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The Trouble with Democracy
The Case Against the Democratic State: An Essay in Cultural Criticism. By Gordon Graham. Imprint Academic, 2002. 96 pgs.

Gordon Graham challenges practically the whole of reigning orthodoxy in political philosophy in his remarkable book. To the bien pensants of political theory, "political participation" and "democratic decision-making" are all the rage, and theorists such as Amy Guttmann, Benjamin Barber, and Ronald Dahl constantly urge us on to more and more democracy. Like Hans-Hermann Hoppe in his excellent Democracy---The God that Failed, though with rather different arguments, Graham sets himself in firm opposition to this dominant trend.1 Graham is principally a philosopher of religion, and he brings to political theory the fresh perspective of an outsider.

Like Hoppe, our author goes further than to put democracy into question. He manifests a bold and welcome skepticism toward the state itself. Graham here labors under a handicap, as he in effect fights with one hand tied behind his back. He appears unaware of private property anarchism. When he asks, why do we need the state, he does not bring to bear how private protection agencies might fulfill the functions that today the state monopolizes. In spite of laboring under this limitation, he strikes crippling blows at the usual rationale for the state...