Books › Democracy
Democracy
The God that Failed
220 pages
A provocative, systematic deconstruction of the modern state that challenges foundational assumptions about democracy and governance.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like stepping into a rigorous, uncompromising seminar on radical political economy. The pace is steady and methodical, driven by an axiomatic-deductive approach that builds complex economic and sociological theorems step by step. The mood is deeply intellectual and revisionist, asking the reader to abandon deeply held assumptions about the progress of Western civilization. Instead of a celebratory history of democracy, the atmosphere is steeped in a critical examination of societal decline, rising crime, and the expanding mega-state. The prose is analytical and theoretical, demanding careful attention as it constructs a case for a natural order based entirely on private property. It will delight readers who crave provocative, heterodox political theory and those fascinated by the intersections of conservatism, libertarianism, and anarcho-capitalism.
- Mood
- intellectual
- serious
- ideological
- uncompromising
- Tone
- analytical
- revisionist
- provocative
- systematic
- Pace
- steady
- Themes
- the nature of the state · private property and natural order · civilizational decline · time preference and economics · anarcho-capitalism
- The writing
- Axiomatic-deductive and highly theoretical, building complex sociological and economic theorems to interpret history.
- The arc
- Moves from a critical deconstruction of accepted political systems to a resolute defense of a private-property-based natural order.
- Who it's for
- Readers interested in radical libertarian theory, Austrian economics, and revisionist political philosophy.
Content notes
- discussions of societal degeneration
- discussions of rising crime
About the book
The core of this book is a systematic treatment of the historic transformation of the West from monarchy to democracy. Revisionist in nature, it reaches the conclusion that monarchy is a lesser evil than democracy, but outlines deficiencies in both. Its methodology is axiomatic-deductive, allowing the writer to derive economic and sociological theorems, and then apply them to interpret historical events.
A compelling chapter on time preference describes the progress of civilization as lowering time preferences as capital structure is built, and explains how the interaction between people can lower time all around, with interesting parallels to the Ricardian Law of Association. By focusing on this transformation, the author is able to interpret many historical phenomena, such as rising levels of crime, degeneration of standards of conduct and morality, and the growth of the mega-state. In underscoring the deficiencies of both monarchy and democracy, the author demonstrates how these systems are both inferior to a natural order based on private-property.
Hoppe deconstructs the classical liberal belief in the possibility of limited government and calls for an alignment of conservatism and libertarianism as natural allies with common goals. He defends the proper role of the production of defense as undertaken by insurance companies on a free market, and describes the emergence of private law among competing insurers.
Having established a natural order as superior on utilitarian grounds, the author goes on to assess the prospects for achieving a natural order. Informed by his analysis of the deficiencies of social democracy, and armed with the social theory of legitimation, he forsees secession as the likely future of the US and Europe, resulting in a multitude of region and city-states. This book complements the author's previous work defending the ethics of private property and natural order. Democracy - The God that Failed will be of interest to scholars and students of history, political economy, and political philosophy.
Description from Open Library.
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