re: #565 Kragar

The voluntaristic principles of liberalism and libertarianism do not entail that the form of government should be democratic. Rousseau saw the analogy with voluntary slavery and tried to respond.

If an individual, says Grotius, can alienate his liberty and make himself the slave of a master, why could not a whole people do the same and make itself subject to a king?27

Rousseau inveighed against these contractual freedoms on the basis of the quid pro quo and the “poor judgment” arguments (which we have already considered). He concluded that people should be forced to be “free.” But such coercion cannot be justified on libertarian grounds. Democracy is only one among an indefinite number of voluntary forms of government, each of which embodies a different social division of authority, responsibility, and risk bearing. People should not be forced to “consent” to one form of government and thus be denied the freedom to make alternative voluntary arrangements. There is no necessary connection between libertarian principles and democracy (and thus the word “democracy” does not even appear in the index of Nozick’s book).