The False Binary Between Freedom and Equality (Part II)

“What constitutes a sufficiently high level of education and intelligence to participate in politics is unclear, and advocates of these elitist positions are suspiciously prone to announcing the cut-off point lies with individuals roughly as capable and qualified as themselves.”

Introduction

In the first part of the series, I traced the contentious relationship between liberalism and democracy. I observed that many classical liberals had a lukewarm relationship to democratic values. They saw them as essential to representing the interests of citizens while preventing the emergence of authoritarian tyranny. At the same time many liberals were concerned that granting too much power to the people would result in a different and far worse kind of tyranny: that of the majority ruling over a minority and violating their natural rights. These concerns were certainly justifiable, as there are many examples of precisely this kind of marginalization occurring; though it is worth noting liberal democracies were hardly immune to majoritarian tyranny-for instance against African Americans.

The other criticisms of democracy levelled by liberals were less convincing.  These include worries that democratic polities will redistribute property, and that the average person is simply too uneducated or foolish to be granted a substantial say in their government. In the section below I will discuss some objections to these positions.  I will then conclude this piece by observing why embracing a more democratic and egalitarian position can help us stem the tide of post-modern conservative populism currently sweeping much of the developed world.

Liberal Objections to Democracy

Alongside the understandable argument about a potential tyranny of the majority, the most consistent argument one sees liberals level against democracy is its potential to illegitimately seek a redistribution of property. Locke famously proclaimed property to be a “natural right” which the government could not infringe upon, and not coincidentally was reticent to grant the poor and property less substantial democratic rights lest they seek to change their condition through redistributive efforts. The American founding fathers shared these concerns, and proclaimed property rights amongst the most important to be upheld by government. They were also consequently concerned to ensure no democratic efforts could infringe upon them. And of course many contemporary classical liberals and Robert Nozick share these concerns, including luminaries like F.A. Hayek. For some of them, seizing a person’s private property-generated through their labor and exchanges-was little different than making them a slave. As expressed in Nozick’s great book Anarchy, State, and Utopia:

“Seizing the results of someone’s labor is equivalent to seizing hours from him and directing him to carry on various activities…This process whereby they take this decision from you makes them a part-owner of you; it gives them a property right in you. Just as having such partial control and power of decision, by right, over an animal or inanimate object would be to have a property right in it.”