The Rational Egoist

Today we hear numerous times that our government wants the rest of the world to enjoy “democracy” as the United States does, and that the system of democracy is the best there is. This representation of the American system of government as “democracy” is inaccurate, and democracy is not an ideal system at all. In fact, a democracy is merely another form of dictatorship.

In the system of democracy, the dictates of a certain majority determine what is right and what is wrong for the government to do. So, the purpose of the government in a democracy is to do anything that the majority (the people) wants them to do. If the majority decided that an individual in their society was “undesirable,” they could vote to have that individual executed, or imprisoned, or punished in some other way. An example of such a society was that of Ancient Greece, where the majority of Greece citizens voted to execute Socrates (considered to be the first major philosophical figure) because he advocated “unpopular” views. Or, the people could vote to enslave a section of society, or slaughter a group of society, any horrible thing they wanted to do as a “majority.”

Therefore, in a democracy, a human being does not have inalienable rights but rather is “provided” with their rights according to the majority, which can be revoked at any time whenever the majority dictates it. This means that, in such a society, you would only have your freedom by permission. You would only have “permission” to live and to pursue your happiness as long as a majority of people will it. Such a democracy is merely another form of dictatorship because there is absolutely no protection of the biggest minority in a society, the individual.

What makes the American system of government distinctly free is the fact that this country is founded on the profound notion that every human being regardless of race, sex, religion, etc., has certain inalienable rights: the right to life, and all of its deriviatives, the right to property, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. (While this notion was not completely recognized by the American government at our foundation, this profound notion was still the philosophical cause for the formation of our government).

This means that the American system of government can not be referred to as a democracy, but rather a constitutional republic. In a constitutional republic, there is an exact constitution which determines the powers of government and how such a government recognizes the inalienable rights of its citizens.

However, in America today, our system of government has become a combination between the dictatorship of a democracy and a free constitutional republic. According to the founding of this country, every individual has the right to their own life, which means, the right to be free from the initiation of force from others and that every individual has the right to take whatever actions they deem necessary by their own independent judgment to be beneficial to their own life as long as they do not violate the rights of others in the process. Today however, while most people still retain the protection of their rights, if people get a large enough group together and pressure their elected representatives, many times they “persuade” their elected representives to push for new laws which violate the rights of some individuals for the benefit of some group. For example, enough poor people get together to form a large enough majority, and then persuade their representatives to violate the rights of certain rich individuals by forcibly taking their money and giving it to the poor people (income taxes). In this example, a certain majority gets together and decides that they want to force certain “undesirables in society” (the rich) to do whatever the majority wills (they will that the rich do not really “need” all that money, so there is no problem in stealing portions of it from them).

The blatant violation of individual rights is not merely limited to the issue of income taxes. There are numerous other issues (and many more pending by more and more groups) which violate and threaten to violate the rights of individuals. These groups believe that a certain end is desirable and thereby attempt to amass a large enough majority in order to force the rest of the country to achieve that end by “persuading” their elected representatives to pass new laws doing so.

In America today, both “the right” and “the left” have accepted the premise that it is right for the government to force individuals to pursue certain ends regardless of whether or not those individuals choose to do so. The only difference between “the right” and “the left” is about in what ways the government should force individuals and violate their rights. The right typically believes that the government should leave individuals free in most economic affairs but should heavily legislate morality (religion, sexuality, abortion, etc.) The left typically believes that the government should leave individuals free in morality but should heavily legislate economic affairs.

The essential characteristic of a dictatorship is a certain group forcing all of its citizens to achieve ends regardless of whether or not the citizens choose to do so or not. Which group is doing the forcing determines what kind of dictatorship it is, but it still remains a dictatorship nonetheless. Therefore, a democracy IS a dictatorship, because in a democracy, the actions of individuals are not determined by the choices of the individuals themselves but rather a certain group, in this case, a majority.

The premise that the government should force individuals to achieve certain ends is the premise of only one kind of society…dictatorship. Fortunately, America has not accepted this premise fully…yet. However, as long as this premise in our society goes unchecked, a dictatorship will ultimately be the result.