Democracies end up anti-democratic because only a tiny minority of radicals (politicians, interest groups, major corporations, etc.) achieve power centralized in the capital. They work the levers of government, place their servants in power, and advertise via government education and media. As individuals in a democracy, we lose all power. Only masters have power, and their conflicting agendas ensure strife and discord. These groups do not seek individual representation for us but to subjugate individuals outside their grasp to their dictates by force of numbers. In democracy, the biggest...

Libertarian Lessons From Middle-earth
Professor J.R.R Tolkien, author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, has been described as an anarcho-monarchist, and he incorporated those political ideals into Middle-earth. Among them was his stance against coercion. "The story is cast in terms of a good side, and a bad side, beauty against ruthless ugliness, tyranny against Kingship, moderated freedom with consent against compulsion." -J. R. R. Tolkien, “Letter 144” Tolkien wrote, "The supremely bad motive [is] domination of others’ free wills.” Tolkien’s heroes were the free peoples—those who follow Eru’s design. Eru, the god of...

Coercion, Self-Governance, and Democracy
Originally tribes of extended families and like-minded individuals joined together to create a community. They were self-governing and consenting associations of individuals, a unified whole. The head patriarch acted as a king, the head of the community, ensuring justice and leading them in defense. He served the people and their customs; their laws, representing their governance ideals, were the authority. Lords and warriors defended the tribe from subjugation by outside forces. Now imagine a larger tribe overpowers this smaller community, compels them to labor, exploits their resources,...

Achieving Self-Governance For Every American
"[Under Democracy], a man finds himself environed by a government that he cannot resist; a government that forces him to pay money, render service, and forego the exercise of many of his natural rights, under peril of weighty punishments. He sees, too, that other men practice this tyranny over him by the use of the ballot. He sees further that, if he will but use the ballot himself, he has some chance of relieving himself from this tyranny of others, by subjecting them to his own. In short, he finds himself, without his consent, so situated that, if he use the ballot, he may become a master;...
Big Government, Big War: A Lesson from Feudal Europe
Ancient Rome’s high tax rates enabled maintenance of larger professional armies than were possible in the Middle Ages. Rome partially conquered the world through massive tax-funded government projects, such as investing in roads for their armies to move farther and faster and to subdue distant populations more easily. But Rome's self-destructive abuse of its people, along with its centralized governmental and heavy tax policy, contributed to its downfall. And since central powers could no longer maintain massive standing armies through heavy taxation, governance became localized. The lack of...
One Majority to Rule Them All
Decentralization, or localism, is based first on the extended family or household; when grouped with other clans, this became a locality creating laws organically for the benefit of all. On the other hand, centralization occurs when forces far from these self-governing localities use their power and influence to impose their ways on other smaller localities. In such a situation, the former free individuals lose their self-governance and the option to choose from diverse ways of life, therefore becoming tools used to benefit those in power in distant lands under an increasingly conformist...