Democracy has become the civic religion of modern developed countries. Romantic notions of the Will of The People supposedly give legitimacy to the coercive actions of government. These actions aren’t really coercive, it is argued, since voting gives us all a say on what the government does – the people consent to being ruled.
Most of us here at the Fr33 Agent Network are no fans of democracy. No doubt we all see things slightly differently, but I think there are three major reasons to mock the vote and voters:
Democracy is an Immoral System
Something doesn’t become right just because 50%+1 of the population say so. The very core of democracy is the idea that the numerical majority on any issue will have its way, with the minority being forced to submit. Imagine a world of just three people. When two off these people use their superior physical strength to gang up on the other, stealing his stuff and making him their slave, we call it thuggery. When they do it through the voting booth we call it the Voice of the People.
In my opinion, Spider Jerusalem of Warren Ellis’s wonderful comic Transmetropolitan illustrates the moral problem of the tyranny of the majority better than anyone else (click image to enlarge).
Voting is Stupid
Public Choice economists have long pointed out that voting is an irrational act if intended to influence policy. A single vote is only decisive when an election would otherwise be tied. In even the smallest electorates we see today, the probability of this is vanishingly close to zero. The standard response to this argument goes something like: “But what if everyone though that way? I think it’s important to vote because if nobody voted, there would be nobody to make sure we have the smartest and most bestest politicians who know what’s best for us. I love Obama. LOL.”
Unless you’re some kind of highly influential trendsetter, though, your decision to vote has little or no effect on whether anyone else chooses to vote. The decision you face is not between nobody voting and everyone voting, but between x people voting and x+1 people voting. That extra one person among thousands or millions is never going to make a difference.
Voting Brings Out the Worst in People
If voting is irrational, why do people do it? Economist (and market anarchist) Bryan Caplan provides the answer in his book The Myth of the Rational Voter and explains why bad government policies tend to be popular even among those most harmed by them. Drawing on earlier work which argued that people vote to express their opinions and values rather than influence policy, Caplan argues that people have preferences over their own beliefs, and will believe whatever makes them feel good when there are no consequences of doing so.
Small-group evolution has given us innate cognitive biases, most of which tend to be illiberal. We are predisposed to be suspicious of foreigners and to underestimate the capacity of markets to improve human wellbeing, for example. While these biases are with us in all spheres of life, the voting booth shields us from reality and gives our biases carte blanche to favour illiberal actions. Nobody has the incentive to step back and think: “Hmm, maybe it wasn’t the foreigners that tuk er jerbs.” The market constantly punishes the stupid and bigoted; democracy rewards them with warm fuzzies.
This is why you won’t find many people here or at Fr33 Agents Social urging you to vote for the Libertarian Party (much less one of the major parties). We see democracy as an immoral system – based on force and biased against libertarian ideas – and don’t see much prospect of that changing any time soon. By providing the illusion of choice, it placates otherwise decent people into accepting and supporting horribly unjust actions like the war on drugs. We see the tyranny of the majority as being just as illegitimate as any other tyranny and will not support it.
Brad Taylor is a graduate student in Political Science at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. He blogs at 
It’s great to have you writing for Fr33 Agents, Brad. This post was money.
Voting is immoral because it is force; it’s an attempt to inflict your preferred flavour of tyranny on everyone else.
At the risk of splitting hairs, I’m not sure I’d say voting is immoral. The public choice argument shows us that a single person voting has no effect, so you’re not actually fucking anyone else over by voting. I sold my vote in the last general election here in New Zealand, which kind of made me feel like a mercenary (which was awesome), but not in a violent way.
I’m probably more of a consequentialist than most folks here, though. If something doesn’t have any effect on anyone else, I don’t see it as morally wrong.
It’s the system that’s immoral. Don’t hate the player; hate the game.
I understand your point, but no one forces you to play the game – you’re choosing to take part so you are endorsing the state; force.
@Moss – here in ‘Straya’ (Australia) we ARE forced to play the game (we have compulsory voting).
That said, I still don’t vote – and being one of them thar conspiracy Freemasons, I’m not on the rolls either. (By which I mean – there are laws, and there are ‘laws’: compulsory voting is a ‘law’, whereas a proscription against unprovoked assault is a law).
Let me pre-empt any person who claims that only attendance is required on polling day – even though that alone is tyranny enough… Look at the Electoral Act and you will see that even though the ballot is secret, people are required to cast a VALID ballot: the fact that you can’t be caught breaking the ‘law’ doesn’t mean you didn’t break it.
{note – ‘law’ is always in quotes when discussing things that only have force because a bunch of tax-parasites decreed it ought to be so.}
@BradTaylor: Kia Ora! And… you’re a bad person for voting, since it implies acceptance of a system whereby gang rape (or the eradication of short men, or red-heads, or both [preferably]) is morally right so long as it’s put to a vote.
