A Rewrite of a Famous Mencken Aphorism on Democracy

In the just-published issue of Regulation (Winter 2024-2025), I consider H.L. Mencken’s aphorism:

“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”

My short piece points out one problem in taking the aphorism literally:

The common person does know what he wants: to improve his condition in life according to his own preferences. And he succeeds so well in his private life that, once he was left individually free, he and his fellows generated an Industrial Revolution and what economist Deirdre McCloskey calls the “Great Enrichment.” …

It is when the common person is given the power to decide what his fellow humans should want that things can go very wrong. … When the common people elect a strong leader or would-be master, Mencken’s aphorism seems to take all its force.

After some explanations that my readers might be interested in, I conclude by reformulating Mencken’s aphorism with more precision but albeit a bit less pithiness:

Non-liberal democracy (as we know it) is the theory that the majority of voters think they know what they want and that everybody deserves to get it good and hard.

I end the article with the hope that the current political situation in the United States may “serve as a bitter lesson for a better future.”