Representation is really about surrendering your personal sovereignty. It's an elitist pre-Darwinian concept
justified by the assumption that people can't think for themselves and need a group of higher class leaders or representatives
that rule in everyone's interests. But the representatives are people too - subject to human nature. And human
nature consists of pursuing perceived self-interest. Since self-interest trumps honesty, the politician representatives
must be masters of deception (and self-deception) to stay in power.
Sir Winston Churchill's famous line was "[representative] democracy is the worst form of government except all those
other forms that have been tried from time to time", and he may have been right, if the dictatorship of the
legislatures is better than the dictatorship of the kings. But "dictatorship-free" government (free trade)
hasn't been tried yet. The prosperity and innovation in western democracies is not the result of democracy at all, but
rather their relatively high tolerance of free markets, English common law, and the constitutional limits to state power.
Under representative democracy, we vote for someone who convinces us that he might vote for some of the things we would
vote for, were we to have the right to vote on them directly. The moral legitmacy for elite representation comes from
the perception held by the governing class that they rule by divine right (or similar inspiration). But as the suppliers
of government services, they also control the electoral system (to serve their interests) and their legislation is enforced
at the point of police guns.
Some people rightly hold up direct democracy (majority rule) as a better alternative. But majority rule definitionally
persecutes minorities. It would be mob rule instead of elite mob rule.
The free market solution is to vote every day with your contracts for the property and personal security you
want.
