Appendix 3. (274).
In many places in Society and its Purpose I spoke about the tyranny that majorities normally exercise over minorities. This tyranny is blatant in representative governments when they decree that `everything must be decided by majority vote'. Such a principle is jurally and politically a great error, as specious as it is false. It is used as a kind of necessary expedient for curtailing discussion, a use which seems theoretically equable because theory is understood as teaching devoid of human passions. Every form of government (democratic, aristocratic or monarchic) has probably been chosen as the best expedient for uniting social wills. But the best government for doing this is clearly monarchic, not aristocratic or democratic. Moreover, if aristocratic and democratic government allow only a majority vote for uniting wills, as is the case today, they must eventually turn into a ceaseless conflict between different social parties. An author on Natural Right, one of the most liberal, clearly sees, in my opinion (because there is a true and an apparent liberalism), the unsuitability and injustice of the exclusive use of the majority vote. After saying that all the members of a society have a vote to determine the means for attaining the society's end, he adds: `In these assemblies, neither equal numbers of votes nor MAJORITY VOTE can LEGALLY determine the contribution of every member to the purpose of the society. If they did, the majority would arrogate superiority over the minority, and the latter be forced to conform to the decisions of the majority. This openly contradicts the idea of an equal society where no one is subject to another's will, and the sole obligation is to obey the law agreed from the beginning onwards' (Zeiller, Diritto Naturale Privato, §148). In the footnote to this paragraph this wise author refutes the supporters of majority vote:
It may be objected that a) society, as a moral person, has a single will, determined by majority vote; otherwise b) it would never attain its purpose, and the majority would have to suffer patiently the opposition of the minority.
| (Grot., De jure belli et pacis, 2, 5, §17. - Schlettwein, Diritti dell'uomo, §213 |
I reply. Society has a) a single will relative to the purpose and to the means expressly or tacitly established for attaining the purpose, but not to the indeterminate means which for unity of wills require the agreement of all the individual wills. How can it be maintained that the majority vote has per se the preponderance of causes that determine the votes? Can we say that the majority vote is always the wisest? b) In a large society prudence certainly requires the majority vote to be accepted as valid, but this maxim is neither a legal obligation nor sufficient motive to presume a wish to renounce independence (§96). Generally, the only consequence is that the largest societies cannot subsist without a head because the members think so differently. The minority however c) do not desire to obey, and appeal solely to the freedom reserved for them as a result of which nothing beyond what they have agreed can be decided in their regard.