Notes on Democracy or The Fatal Conceit

Notes on Democracy: A New Edition

Author: HL Mencken

"[Democracy] is, perhaps, the most charming form of government ever devised by man... It is based on propositions that are palpably not true - and what is not true, as everyone knows, is always immensely more fascinating and satisfying to the vast majority of men than what is true..."

H.L. Mencken, America's greatest journalist and critic, wrote Notes on Democracy over 80 years ago. His time, the paranoid and intolerant years of World War I, Prohibition and the Scopes trial, is strikingly like our own. Notes isn't just a blast from the past, but also a perceptive and unsentimental report on contemporary life.

In time for the 2008 presidential race, Dissident Books will reintroduce readers to this gem of cynicism and clear-thinking. Mencken performs a brilliant, merciless and often hilarious vivisection on that most holy of sacred cows: democracy. The new edition is supplemented by extensive annotations that put Mencken's words and ideas in context and expose fascinating details and nuances.

Don't even think about voting until you read this book!

Table of Contents:

Introduction Marion Elizabeth Rodgers 7 I Democratic Man
1 His Appearance in the World 29
2 Varieties of Homo Sapiens 32
3 The New Psychology 36
4 Politics Under Democracy 40
5 The Role of the Hormones 44
6 Envy as a Philosophy 48
7 Liberty and Democratic Man 53
8 The Effects Upon Progress 57
9 The Eternal Mob 65 II The Democratic State
1 The Two Kinds of Democracy 71
2 The Popular Will 74
3 Disproportional Representation 81
4 The Politician Under Democracy 87
5 Utopia 92
6 The Occasional Exception 97
7 The Maker of Laws 101
8 The Rewards of Virtue 105
9 Footnote on Lame Ducks 110 III Democracy and Liberty
1 The Will to Peace 117
2 The Democrat as Moralist 120
3 Where Puritanism Fails 128
4 Corruption Under Democracy 134 IV Coda
1 The Future of Democracy 147
2 Last Words 154 Annotations Marion Elizabeth Rodgers 159 Afterword Anthony Lewis 205

Book review: Six Thousand Years of Bread or Bridal Showers

The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism

Author: F A Hayek

Hayek gives the main arguments for the free-market case and presents his manifesto on the "errors of socialism." Hayek argues that socialism has, from its origins, been mistaken on factual, and even on logical, grounds and that its repeated failures in the many different practical applications of socialist ideas that this century has witnessed were the direct outcome of these errors. He labels as the "fatal conceit" the idea that "man is able to shape the world around him according to his wishes."

"The achievement of The Fatal Conceit is that it freshly shows why socialism must be refuted rather than merely dismissed—then refutes it again."—David R. Henderson, Fortune.

"Fascinating. . . . The energy and precision with which Mr. Hayek sweeps away his opposition is impressive."—Edward H. Crane, Wall Street Journal

F. A. Hayek is considered a pioneer in monetary theory, the preeminent proponent of the libertarian philosophy, and the ideological mentor of the Reagan and Thatcher "revolutions."