On September 7, 2006, I attended a lecture by the renowned British historian Sir Martin Gilbert, inaugurating his new book: Will of the People: Churchill and Parliamentary Democracy. Sir Martin spoke eloquently and interestingly on the subject of Winston Churchill’s political thoughts; I enjoyed listening to his lecture and have gained much valuable information from it. The information that I gained, however, has led me to adopt an opinion of Winston Churchill which differs greatly from Sir Martin’s own highly positive characterization.

            Winston Churchill was a keen and sophisticated observer of political systems, and Sir Martin’s speech communicated clearly the reasons for Churchill’s devotion to democracy: he thought that the alternatives to democracy were all ultimately violent, coercive, and totalitarian—much like the governments of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which Churchill confronted during his career. In Churchill’s view, democracy was the worst system of government except all the others. While recognizing that democracy is riddled with problems, Churchill thought these problems to be the lesser of possible evils.

            Yet this attitude, in my judgment, also blinded Churchill to ways in which the problems of democracies can be addressed and resolved without resorting to the totalitarian alternative. Following the lecture, I mentioned to Sir Martin a statement made by Benjamin Franklin: “When the people discover that they can vote themselves funds from the public treasury, that will be the end of the Republic.” I further noted that virtually all “democracies” have gradually become transformed into welfare states, where the majority of the electorate—unchecked by institutional safeguards—has been able to legally expropriate and redistribute the wealth of millions of individuals without their consent. I asked how Winston Churchill would address this problem and what safeguards he would have in place for preventing such massive violations of private property form occurring.

            Sir Martin’s answer was that Winston Churchill would not see the welfare state as a problem at all! As a matter of fact, Winston Churchill was one of the architects of the British welfare state. In 1909, he instituted a series of “radical reforms,” which included compulsory meal breaks for employees and mandates for “decent ventilation”—clear violations of employers’ sovereignty over their own property. Furthermore, Churchill forced firms who had disputes with labor unions to submit to arbitration and forbade them the option of ignoring the unions altogether—a violation of freedom of association. More grievously, Churchill designed a national sickness insurance system in Britain—analogous to Medicare in the United States—which used the tax money of some to pay for the health care of others—with the attendant economic consequences of higher health care costs for those uninsured by the government program. Furthermore, in 1946, as the head of the Conservative Party, Churchill refused to oppose Clement Atlee’s introduction of near-full socialism in Britain, under the pretext that the Labor government was legitimately elected, and it would be “anti-democratic” to oppose the legitimately elected government’s actions during its own term—never mind the horrendous violations of individual rights that would result as a consequence of the Conservatives’ inaction.

            Churchill not only found the abuses of “the people’s” power in a democracy perfectly acceptable, he also actively worked to remove checks on the power of the majority to oppress and expropriate individuals. In 1910, Churchill led the effort to end the House of Lords’ power to veto spending bills passed by the House of Commons—on the grounds that the House of Lords was an unelected body that would obstruct “the will of the people.” Yet no veto power over positive legislation can ever violate anyone’s rights; it can only prevent such rights from being violated via intrusive, regulatory, or redistributive laws which meet the approval of the majority and its representatives. Having an unelected body—independent of the majority—with the power to veto such legislation can go a long way to protect individual liberty. With that safeguard removed, the road was paved for the colossal expansion of the British welfare state in the coming years.

            Above all, Sir Martin’s lecture convinced me—though this was none of Sir Martin’s intent—that pure “democracy” is a highly flawed and dangerous system—as is any system where a given political power is unchecked by another. Without clear limits, “the will of the people” is just as dangerous as the will of a dictator, because the tyranny of either will cause the best among individuals to be legally coerced, robbed, and even killed. Remembering that it was a democracy which poisoned Socrates, I by no means share Winston Churchill’s fondness for democracies in general.

G. Stolyarov II is a science fiction novelist, independent philosophical essayist, poet, amateur mathematician, composer, contributor to Enter Stage Right, Le Quebecois Libre, Rebirth of Reason, and the Ludwig von Mises Institute, Senior Writer for The Liberal Institute, and Editor-in-Chief of The Rational Argumentator, a magazine championing the principles of reason, rights, and progress. His newest science fiction novel is Eden against the Colossus. His latest non-fiction treatise is A Rational Cosmology. Mr. Stolyarov can be contacted at gennadystolyarovii@yahoo.com.

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