In the just published issue of Regulation (Winter 2024-2025)I consider HL Mencken’s aphorism:
“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”
My short piece points out one problem with taking the aphorism literally:
The ordinary person do knows what he wants: to improve his condition in life according to his own preferences. And he manages his private life so well that, once he was individually released, he and his comrades brought about an industrial revolution and what economist Deirdre McCloskey calls the “Great Enrichment.” …
It is when ordinary people are given the power to decide what their fellow human beings should want that things can go very wrong. … When the common people elect a strong leader or future master, Mencken’s aphorism seems to demand all its strength.
After some explanations that my readers may be interested in, I conclude by restating Mencken’s aphorism with more precision, if somewhat less succinctly:
Non-liberal democracy (as we know it) is the theory that the majority of voters think they know what they want and that everyone deserves to get it good and hard.
I end the article with the hope that the current political situation in the United States “can be a bitter lesson for a better future.”
He got what he wanted, good and hard