A Critique of Democracy, by Michael Anissimov, and Democracy: The God that Failed, by Hans-Hermann Hoppe. Anissimov claims that Hoppe’s analysis can be used to justify a preference for monarchy over democracy. Anissimov writes,
The proposal for private rather than public government, at its core, is extremely simple: for something to be properly valued and taken care of it [sic], it must be owned. That includes government. If we want a government that is properly taken care of for the long term, it must be owned by someone. That means no democracy. Does this mean we’re sacrificing our “freedom”? No, because I don’t define freedom as being able to cast one meaningless vote among millions in an election.
I have no problem with belittling the value of the voice option. But it is not obvious to me that monarchy would work well.
First, there is the succession problem. As a citizen, I value continuity. A succession crisis, particularly one that turns violent, is going to create bad discontinuity. My reading of history is that monarchies tend to have succession crises.
Second, there is the problem of retaining the exit option. Just as I tend to place little value on voice, I place a high value on exit. Hoppe writes,
States will always try to enlarge their exploitation and tax base. In doing so, however, they will come into conflict with other, competing states.
I am more inclined to think that democracies will tend not vote to go to war purely to engage in expansion, whereas there is nothing to stop a monarch from doing so.
A bit later, Hoppe writes,
A small government has many close competitors, and if it taxes and regulates its own subjects visibly
more than its competitors, it is bound to suffer from the emigration of labor and capital and a corresponding loss of future tax revenue.
I believe that a monarch has a very strong incentive to try to close off the exit option. Our democracy may very well do this by making you forfeit some of your wealth if you give up citizenship. But still, I think that democracies will tend to be looser about allowing their citizens to leave.