The real question is, Can capitalism survive
democracy?
Capitalism as
an organized political/economic system is a free society based on Enlightenment
political principles. Those principles include individual rights, including
property rights; limited rights-protecting government; free markets; and
governance of objective law applied equally to all. In its original philosophic
conception, America is not a democracy. It is a constitutional republic that
has a democratic process. In a republic, the power of the vote is checked by
the constitutional limits on government power. The basic feature of capitalism,
which is integral to Americanism, is individual autonomy and self-governance,
within the confines established by the same rights of others. Consequently, the
individual needs the freedom of action, as defined by the principle of
individual rights, to live by the judgement of his own mind without coercive
interference from others, including others as government officials. For
capitalism to function, one’s rights should never be at risk in any election.
Democracy is
unlimited rule by electoral majority (or its elected representatives). The
basic premise of democracy is that the elected government can do whatever it
chooses to do to whomever it chooses based solely on the premise that it
represents the “will of the people” as expressed by victorious factions in
elections. There are no constitutional limits to government power except as
determined by government officials, and thus no way to protect individual
rights. When majority rule is the standard, there are no limiting principles to
that rule. Democracy is the rule of mob might, not objective law. “Freedom” is
basically government permission, and individual “rights” can be restricted or
discarded any time the government can claim it is acting on the “will of the
people: that is, there are no inalienable rights-which means, no rights
at all. Democracy, properly understood, is a manifestation of totalitarian
collectivism.
Do not confuse democracy with the democratic process
in a constitutional republic. If by “democracy” we mean the limited electoral
authority in a constitutional republic, there is no conflict between capitalism
and democracy, since the freedom of the individual is not at risk. However,
capitalism is incompatible with genuine democracy, which places no
constraints on the government’s force over individuals. In any conflict between
force and voluntarism, force will win--which means, in any conflict between
democracy and capitalism, democracy wins, making capitalism nonfunctional.
Freedom is not the right to vote. Freedom is the
right to live your life regardless of anyone else’s vote, so long as you
respect the same rights of others. In the proper understanding of the terms,
democracy can exist without capitalism, but not the other way around.
Capitalism, the system of inalienable individual liberty, cannot survive
genuine democracy, the system of majority rule.
Recommended for further study: on democracy and freedom, see Timothy Sandefur, The Conscience of the Constitution, especially Chapter One, “Democracy and Freedom”; on capitalism and freedom, see Andrew Bernstein, Capitalism Unbound: The Incontestable Moral Case for Individual Rights; and on the connection between rights and politics, see Tara Smith, “Moral Rights and Political Freedom.”
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