Freedom, Society, and State - Ludwig von Mises Institute

But the emergence of demo,cracy and the idea of
pop u I a r s 0 v ere i g nt y grea t 1y fa c iii tatedthe growthof
s tat e power. " I twa s not t hat the t hrone wa s 0 ve r ­
thrown," says de Jouvenel in speaking of the French
Revolution, "but that the whole, the nation-person,
m0 u n ted it. Its I i f e wa s as t hat 0 f the king itsuc ­
ceeded, but it had one great advantage over him: for
subjects are in regard to a king--whC? is seen to be a
person different from themselves--naturally careful
to secure their rights. Whereas, the nation is not a
different person: it is the subject himself, and yet
it is more than he--it is a hypostatized We."(18)
Since the state is now controlled by "the people" it is
no longer feared as a dangerous instrument but looked
upon as the means to achieve the "common good."
Democracy serves to facilitate the growth of state
power in yet another way. By possessing an independent
base the aristocracy in the feudal period were able to
block or at least retard, the growth of the king's
power. But the democratization of society, says de
Jouvenel, entai 1 ing as it does the elimination of all
such independent bases of power, removes all obstacles
to the centraLization and augmentation of state power.
For regardless of such devices as the written Constitution
and the division of the government into several
separate branches, the fact remains that all branches
derive their power from the same source: the majority
of the peopl e. (19) The individual ist anarchist agrees
and therefore denies that even a constitutionally es­
"tabl ished "independent judiciary" is able to serve as a
check. The jUdges themselves, they argue, are employed
by and are therefore part of the state. Thus, says
Rothbard, over the years the state has been able to
t ran s for m j ud i cia 1 rev i e w from "a 1 imit i ng device t 0
yet another instrument for furnishing ideological legitimacy
to the government's actions. For if a judicial
decree of 'unconstitutional' is a mightly check to government
power, an implicit or explicit verdict of 'const
i tut ional' is a mighty weapon in fostering pUblic acceptance
of ever-greater goevernment power."(20) The
idea of checking the government by a written constitution
is seen as "a noble attempt that failed." It
fai led because "when you give the State itself the
fin a I power t 0 i n t e r pre t the ve r yins t r ume n t t hat i s
supposed to I imi t the State, you will inevitably find
the Crinstitution being stretched and distorted •.• "(21)
De Jouvenel' s fear is that as democracy matures
power is ever more easily delegated to the state while
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