VOICE AND GROWTH: WAS CHURCHILL RIGHT?

The debate over whether political democracy is the least bad regime, as Churchill once said, remains unresolved because history has been ignored or misread, and because recent statistical studies have not chosen the right tests. Using too little historical information, and mistaking formal democratic rules for true voice, has understated the gains from spreading political voice more equally. This paper draws on a deeper history, reinterpreting five key experiences to show how the institutional channels linking voice and growth are themselves evolving with the economy. Up to about the early nineteenth century, the key institutional link was property rights and contract enforcement. Since the early nineteenth century, the human-investment channel has assumed an ever-greater role. This trend will probably continue. A telltale sign of damage to growth from elite rule is the under-investment of public funds in egalitarian human capital, especially primary schooling, relative to historical norms for successful economies.

On the afternoon of November 11th, 1947, the Opposition leader Winston Churchill gave the House of Commons, and posterity, his famous defense of democracy:

No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time; but there is the broad feeling in our country that the people should rule, continuously rule, and that public opinion, expressed by all constitutional means, should shape, guide, and control the actions of Ministers who are their servants and not their masters....”¹

In fact, Churchill was trying to block the advance of democracy on that November day. He was defending the power of the House of Lords to block measures advanced by a popularly elected government.

[ You provide a description of government in Britain as mob rule, but provide no justification. Further, you provide absolutely no justification of why it is not so in the United States. ]

ALL democracy is mob rule..
-or- rule by a consortium of mobs.. No democracy that ever existed was not a socialist system.. Socialism is slavery by government. And democracy is the social disease that has socialism as a symptom.. not the disease itself..

America is a republic. We don't have the words democracy or democratic anywhere in our Constitution. For obvious reasons too.. Democracy is a social disease as our founders knew well.. England never learned that, to this day they have not learned that.. According to the American Constitution the States are the clients and the federal gov't is a vassal..

Albeit(Americans) in this century(and after the civil war here) many have stealty tried to reverse this fact.. The fact remains that the federal gov't is merely a vassal.. The States are sovereign.. and according to our Constitution ALL our "rights" are given by God, not the government.. federal or otherwise.. thats why they are inalienable rights. The only one that can alienate them is a federal government.. We have the 2nd amendment to make revolution LEGAL.. England don't have that.. because England has zero "rights" anyway, merely privileges granted by government.. Not only England, but NO democracy, has any "rights".. Thats why we are a republic and NOT a democracy.. Democracy cannot exist when the people have rights.. so they give faux rights to the people masking rights.. If the people had "rights" socialism could not exist for long.. Thats why England has zero rights.. merely privileges granted by government..

In the United States we have "rights" not granted by our government at all, but by God.. so alienating them is illegal.. Which God.?. nobody knows, the Constitution don't say, just a generic God.. Thats good enough.. only socialists know which God they serve.. the god of dialectic materialism.. Thats why England has a very very primitive government.. Mob Rule by mobsters all mobbed up..

Pity too, but then England educated our founders on exactly HOW to NOT to create a government.. and they were wise to England's gross errors.. and to the source of those errors.. democracy only being one source of Mob Rule.. URP always was rabble all mobbed up, still is too.. Merely Mobs with territorys unlike the United States where those in the know, despise mobs, especially democrat ones.. They are RATs you know.. Rats infected with socialism..

I guess I'm supposed to bite on this hehe, ok why not.

ALL democracy is mob rule.. -or- rule by a consortium of mobs.. No democracy that ever existed was not a socialist system.. Socialism is slavery by government. And democracy is the social disease that has socialism as a symptom.. not the disease itself..

Ok good we have a starting point of agreement.

Agreed, yes the authors of the Constitution despised democracy.

The rest of the argument is where the problems appear.

Specifically

According to the American Constitution the States are the clients and the federal gov't is a vassal..

Albeit(Americans) in this century(and after the civil war here) many have stealty tried to reverse this fact.. The fact remains that the federal gov't is merely a vassal.. The States are sovereign..

Sorry, the War Between the States (lets start there since it was in no way a Civil War, the Confederacy had no interest in overthrowing the Union government) did alot more than "stealthly reduce" the sovereignty of the states - it completely obliterated it. You have to know that was what the war was all about - slavery was just the flashpoint issue. The Confederacy held the doctrine of nullification ie they could ignore federal law - state law was superior. Lincoln said no and sent in the troops, effectively overturning the 10th amendment, centralizing power in Washington. And so we start the inevitable march to the situation today where the states are but vassals to the federal government, to borrow your language. A constitution is only a piece of paper unless it is followed and we have ignored ours for 150 years or more.

Pity too, but then England educated our founders on exactly HOW to NOT to create a government.. and they were wise to England's gross errors.

English law is based on common law - actually a far wiser system than positive law. Common law is based on the conceptual framework that law exists independently, it is not created by man nor is it subject to change by man. It is applied by judges on a case by case basis usually with a great reliance on precendent and local traditions. Common law is by it's very nature innately conservative. It is subsidiarity in action, the opposite is universal positive law where there is one law made for all occasions in all places whether it be appropriate or not. Positive law centralizes power. Which is more just?

The difference between a republic and a democracy is a matter of perspective. In a republic people elect an individual based on his character, judgement, reputation etc to represent their interests. In a democracy the people elect someone to rubber stamp the opinion of the majority. Now take a look at the political news, this forum or any other source on American politics and tell me which one you think we have? I bet you find 10 threads on FR alone on how some politician or another is "twarting the will of the people" because he acted contrary to the wishes of his constituents. In fact the only way to be re-elected to anything is to convince enough people not that you will do what is right, but that you will do what they want

America is an indirect democracy at the federal level with a number of states becoming more and more direct democracies (how many referendums on your state ballot this year? 6 in Indiana I can tell you. CA is famous for this) And what do we hear when the judges say nay to the outcomes of these exercises in direct democracy? YOU CAN'T DO THAT, THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN

Bah, the people are a beast and an easily manipulated beast at that.

Back to Churchill

"The best argument against democracy is a 5 minute conversation with the average voter"

(paraphrased)

Found this article by a monarchist on LewRockwell (several of them there), discussing this very statement.

Sir Winston L. S. Churchill is frequently quoted when critiques of democracy surface. However, according to von Kuehnelt-Leddihn Churchill’s quote is taken out of context and abused: "Some people like to quote Churchill to the effect that democracy was a bad form of government, but nevertheless better than all the others. (The mature Churchill never believed in democracy, least of all, one suspects, after May 1945.) But here he is once again quoted out of context. He was merely referring to the superiority of (liberal) democracy over ‘all the other forms that have been tried from time to time.’" He knew only too well that democracy represented a relatively short interlude in world history and his reference to the other forms was aimed at the various leftist tyrannies.

Binary Math Against Democracy

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