Propaganda/tyranny of the majority/anti-government

Subject: "Tyranny of the majority" as an attack on government

If the argument is that nobody should have to follow rules they don't agree with – a frequent contention of marketist (aka "voluntarist") philosophy – then this is an attack on the basic idea of government and civil society in general, wherein agents of the government may use force to prevent individuals from committing acts that have been determined to be unacceptable.

Unfortunately, any group must make decisions that affect all or most of its members; to not make a decision is to choose one alternative. There will always be actions a few find acceptable or even necessary that will be condemned by the majority, and some of those actions will truly be harmful to the group. Not making a decision to do anything about these actions allows them, and the harm they do, to continue.

That said, there are numerous examples illustrating both sides of this argument – good or harmless actions condemned by a majority (e.g. homosexuality, for much of its history), and harmful actions rejected by a minority but endorsed by the majority (e.g. slavery). The fact that this is true is why simple majority rule cannot prevail. There must be some kind of process that helps to weed out harmful actions and support ones that are actually helpful, regardless of whether they are supported by the majority – and "tyranny of the majority" is, when used properly, an argument for the necessity of such processes.

It is not a valid argument against governmental coercion.