Democracy Realized

We must have a new pursuit of Democracyin the market places instead of the capitols of the world. DEEP IN THE MORES of man has ever been the ideal of liberty and, linked with it, the social consciousness of equality of opportunity, or democracy. Democracy, the agent, would secure liberty, the ideal. How to implement democracy has been the problem of the centuries. The implementation thus far has been political, and the method has been the consent of the governed. Obviously, unanimous consent cannot be hoped for, so recourse is had to the will of the majority. The rule of the majority is therefore the highest ideal conceivable in the political sphere. This leaves, at best, a tyranny over the minority. Is such an ideal worth striving for? There is no choice on the political plane. We must either accept this ideal or turn from the political implementation of democracy to another. Fortunately, there is now the hope of economic democracy through a true monetary system that will realize the dream of democracy. Money can be the perfect register of desire and appraiser of satisfactions. It is the means of keeping man ever attuned to his fellow man. It is a court of arbitration whereunder differences may be easily adjusted. It can be the steady uplifter of the social order. It can be the minimizer of taxation and political intrusions. It can be the preserver of peace. It can dissolve the bounds of social strata. It can make competition perfected cooperation. It can provide security. It can make every voter win the election. It can govern by the unanimous consent of the governed. There are no majorities or minorities in a money election. The vote is unanimous, and it is all cast for the individual. He shoves his ballot across the counter and takes the winnings. Other individuals are doing the same; nobody is the loser. Everybody has his choice. The election is constant. The campaign of advertising and sales appeal to the voter is incessant. The voting goes on every minute of the day. The candidates are innumerable commodities and services, none of which can command the voters' continued support without continued satisfaction. There are no terms of election. There are no age, residence, or citizenship qualifications for the electors. There are no guarantees of permanence to the elected. All is in constant flux, responsive to the wish and whim of the elector. This is democracy idealized and realized. But are not the ballots unfairly distributed? We are coming to that. The point is that money offers possibilities that can never even be dreamed of in the political realm. We must pursue this promise and turn from political action if we would realize democracy. Granted a fair distribution of the money ballots, the monetary election system of exchange can realize the ideal democracy. Such fair distribution has never been accomplished. But it can be. If the smallest fraction of effort had been devoted to the pursuit of democracy in money that has been devoted to chasing the comparatively low ideal of democracy in the political realm, we would now be enjoying, through the monetary system, the ultimate democracy. ven the low ideal of the rule of the majority has never been attained in political democracy. It is doubtful whether the majority has ever prevailed at the ballot box, when we count those qualified voters whose interest could not be sparked sufficiently to visit the polls. In the United States, where the voting ratio is probably the highest, one quarter of the qualified electors has been sufficient to carry an election. But even this segment does not govern; it merely decides who shall govern, and the governors thus chosen govern the nonelecting majority as well as the electing minority. Representative government is but limited dictatorship, inasmuch as political democracy gives the representative no formal or official cue to the action desired by his constituency. Granted that he is honest and conscientious, he still must fall back upon his own judgment of what is right or guess what his constituents might prefer. By this process our millions of statutes have been molded. On top of these statutes have been proclaimed millions of court decisions, also based upon guesses as to what the law makers intended and colored by that nebulous substance, public opinion. Even if it were possible for the citizen to register his will upon all questions that are involved in political government, he could not spare the time from his task of making a living. But in the very course of making a living, he is automatically registering his preference on Main Street several times a day through his money ballots. Compare the facility of this with political elections once a year or two or four years. Our markets are our true polling places, where farmer, manufacturer, wholesaler, retailer and consumer are constantly accepting or rejecting proposals. Why do we beguile ourselves with a sham democracy when we have the machinery for a perfect one? But there is sham also in our potentially ideal democracy, the monetary system. This sham is the creature of the mother sham, political democracy. Our monetary system is a political creation, and thus the number of money ballots and their power that each of us can cast in the market places is influenced by political action. Thus we not only pursue the folly of political democracy, but through its inevitable miscarriage we defeat also the operation of a true democracy in our daily exchanges. To attain democracy, we must not only renounce the false premise of political realization, but we must rescue money, the true provider of democracy, from the destructive influence of the state. Once we have separated money from state, we shall find that the activities and interventions of government may be greatly curbed. Through a monetary democracy, human aspirations will be attainable, and the functions of the state will be very much confined. Money joined to state will inevitably trend toward socialization. Separated, it can be our liberator.