Democracy: The God That Failed

Democracy: The God That Failed is a book by Hans-Hermann Hoppe, containing a series of thirteen essays on the subject of democracy and concluding with the belief that democracy is the primary cause of the decivilization sweeping the world since World War I, and that it must be delegitimized. He characterizes democracy as "publicly owned government," which he compares to monarchy — "privately owned government" — to conclude that the latter is preferable; however, Hoppe aims to show that both monarchy and democracy are deficient systems compared to his preferred structure to advance civilization — what he calls the natural order, a system free of taxation and coercive monopoly in which jurisdictions freely compete for adherents. In his Introduction to the book, he lists other names used elsewhere to refer to the same thing, including "ordered anarchy," "private property anarchism," "anarcho-capitalism," "autogovernment," "private law society," and "pure capitalism."[1] The title of the work is an allusion to The God That Failed, a 1949 work in which six former communist (or former communist sympathizer) authors describe their experience of and disillusion with communism. Hoppe is a distinguished fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute and a self-described anarcho-capitalist.

Contents 1 Contents 2 Publishing history 2.1 English 2.2 German 2.3 Italian 2.4 Korean 2.5 Spanish 2.6 Polish 3 External links

Contents

1. On Time Preference, Government, and the Process of Decivilization
2. On Monarchy, Democracy, and the Idea of Natural Order
3. On Monarchy, Democracy, Public Opinion, and Delegitimation
4. On Democracy, Redistribution, and the Destruction of Property
5. On Centralization and Secession
6. On Socialism and Desocialization
7. On Free Immigration and Forced Integration
8. On Free Trade and Restricted Immigration
9. On Cooperation, Tribe, City, and State
10. On Conservatism and Libertarianism
11. On the Errors of Classical Liberalism and the Future of Liberty
12. On Government and the Private Production of Defense
13. On the Impossibility of Limited Government and the Prospects for Revolution

Publishing history

English

• Transaction Publishers, Rutgers, N.J., 2001: Hardcover: ISBN 0-7658-0088-8.
• Transaction Publishers, Rutgers, N.J., 2001: Paperback: ISBN 0-7658-0868-4.

German

• Hardcover: ISBN 3-933497-86-8.

Italian

• Cloth: ISBN 88-85140-77-7.

Korean

• Hardcover: ISBN 89-300-8022-7.
• Paperback: ISBN 89-300-8001-4.

Spanish

• Cloth: ISBN 84-933774-0-6.

Polish

• Warsaw, 2006: ISBN 83-89812-21-5.

External links

• Introduction to Democracy: The God That Failed
• World War I as the End of Civilization, (MP3 file) a lecture by Hoppe on the same subject.
• "Democracy: The God That Failed", an essay of the same title, also by Hoppe
• English preface to the Polish edition (in PDF format)
• An extract of Chapter Nine, "The Rise and Fall of the City"
• Link to list of reviews of the 2001 edition