We share many essential views, yet a handful of notable disagreements remain.
On October 4, I published a post titled “Libertarianism and Democracy,” offering a critique of political philosopher Matt Zwolinski’s earlier Liberalism.Org piece on the same topic. Earlier today, I shared Matt’s reply to my post. The present article serves as my response:
I appreciate Matt’s thoughtful and insightful reply. We agree on several essential points, including that democracy generally outperforms authoritarian rule, that libertarian criticisms of democracy hold substantial merit, and that—in much of the world—the gravest threats to liberty now come from the nationalist right rather than from the political left. Yet we still diverge on a handful of substantive questions related to libertarianism and democracy.
The Nature Libertarian Critiques of Democracy
The core disagreement concerns what libertarian critiques of democracy are fundamentally about. Matt claims that “[m]ost of what Ilya calls the libertarian critique of democracy is really a critique of big government.” If that were true, libertarians could simply attack big government in general while praising democracy at the same time.
There are indeed drawbacks of large government that appear irrespective of whether the regime is democratic or authoritarian. However, the flaws I highlighted in my earlier Liberalism.Org piece are, in fact, specific to democratic systems. They include the tyranny of the majority, voter ignorance, and the tendency of democracy to offer openings for illiberal forces to seize power and—in the worst scenarios—to undermine or even erase democracy itself. The tyranny of the majority is plainly a problem distinctive to democracy. The same applies to the problem of rational voter ignorance, which stems from the distorted incentives facing individual voters, who have only an infinitesimal chance of swaying electoral outcomes. And, while illiberal forces can and do seize power under authoritarian regimes, the pathways created by democracies (usually via elections) are distinct and consequential.
Autocratic systems have their own pronounced flaws, which are typically even more severe. But the distinctive nature of democracy’s flaws means they cannot simply be folded into a generic critique of big government. Moreover, as I noted in response to Matt, these distinctive flaws of democracy lie at the heart of many of today’s gravest threats to liberty and justice in numerous democracies, including those posed by nationalist right movements. Therefore, libertarians should underscore the character and seriousness of these weaknesses, and advocate proposals to address them—solutions that in many cases differ from, and may be superior to, those offered by other strands of liberal thought. As I have stressed before, this area is one where libertarians often enjoy a comparative advantage over other liberals. By contrast, we generally lack a comparable edge when it comes to arguing that democracy is inherently superior to authoritarianism.
Along related lines, Matt suggests that libertarian critiques of the state aren’t “an argument against democratic control of whatever the state does do.” Yet once we acknowledge democracy’s significant distinctive flaws, there is in fact a case for shielding certain governmental functions from direct democratic control. Obvious examples include the judiciary and monetary policy (unless one prefers to eliminate government involvement in the latter entirely and adopt a system of free banking). Indeed, even many non-libertarian liberals recognize that such insulation is desirable in some contexts, most notably the courts.
The Problem of Libertarians Tempted by Authoritarianism
Matt contends that we should nevertheless devote substantial effort to extolling democracy, because doing so is likely to influence fellow libertarians who might otherwise be drawn to authoritarianism. It seems plausible that libertarians at risk of such a lure are more easily persuaded by peers within libertarian circles than by outsiders. But these individuals represent a small minority within a minority. Libertarians constitute a small share of the population (roughly 5–10% of the U.S. population, or even less depending on where one draws the line). Those sympathetic to authoritarianism are even rarer. Consequently, it makes little sense to allocate more than a modest amount of time to them, relative to addressing the much larger group of non-libertarian liberals who should become more aware of democracy’s dangerous shortcomings.
Moreover, when we look at libertarians who have shifted toward the “alt-right” or otherwise embraced illiberal ideas, the core issue is rarely excessive skepticism about democracy. Instead, it is a weak commitment to liberty—especially the liberty of people from different ethnic, racial, or religious backgrounds, migrants, and those with unconventional ways of life. This is particularly evident in the cases of Curtis Yarvin and Hans-Hermann Hoppe, whom Matt mentions. Yarvin’s advocacy of a “post-liberal” ideology of repression (rooted in pre-liberal premises) clearly does not stem from a belief that authoritarianism better protects liberty than democracy. In fact, his concern is the opposite—that democracy enables too much liberty. Hoppe’s push for restricting immigration, and his opposition to gays and other non-traditional lifestyles, illustrate a similar logic. Peter Thiel, the third instance Matt cites, has moved from libertarianism toward “national conservatism,” a doctrine centered on privileging majority ethnic and cultural interests and using the state to punish perceived enemies. If the goal is to discourage such trajectories, it should be to reaffirm the value of liberty for everyone, not to praise democracy as a universal solution. Those who prize democracy over liberty are unlikely to embrace libertarianism in the first place.
Two Smaller Issues
Matt and I also diverge modestly on whether there exist situations in which some form of authoritarian rule could be a lesser evil than democracy. I view such cases as extremely rare but not entirely impossible. Matt’s stance is somewhat less explicit, and perhaps I misread him. Nevertheless, he seems inclined to deny this possibility. In response to my examples of postwar Allied occupations of Germany and Japan, he appears to suggest these do not count because “those occupations were run by democracies answerable to their own voters, and they ended.” Yet they remained episodes in which a non-democratic regime was imposed on a population that did not control when or whether the occupation would end.
In those instances, a non-democratic occupation government represented a lesser evil than a rapid imposition of democracy, given the high illiberal leanings of the German and Japanese majority at the time. Similar conditions could arise in other countries. And in some scenarios, an internally generated authoritarian regime might still be the lesser evil relative to any feasible democracy at that moment.
There are situations in which the problem can be addressed by curbing democracy rather than discarding it altogether. For example, as I noted in my earlier reply, post-occupation West Germany barred Nazis and communists from contesting elections while continuing to uphold free electoral competition. But there could be contexts where such restraints are not sufficient. Because these cases are quite rare, this is not a central dispute, yet it has relevance when considering how to handle a society where majority opinion is profoundly illiberal.
Finally—and this is the least consequential point—Matt and I disagree on the labeling of “libertarian” versus “classical liberal,” arguing that the former is more prone to democracy-skepticism than the latter. We could define the terms to separate such tendencies, but that is not how they are usually employed. Different people use these labels in different ways. In my view, they largely amount to alternative terms for the same general philosophy. I don’t object to others preferring different usages, so long as they are clear about what they mean.
Ultimately, Matt and I share far more than we differ on, though a few disagreements carry genuine significance. I am grateful for the chance to ponder them.
