Is democracy necessary for freedom?
While democracy doesn t guarantee either freedom or peace, there are many historical examples of societies that didn t have either elections or legislatures, but in which people s rights were strongly protected. Examples include the American colonies before the Revolutionary War … the American West in the 19th century, where violence was one-tenth of what it is in large U.S. cities today … many cantons in Switzerland today, which have little government … and the nations of Andorra and Monaco. In fact, for centuries much of the world had law and order without legislatures or elected rulers. Instead they had what might be called free-market justice provided by traveling judges adjudicating disputes, with decisions enforced by local communities and sheriffs. This nonelectoral legal system (explained in the book, The Enterprise of Law, by Bruce L. Benson) created what is today known as the common law thousands of collected decisions that provide the basis for law in America, Europe,