Politicians cannot legislate what is RIGHT: as was observed in South Park, it is always a choice between a giant douche and a turd sandwich (or in my taxonomy, between AIDS and tertiary syphilis). However, they have the armed thugs that they can deploy to force heir livestock (us) to do as they decree.
Cheerio
GT
Kia Ora, Geoffrey! Nice to have another person from down-under in the mix.
I’m just too much of a consequentialist (that is, I judge the morality of actions based only on the consequences they’re likely to have) to accept that any sort of symbolic acceptance of the system is morally bad. You may find it distasteful or whatever, but by voting I’m not really hurting anyone. My vote counts for nothing and can do neither good nor harm.
If I couldn’t sell my vote, I wouldn’t participate in elections because voting is stupid and I’d get negative expressive value from stating my preference for which gang of thugs I want in charge for the next three years.
Selling my vote just seems awesome to me, and I’ll try to do it next time as well.
Hi again Brad,
The “my vote doesn’t count, so I’m sort-of not contributing to tyranny” view is sort of like the ’sorites paradox’… each grain of sand is not very irritating even if it’s in your jocks, but if you have a sand dune down there you want to remove as many grains as possible.
Likewise, one vote will never tip the balance – but Socrates was put to death by a majority vote of jurors, each of whom could rightly tell themselves that their vote did not matter.
The consequence of one single instance of voting is – as you rightly point out – minuscule… but it’s always negative (it has a negative externality).
That said, I am certain that even if NOBODY voted, some political-parasite scumbag would declare that they had a ‘mandate to govern’. That’s why I want the lot of them ground up and fed to pigs.
And I hate to say it (because he was a politician) but I was mighty impressed when Lange told the Yanks they couldn’t park their floating Death Stars in NZ harbours.
Cheers
GT
Moss, right on. Voting and running for office are entirely *immoral* activities. And it’s all about moral correctness. Matters of strategy or effectiveness follow from that.
I echo Jason’s statement. Great piece. Imagine if we get voter turnout for presidential elections down to 10-15%… That would be a much greater political statement than an LP member getting even 25% of a presidential vote, in my opinion.
Once the people stop voting the government will lose some of that air of legitimacy and be seen for what it should be, irrelevant.
I absolutely agree. Now we have to think of a slogan as brilliant as “Mock teh Vote.” No small task.
And I must say that I am more than a little curious about Brad’s vote selling. Kinda got my nefarious mind racing at the moment.
Tried listing my vote on the nz version of ebay, but it got pulled down within an hour, vote-selling being against The Law and all that. Was at a party the night before election day and had a live auction with drunk people. Good times, and I got $32 from memory.
The electoral system here is MMP, so each person votes for a both party and a candidate in their election. Both were for conservative parties – one garden-variety moderately conservative, the other fiscally-centrist and very socially conservative.
That’s about as concrete an example of mocking the vote as I have ever heard.
Brilliant!
It was great insofar as it made the others present (there was only one other person there even mildly libertarian) reflect on how little a vote is worth to them. I was secretly hoping it would go for much less than it did to make the point more obvious, but $32 ain’t much for something which is supposedly the fundamental right of every citizen. The girl who bought it seemed to have buyers remorse once sober, too. I actually felt bad taking her money for something I don’t value at all.
I would also like to note that voting is immoral based on the fact that if we do not have the right to force a particular lifestyle on someone (i.e. accepting or not accepting gay marriage) then it is impossible for us to give that right (which we don’t have) to a 3rd party (in this case the government) to force on someone else.
Very nice work, Brad.
Something doesn’t become right just because 50%+1 of the population say so.
And we all know it is frequently much worse than that. For example, 34,197 people in Austin voted for a smoking ban in 2005. Austin’s estimated population in 2000 was 650,000+. Assuming the rosiest democratic outcome where every sentient citizen votes, that means 5% of the population approved the use of force against the other 95%. Of course, those 34,197 accounted for 51.83% of voters and therefore – voilà! – everyone else must submit.
Good shtuff.
Don’t post much on blogs but wanted to chime: Once mentioned casually in a California Freedom piece that I wrote as Libertarian Party of California executive director that democracy is evil and it was removed by the then editor. When I was a kid, that was not a controversial position in the LP. If anything, it was a given.
If you’re not still a kid, I’m gonna burn my anarcho-membership card.
This was almost a great piece – all it needs to push it over the edge is a link to my Beyond Folk Activism essay
.
Personally, I don’t think the immorality / illegitimacy arguments are as strong as the consequentalist arguments. Voting is useless for libertarians for the reasons I give in my essay: 1) we are the minority (at most 1/6th of population), 2) we underperform in elections because we don’t get the extra cash from selling out. Even if it was moral, it would be useless.
Sorry Patri. I’m planning on putting a piece up on seasteading sometime soon, though.
