political Economy of Monarchy and Democracy
Hoppe, The Myth of National Defense
Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, Monarchy and War
Leland Yeager, A Libertarian Case for Monarchy
On MicroStrategy’s purchase of Bitcoin, see my recent email to my mailing list.
Here is the wikipedia page of the founder of Harvard‘s nutrition department, which contains amazing insights into his and his university’s contributions to the promotion of industrial sludge as food.
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