Hans-Hermann Hoppe on who rises to the top of a democracy

Democracy virtually assures that only bad and dangerous men will ever rise to the top of government.

~ Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Democracy: The God That Failed

2001

Hans-Hermann Hoppe on how egalitarianism and cultural relativism threaten the family and private property

[A] community always faces the double and related threat of egalitarianism and cultural relativism.  Egalitarianism, in every shape and form, is incompatible with the idea of private property.  Private property implies exclusivity, inequality, and difference.  And cultural relativism is incompatible with the fundamental - indeed foundational - fact of families and intergenerational kinship relations.  Families and kinship relations imply cultural absolutism.  As a matter of socio-phychological fact, both egalitarian and relativistic sentiments find steady support among newer generations of adolescents... Adolescence is marked by regular (and for this stage normal) outbreaks of rebellion by the young against the discipline imposed on them by family life and parental authority.  Cultural relativism and multiculturalism provide the ideological instrument of emancipating oneself from these constraints.  And egalitarianism - based on the infantile view that property is "given" (and thus distributed arbitrarily) rather than individually appropriated and produced (and hence, distributed justly, i.e., in accordance with personal productivity) - provides the intellectual means by which the rebellious youths can lay claim to the economic resources necessary for a life free of and outside the disciplinary framework of families.

[...]

[S]o long as the threat of moral relativism and egalitarianism is restricted to a small proportion of juveniles and young adults for only a brief period in life (until they settle back into family-constrained adulthood), it may well be sufficient to do nothing at all.  The proponents of cultural relativism and egalitarianism would represent little more than temporary embarassments or irritations...  A small dose of ridicule and contempt may be all that is needed to contain the... threat.  The situation is very different, however, and rather more drastic measures might be required, once the spirit of moral relativism and egalitarianism has taken hold among adult members of society: among mothers, fathers, and heads of households and firms.

As soon as mature members of society habitually express acceptance or even advocate egalitarian sentiments, whether in the form of democracy (majority rule) or of communism, it becomes essential that other members, and in particular the natural social elites, be prepared to act decisively and, in the case of nonconformity, exclude and ultimately expel these members from society.

~ Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Democracy - The God That Failed, pp. 217-218

Hans Hermann-Hoppe on the mass delusion of democratic government

The mass of people, as La Boetie and Mises recognized, always and everywhere consists of "brutes," "dullards," and "fools," easily deluded and sunk into habitual submission.  Thus today, inundated from early childhood with government propaganda in public schools and educational institutions by legions of publicly certified intellectuals, most people mindlessly accept and repeat nonsense such as that democracy is self-rule and government is of, by, and for the people.  Even if they can see through the deception, most still unquestioningly accept democratic government on account of the fact that it provides them with a multitude of goods and benefits.  Such "fools," observed La Boetie, do not realize that they are "merely recovering a portion of their own property, and that their ruler could not have given them what they were receiving without having first taken it from them.  Thus, every social revolution will necessarily have to begin with just a few uncommon men: the natural elite.

~ Hans Hermann-Hoppe, Democracy: The God That Failed, p. 92

Hans Hermann-Hoppe on the selection bias of elections

[S]election of government rulers by means of popular elections makes it practically impossible that any good or harmless person could ever rise to the top.  Prime ministers and presidents are selected for their proven efficiency as morally uninhibited demagogues.  Thus, democracy virtually assures that only bad and dangerous men will ever rise to the top of government; indeed, as the result of free political competition and selection, those who rise will become increasingly bad and dangerous individuals, yet as temporary and interchangeable caretakers they will only rarely be assassinated.

~ Hans Hermann-Hoppe, Democracy: The God That Failed, p. 88

2001