I basically agree with you on the immoral/useless focus, but I think both are important. If democracy were legitimate, we should all just stfu and accept the will of the people.
“We hate voting and think it just promotes the tyranny of the majority… so vote for us so we can exert our views on everyone else!”
LMFAO
So what type of political system do you propose we replace democracy with?
None.
You understand that anarchy is just privatized tyranny.
No, anarchy is just a stateless society. Without government, actors who initiate force have no monopoly on force and thus are *weaker*. Without the government getting in the way of people defending themselves, it will be a much leveler playing field.
But if you want government, I respect your preference. Will you respect my preference and allow me to opt out of your government?
Yes.
Bill, for some reason there is no reply link on your last comment,but …
Cool! In that case you’re a de facto anarchist anyway. See:
http://is.gd/16lvN
@BillSnyder – if you permit people to opt out, you will have anarchy.
It is only the fact that government refuses to recognise the populace’s right to withdraw consent, that enables governments to do what they do (which is, to kill people at a greater rate, and with greater attendant costs, than smallpox ever did).
You can argue public-goods stuff all you like (I’m a bit of an expert on that sort of crap), but three letters get rid of all those pissy little triangles of extra consumer surplus generated by expanding output of public goods to some divinely ordained ‘optimal’ level.
Those three letters: W… A… R. one aircraft carrier will waste enough resources during its lifetime, to offset the entire net social benefit of a vaccination program of the same lifespan.
Only the state will waste money on aircraft carriers, crude missiles, nukes and so forth. And of course only the State can force young men to go and kill and die for (or against) any of the myriad lies that the State peddles (be it ‘Lebensraum’, ‘Manifest Destiny’, or ‘Bringing Starbucks to Iran’).
Voluntary payment of taxes (that is, pay taxes if you think what you get is worth it) means the absolute inability of government to run deficits (since nobody would buy bonds over the debt due to the increased likelihood of ‘taxpayer flight’).
Join the fight. Replace slavery with freedom. (If you think you are not a slave, try and resist the State’s attempts to take half of your income: unless you yield, you will wind up dead).
Cheerio
GT
PS – yes, I’m an extremist: I blame the State for the 1918 flu, since it was demobbed soldiers (the largest cohort of travellers in human history to that point) who enabled the flu to spread to0 regions it had not business being in… and of course everyone finished WWI malnourished, enabling the flu to work its wonders even more efficiently.
@George: Comment reply nesting is limited to 5 levels for the sake of sanity.
Good policy. I just didn’t want Bill to get confused.
If there are to be any decisions to be made collectively and enforced upon everyone, I think some sort of democracy is the best available way to make such decisions. What I want is there to be far fewer, and ultimately zero, decisions made collectively.
I’d also be in favour of limits on democratic power to protect minorities. Constitutions are anti-democratic. I don’t think mere parchment is ever capable of eliminating the tyranny of the majority, but constitutional structure – division of power, federalism, supermajority requirements – can go some way towards promoting individual rights. That’s never going to give us anything remotely close to a truly free society, but it’s a limit on democracy and can improve things slightly.
I’m pretty much down with anarchism (though I do worry about a de facto state re-emerging), but I’m not too optimistic about it ever coming about within the boundaries of existing states, which is why I like the idea of seasteading.
All I was really only trying to say, though, was: (1) We should not feel morally bound by unjust laws just because a majority favours them. (2) No individual has any effect by voting, and shouldn’t bother. (3)Democratic decisions are bound to be bad.
I don’t want libertarians wasting their time on electoral politics. Instead I think we should be doing what we can to escape government control, and creating institutions to compete with government – privately providing public goods to demonstrate to people that government is unnecessary. Government only has power over us so long as the vast majority of people accept it as legitimate and fund its activities.
The mathematical argument described here reminds me suddenly (and hilariously) of a description of state lotteries that I heard from one of my favorite cynics:
“The lottery is a tax on people who are bad at math.”
All that aside, maybe I need to read more comic books.
Voting, in a Democracy, *is* Immoral. . . Voting in a Constitutional Republic (as the US is *supposed* to be), is not. . .
Here’s the difference:
In a Democracy, 50+1% of the voters can vote to rob and kill the remaining 49%, and it’s perfectly legal.
In a Constitutional Republic, 50+1% of the voters can vote to rob and kill the remaining 49%, and as the Constitution disallows it, too bad so sad, you voted for nothing.
Which is why Duh Gubmint (and their Corporate Media Whores) spend so much time pushing “Democracy” down our throats – to scam us into believing, as they do, that the Constitution is only an old piece of paper. . . and damned if it doesn’t work – virtually everyone I talk to, when I say Constitutional Republic, give me the deer-in-the-headlights look of incomprehension. . . and then try to convince me we live in a Democracy.
“I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.” ~ Robert A. Heinlein