We are adding more pamphlets. Political Notes 5: Liberty Versus Democracy describes the difference and conflict between these two concepts.

Very few people oppose either freedom or democracy on principle, or not in public, and thus the two words regularly occur together in lists of good things which good people are sworn to defend. As a result the words are often used as if they both meant the same thing: freedomandemocracy. Yet it must be insisted that insofar as the two words still have any meaning at all, they refer to two absolutely distinct principles, and that these two principles often conflict with each other.

The case for democracy can be summarised simply: it is preferable to civil war. The result of the “electoral battle” (the language of democracy is relentlessly military) is usually the same as it would have been had the battle been in earnest, which means that the losers tend to accept the verdict, and peace reigns.

…we believe in government only between genuinely consenting people, who really have agreed to a “social contract” instead of merely having had one dumped fictionally on top of them by word twisting political theorists. We still use democratic institutions for our own tactical purposes, just as some socialists find it advantageous to become millionaire capitalists. We regularly supply speakers for meetings arranged by political activists. But we don’t believe in democracy for its own sake.