Against Democracy by Jason Brennan

Author:Jason Brennan [Brennan, Jason]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Is King Carl Acting Unjustly?

Imagine that the unfortunate kingdom of Bungleland suffers under the rule of King Carl the Incompetent. For the most part, King Carl means well. But as his epithet implies, King Carl is incompetent.

A good king would have a strong grasp of history, sociology, economics, and moral philosophy—all subjects needed to understand which policies secure social justice and promote the common good. Despite his ignorance, Carl has strong opinions about all these subjects. He does not form his political beliefs and policy preferences after examining evidence. Instead, he tends to hold political beliefs that he finds flattering. He chooses beliefs and courses of action that reinforce his self-image. Often, Carl just chooses in the heat of the moment, based on his gut feelings. He pays little attention to the consequences of his actions. Carl takes credit for any good that happens during his reign, but blames bad results on his political enemies. He has no clue whether he’s making things better or worse.

Bungleland is a constitutional monarchy. By law, Carl must respect basic liberal rights, such as the right to free speech and the right of immunity to arbitrary search and seizure. And for the most part, Carl does respect these rights. For the most part, Bungleland enjoys the rule of law.

Still, King Carl retains expansive discretionary power inside these constitutional limits. He may choose economic, environmental, educational, land use, and foreign policies. He appoints nearly every position in government. Carl may start wars, change property regimes, set central bank interest rates, impose tariffs and trade restrictions, issue industrial and commercial regulations, transfer wealth from one person to another, create licenses and restrictions on entry into professions, tax at whatever level he prefers, choose public school curricula, legalize or criminalize drugs, decide which people may enter or leave the kingdom, determine the penalties for breaking the law, and much more. Moreover, sometimes he exceeds the authority granted to him by his country’s constitution, and much of the time, he gets away with it.

Carl’s subjects bear the burden of his mistakes. His subjects face profligate spending, high debt, foolish underregulation in some places, and foolish overregulation in others. They suffer through symbolic politics; Carl frequently chooses counterproductive policies because, in his mind, imposing those policies shows his commitment to noble goals. Carl’s subjects live with lower economic opportunities, higher crime, higher prices, and greater injustice than they would under a competent ruler. His decisions can deprive citizens (and foreigners) of opportunity, liberty, property, and even life.

Now ask, Is Bungleland a just regime? One might think it’s obviously not—after all, Bungleland is a monarchy. Monarchies tend to imbue a king with political power just because they gestated in the right womb at the right time. That is, it seems like a silly way to distribute political power. And so most modern readers conclude that monarchies are inherently unjust. Suppose they are right. Now ask, Is that the only problem with Bungleland?

Consider, in contrast, Rivendell, ruled by Lord Elrond the Wise.

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